Observations on Web 2.0 and hive culture

I was sitting in my daughter’s unit and reading the prelaunch draft of Gordon Dryden and Jeanette Vos book which is about to launch, called Unlimited.

I wanted to take some notes, but I couldn’t find a single pen in the house. There was a wireless keyboard and mouse and the PC was connected to their TV, but no pen.

In the Preface to the book they wrote about how interactive the web now is. with “mass innovation, mass participation, mass co-creativity, mass personalisation.” I think the key word is ‘mass’. Most of the things we do today have been possible for a number of years, but there were only a small number of people doing it. I don’t think we were even called geeks yet.

Now with applications such as FaceBook, MySpace, Bebo and others, a huge percentage of people around the world are sharing information, ideas and their personal space on the web.

Having an encyclopedia on the internet was a logical extension of Encarta which was wonderful for the multimedia and interactivity, but who ever thought there would be something like Wikipedia where everyone has the ability to have input as well as the ability to edit or add to what other people create.

It seems to me that we are evolving into a sort of community consciousness, like a hive, where we all interact with each other becoming part of an interactive organism. For now it is a semi-optional environment where we can choose to participate and the degree of participation from tangential to immersive. I say semi because even if we don’t interact directly, what we say and do often is still recorded in quotes and other forms of data such as photos and video.

Neural interfaces, such as haptic is not the norm yet, but having already celebrated the 50 year anniversary of the mouse, connections between the brain and nervous system and other devices whether physical or optical are realistic. Car manufacturers like BMW are monitoring eye movement and many people with amputated limbs or other disabilities are now able to manipulate devices without physically doing so by direct motor control.

Police and military have for some years been working with communication systems incorporating helmets with monocular displays and voice activated communications. Conventional communications adopted as normal by the masses include text messaging, where it is not unusual for Generation Y’s to conduct multiple concurrent conversations.

The same concept applies in social networking on applications such as Facebook. The networks are also now being merged and instead of having separate networks, it is now quite normal to have family, friends and work colleagues, associates and clients all in the same network with  in many cases access to the same information.

The Ubermens concept is reemerging, mentally anyway, but we also have a collaborative effect which has little to do with IQ or EQ and makes us more powerful and at the same time more transparent. People who are open, honest and happy to share are in a way evolving because honesty becomes a biproduct of the intercommunication.

As I get older and am more open to viewing and understanding the world, nature and nurture, the more I see the amazing symbiosis between all things, living and inanimate. The only thing that really stood apart were human beings who have tried to transform the natural order of things to create a new reality that suits our higher needs as described by Maslow in his hierarchy of needs.

As a hypothesis for consideration, could it be that we have a growing segment of humanity  becoming more connected and in doing so taking more responsibility for each other and our environment. Could this be a factor in how a black president was recently elected in the US? Could this have to do with why more and more people are starting to consider sustainability in their lives and taking responsibility not only for themselves and their community.

Is Truemanity an advanced outshoot of this concept?

Will this continue to evolve as more and more people have access to the same forms of communication, where state censorship is circumvented and a ‘for the hive’ mentality overides the individuals who feel they are more equal than others?

How will it evolve. Will groups of people continue on this path becoming more cohesive and if not with parapsychology but through technology become more intimately connected?

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course https://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

Advertisement

These are the days and surviving a recession

Within days of a black president being elected as president of America, and a life of protesting against racism, Miriam Makeba has passed away. I pinch myself to check that I’m really living with these experiences and am so grateful to be alive in this era of exciting times, great times and troubled times. I hope that Obama goes on and becomes one of the great presidents, which is a big ask, but it is very necessary.

Meanwhile downunder, Helen Clark has resigned her leadership of the Labour Party having lost the New Zealand election to probably one of the youngest Prime Ministers in our history. To me amongst other things, she represents the Politically Correct which is ironic, because I know she lost many staunch Labour voters in her campaign by trying to make the National Party and John Key in particular look untrustworthy. The TV advertisements at the end of their campaign were all trying to smear John Key instead of focussing on their successes and their future plans, and in my humble opinion, it backfired badly. When you throw mud, some of it stays on your hands and she should have known better. Several people told me that they decided against voting for labour because they didn’t like smear campaigns.

