Each stage of economic development in human history was derived from the prior stage by integrating the tools developed in that prior stage; The agrarian era, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the information era, the knowledge economy all followed this pattern.
Whatever happens next will be extremely interesting.
Today we are rapidly emerging era of human history where there is great cause for optimism. The tools developed from the Knowledge economy are truly remarkable. For the first time in modern history, Value is not represented by things, it is represented by the space between things.
Symbionomics
The Symbionomics project is produced by world class film maker Alan Rosenblith and visionary Sustainable Community Developer, Jay Standish. Their objective is to reveal the next great truism in the context of human economic systems. Please watch the following trailer and please support this essential project. The hardest secret to keep is the truth.
There are lots of questions about what constitutes news. Powerful editors decide what people read and what they don’t. Journalists decide what is worthy of investigation and what is not. Advertisers, special interests, lawyers and lobbyists defend the boundaries of inquiry against themselves or their industry. All this plays out in a delicate dance of “crowd sourced censorship” Whatever survives this gauntlet of execution becomes THE NEWS.
So, I took a snapshot of today’s news and ran it through the “History Test”:
History often provides clarity in the present. I was searching the term “Social Currency” and I found these two posts on a forum from all the way back in 2001. The authors are quite explicit in their expectations of social currency in their present and deep into the future.
A framework for the future:
I find such framework to be useful in grounding my own opinions, expectations, and aspirations in the social media space. The authors here are quite intimate in their views and we would all be remiss in not searching the hidden layers of our consciousness on the subject. Enjoy.
I taught an undergraduate class in International Business this weekend in Mexicali, Mexico as part of an international assignment as Associate Faculty for City University of Seattle. I first taught in Mexico 15 years ago as visiting faculty during the NAFTA era where I spent 3 years conducting research which eventually lead to The Ingenesist Project.
My first year in Mexico back in 1994, I thought to myself, “Wow, I can change everything”. The next year, I thought to myself, “Wow, I can’t change anything”. The third year, I thought to myself, “Wow, why would I want to change anything, Mexico is doing just fine the way it is”.
At that time, I was referring to the cohesiveness of community, family values, complex social structure, community interdependence, generosity, empathy and personal warmth – despite their “Cold War” classification as a “Third World” country – that the Mexican people held forward to each other as well as visitors.
I also remember the huge city-wide parties (imagine a million person party) after the country won a big soccer match, or after a popular political candidate won and election, or during New Years, Christmas, and Easter, etc. Wow – what a magnificent place.
Fast forward to this past weekend; I was explaining the implications of the financial crisis relative to the changes that have taken place since NAFTA. Today, thousands of Global Corporations now surround the city like an advancing army, proud people are now working for wages, Euro/America centric textbooks chart their course into modernization, and pending currency shifts loom unpredictable in their speed and scope – the effects will likely not be in the best interest of the people who actually produce things. So, I deviated from the course material – If I didn’t do it, nobody else would. I included material on how to use Social Media.
Mexico still has it, but they are losing it – often in spectacular ways. It seems so natural that Social Media can have a tremendous impact in countries where the fabric of community is still essentially intact. Unfortunately, when people are held below a certain economic threshold, they simply do not have the time or the energy to organize as a community to impact social change. This is the greatest threat to the great promise of social media in Mexico … and the United States.
The following video, A nine-minute history of corporatism, articulates the conflict that I felt when teaching the courses on International Business in Mexico. Please watch – it is that important.
Every once in a while the debate on written history emerges through school textbook selection, a controversial act of legislation, or by a historic figure defending their legacy long into what should otherwise be a comfortable retirement. Even in the age of Social Media, the tenet holds fast; the winners of the war write the history.
Enter Social Media.
Computer enabled society has a way of flipping ideas over on their head. For example; if the winners of the war tell the history, then the inverse must be true. Those writing history are the ones that win wars. As traditional news media gasps under the weight of a millions of bloggers, so goes one of the most prominent fortunes of war – the ability to define a culture. The history still gets written.
“Extra Virtual” Education
Education, like traditional media before it, is encountering their nemesis in the Internet. The content that kids get on the internet is superior in richness, diversity, and relevance than textbooks. No longer can school administrators select the material that students must learn. If they don’t agree with the way history is written, they can easily find an alternate history. They can live in “extra virtual” space – that is, outside the virtual world and inside a chosen reality. People discover their own culture. The history still gets written.
Historical Perspectives
Ultimately our new historians need to enter the workforce to decide what to innovate, what to produce, and what to be passionate about. Where will they find perspective?
The study of history is essential to the three ultimate purposes of education in a free society: to prepare individuals for (1) active citizenship, to safeguard liberty and justice; (2) a career of work, to sustain life; and (3) the private pursuit of happiness, or personal fulfillment.
Expanding Conclusions
Many conclusions are based on a set of assumptions. The more elaborate the assumptions the more risk there is at arriving at the wrong conclusion. However, when two opinions are built on the same assumptions and yet their conclusions differ, that difference is a very valuable set of data because it now defines a range of possible outcomes. As such, the inverse must also be true; there are many possible ways to achieve a solution within the range of desireable outcomes. This is the domain of the innovation economy.
The True Value of Education
The next economic paradigm will be characterized by many history tellers multiplied by the number of ways to attain the goals of education in a free society; including, but not limited to active citizenship, safeguarding liberty and justice, sustaining life in a joyful career, and the pursuit of happiness and personal fulfillment.
There is only one way to travel a single known path. However, from the ability to compare alternate histories, the purpose of education is greatly expanded and the value of education is multiplied many times over. The teacher will become the ultimate entrepreneur.
Ignorance does not win wars, let that history be written.
