Re: Pro Bono organization specializing in innovative new media ventures
Subject: Re: Pro Bono organization specializing in innovative new media ventures
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 5/22/10, 18:07
To: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
It matters, I think, whether we are getting good information or bad information, and how much we are getting of each. I suspect that it matters enough that we ought to give it more thought than we have been, and that this is more true than usual at this moment in history; the last 15 years have brought indisputably fundamental changes to the process by which one may obtain, evaluate, and perpetuate information, which itself is the fuel by which our society operates and by which our individual actions are informed. A vastly different environment that the population has had little time to fully understand, much less to exploit for various positive ends, offers extraordinary opportunities that need only be thought up and implemented in order to obtain extraordinary results.
It would be hard to argue that our environment is not indeed vastly different in relation to that which existed just two decades ago. Around 1995, the internet suddenly began to draw on the highly varied contributions of a significant portion of the public, and in doing so burst into a stunning and unprecedented manifestation of complexity. The resulting informational novelty came to serve as feedback to those who use it, who in turn contributed back in with input informed by the increasing novelty to which they have access; the result is a self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing incubator of influence, an unprecedented and dramatically improved process of creation and collaboration that provides new and varied foundations for the opinions and actions of a large portion of humanity, as well as vastly improved methods by which to act on such opinions. Technically the internet is a product of our culture, but in effect it is a second culture - one in which the rapidity of cultural evolution and the potential collaborative opportunities are both orders of magnitude greater than they are within the other, more primary culture that brought us to the relatively novel point we have reached today - and which managed to reach that point, it is worth noting, despite having been subject to extraordinary barriers such as that of proximity, many which have suddenly been reduced or eliminated altogether in importance. This dynamic has come into play so recently that humanity has had little time to explore the near-infinite possibilities that have now opened up as a result, and as time goes on, many such possibilities ranging from the minor to the fundamental will become realities. Indeed, this phenomenon has already come into play with results so significant as to have rendered many of todays conversations indecipherable to anyone who might be listening in from two decades ago, even less in some cases. Never in human history has a process caused such a rapid and dramatic alteration of the lives and the potential lives of such a large portion of humanity, of the systems and the potential systems under which man operates. Almost all significant human acts are the result of collaboration, and the potential for collaboration is subject to a dynamic that has already transformed great portions of mans society, his conduct, his views, and his potential. And after having moved us so far forward in so many respects in such little time, this dynamic is clearly accelerating.
That a process so worthy of attention has earned so little of it constitutes perhaps the greatest indictment of our media as a whole, which is to say a very serious indictment indeed. That this process has not been more firmly harnessed and guided by our existing institutions in order to achieve positive ends shows that new institutions are needed if we are to most effectively achieve such ends, and that such institutions must themselves be based in this process. The purpose of Project PM is to serve as one of these new institutions, as well as to prompt the development of others like it.
The conduct of the media - generally, every entity by which information flows other than by person-to-person communication - are so tied into the various aspects of this phenomenon as to be central to the whole of it, and for this and other reasons Project PM operates largely within the context of the media, with the intention of improving upon the methods by which it collectively operates. One of our two component networks, the Media Array, is made up of journalists and commentators whose output is distributed at least partly online. These f participants have been chosen by virtue of their high levels of intellectual honesty and competence. Many are bloggers who have come to prominence over the past few years through a process
Project PM seems to be the type of concept that this group favors. Their intake form is extremely simple, but I am sure we would have a better chance of enlisting their assistance if we are ready to make a presentation, including a comprehensive package of materials; probably the upcoming
Manifesto would be a good centerpiece. I will study this some more.