Now we are heading into the biggest recession / depression in living memory. The 30’s and the 80’s will pale in comparison. The depression is a bad thing, but there are different ways of thinking about it and smart people will do well, or at least survive.

Something that has amazed me for some time is how business has teased people, who should know better, to spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need and keep doing it over and over. Retailers and finance companies ought to take some responsibility for what they have done, but many will because their business will dry up. The finance companies will go broke because they loaned money to people that they couldn’t secure and most of the goods had dropped way below their value, the minute they left the showroom.

Banks forgot about their commitment after the 1987 crash. For a while they started looking at people’s ability to pay their mortgages and required that they have at least 20% deposit. Then as property values increased they suddenly decided to finance people with 100% of the loan, figuring that the property values would keep going up and it wouldn’t make any difference. Of course while the mortgages were being paid they were making a tidy profit.

The retailers (including car companies) figured they weren’t taking any risks because it was the finance companies that were lending the money, not them.

Funny really because we often say that instead of employing politicians, who have a short term focus and often little experience in running a business, we should pay a premium and get successful business people to run the biggest business of all, our country. The rational was that in business anyone that went to the board and said, “Whoops I miscalculated and we have half a billion dollars less than we thought”, would be quickly helped into a new career, but it seems business has been doing the same thing and thinking that they can get away with it.

By saturating the market with things they can’t afford (and this hasn’t stopped) with 18 months deferred payment and interest free for another year or so, all they are doing is compounding the crisis. Who wouldn’t be teased into buying a new 42″ LCD widescreen HDTV with freeview built in, especially when the Jones’ have one next door and you don’t have to pay anything for over a year.

So we aren’t just heading into an economic crisis, we are adding fuel to the fire to make the mess even worse and if our government’s are broke, we are walking straight into the arms of the waiting Chinese Government who would be delighted to buy our failing banks and finance companies.

Has everyone taken leave of their senses? Have you taken advantage of a 100% mortgage? Have you bought products on special deals that you wanted but didn’t need? Come on, be honest.

There is potentially an exciting side to this as well. If you were smart and saved money, or invested in assets or property that you could afford and that made sound business sense, you could be looking forward to exciting times. Many of today’s wealthy families made their fortunes in the great depression of the 1930’s. If you were prudent during the boom, you could find yourself on top when the crunch comes, ready to buy into a business or buy some real estate at rock bottom prices and benefit from this situation. Even now it isn’t too late. What are you going to do now?

Christmas is coming. Don’t take that overseas vacation, pay half of the money into your mortgage and have a local holiday. The domestic tourism industry is hurting and you should be able to have a great time enjoying your own back yard. Reduce your debt as quickly as possible and only have debt in things that will increase in value when things come right. I think it’s called delayed gratification.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course https://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

They said it would never happen, a Black President

I find myself feeling deeply moved. I am not an American, I am caucasion born in Holland and a New Zealand citizen. This is a day that noone dared believe could ever happen, definitely not in my life. I am watching people on TV with tears in their eyes talking about their lives. Talking about going to places that had 3 toilets, 1 each for men, women and blacks. Talking about how the White House was built by slaves.

I am seeing people of all races and colors crying tears of pride and joy. This is a great day for America and a great day for the world. Barack Obama is President of the United States of America, possibly the most powerful man on the planet.

John McCain really impressed me with his gracious speech, saying that while he was dissapointed that he lost, that this is a victory for America, a victory and demonstration that in America anyone who aspires to, can be anything they want, even President. In the past when people said that, in their hearts they didn’t really dare to believe it was possible. There were several people amongst his supporters who were angry and frustrated. I hope his speech helps diffuse a situation that in some parts of the US, could lead to a backlash.

What is also amazing is that I am sitting in my living room watching Obama as he walks out with his wife and daughters at Grant Park waving to an adoring emotional crowd. I am seeing history as it happens. “They put their hands on the arc of history and bent it the other way a little.”

The blogs are already up and Twitter has been going nuts with people tweeting of their joy and hope for a better America and a better world.

What comes next. Will the McCain States turn their support to Obama and unite America as the most infleuntial democracy in the world? I sure hope so. This is bigger than man on the moon.

If ever there was an example that anyone, anyone can be anything they want to be, this is it. It is a grand salute to those who protested, marched, sang We Shall Overcome, they now have.

And through today’s technolgy, I saw it happen when it happened.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course https://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)