I had posted a while back on why I would not be buying Spore.
My youngest daughter threw a mega huff when her tamagochi died, it was seventh generation or something, so I relented and got her Spore. I figured that anyone who got get that vexed about a tiny pixilated virtual something, would probably find Spore engaging.
I saw a copy in the AppleStore, but it looked awfully expensive, so checking out Amazon on the free internet that they provide I figured out I could certainly shave a tenner off the cost with some judicious shopping.
I've installed it onto my newest computer, running on an administrator account. All a bit odd, but the reviews seems to be that it really does not like having to scrape by on an older machine.
Feedback? Well the target audience, youngest daughter loves it. She has been happily lost in it for a few weeks now. Oldest daughter had a brief go or two, only to quickly find youngest daughter a bit over eager with the assisting when it got difficult.
I've not tried it myself, so I don't really know much about it. It does look to be relatively linear, but that probably is no bad thing, just exploring might get a bit dull. The final stage universes do seem absolutely vast. There was even a wormhole! The use of user created creatures looks to be a really neat touch, there is even one species that looks like giant bananas.
In a nutshell, if you are into this sort of thing, then it is a really amazing game, but it is not going to engage everyone. If you want to see how quickly you can get to the end of the game, then you missing the point.
Sunday, 16 August 2009
dystopia number 1
#1
This is a cold wet country. Too cold and wet for scratching a living from the soil to ever be terribly appealing. An orange or even some spices are unspeakably exotic. Of course there is always the surplus processed food from time to time, but I'm used to living on root vegetables and kale for half the year, so a chocolate bar would make me vomit.
We live in the corners that are too small, or steep or crooked to be farmed. We none of us really own our land, we have no money to pay lawyers or argue our case. We just rely on the fact that what we have is too trivial for anyone else to want. It is a system that works well enough. My family has been here for a couple of generations, as have most of our neighbours.
If anyone ever listened to us, they would hear that we have a myriad of ideas to expand our foodbase. If we could have some common land then we could each maintain some livestock, we might fish the streams, and create freshwater ponds if the water were allowed to run freely. But this landscape is not here for us. It is concreted over, bulldozed and scraped into whatever form suits the people with power.
We live in this country, but we are not of this country. We are the voteless nameless poor. But I am teaching my children to read, I hope that with an education they might find a better life.
#2
I speak five languages fluently, and have qualifications in three major work areas. I work a standard ten hour day, but have to travel for three hours daily, catching a variety of buses and trains to reach my place of work. I feel tired all the time. When I get home I just sit, sometimes I go straight to sleep. At work I seem to live on coffee, I always have to be courteous and professional. We are monitored constantly, any deviations from our set scripts or designated customer transit routes is punishable by pink ticket, more than three pink tickets in a three month period, or a running average of two for three consecutive periods or one for a year, means that you are automatically dismissed. On dismissal it is virtually impossible to find another job. Every year the universities produce a million new people looking for work, and employers only want the keenest and most enthusiastic of employees. Most of us work an hour or two of unpaid overtime each day. I have spent weekends helping my boss with housework. There is no loyalty here, I hope that my boss is dismissed and I will be a candidate for his job. He is hoping that his boss will be dismissed and he will be a candidate for his job. No one ever retires any more. We are all dismissed before we go grey. I hope to get my children educated and a little spare money saved up, so that when I am no longer quick enough for this work, I can find some lower paid work closer to home. It is not much of a life, you are treated in a vile manner. People that have never done anything better hate anyone that has been something once. Mostly people just commit suicide.
I am just so tired all the time, maybe my children will have a better life. They are learning their languages and programming skills, and not wasting their time in the virtual world or with any books and music. I am so proud of them, they have no personality to speak of at all, they are good citizens.
#3
Friday nights are good. Last week I got some speccy kid from the loop on the ground and kicked his head like a football. He thought he could cut through our patch. The police were round pretty quick and we all legged it. We all save up our credits and get a skinfull on the Friday. The rest of the week is just crap. This place is a dump. They stuck in some stupid art things, but we had them all trashed in no time. Or they send in some poncy do gooders to speak to us. I really fancied one, she had skin smooth like plastic. She was all full of nice words, but you could tell that she couldn't wait to get out this place, back to her nice HabUnit. Not that I needed her, I've got dozens of kids, don't know all their names, but they are all over. Can't be so bothered with the shagging now. The girls just give you earache, and christ they get ugly as they get older. Young they are not bad, but after a few kids and years here they are dog ugly.
I don't care though, get munged all week, save up the credits for a Friday, tried all that book stuff, but it was just rubbish, who wants to spend years learning all that stuff. I don't need to be bossed around, I'm my own man. I've got respect and no one messes with me.
#4
This society is all wrong, if those lazy dogs in the government could just do their job then I would not have to put up with all their rubbish. The Louis Vuitton was caught up in traffic for an age this morning. I'm busy, RupMac (spelt Rupert Mackenzie-Smythe) was at the Pear Tree, had to catch up with him before he headed over to the Dubai TriCity, dreadful garish place, but everyone is there these days, and almost missed him. Saw EmVa, and SoEl, and their usual crowd. Talking about the latest schemes, might go for that derivative shorting carbon trades, that whole system is teetering and I could make a shed load shorting it. I think the organ business is on the way out, been good for a while, but those Chinese monkey boys only have so many kidneys and livers. If you have brains, the contacts and a little hard work, there is always money to be made. When the Louis Vuitton stopped there was some proles moaning on about things. One was crippled, that is just offensive, I should not have to look at that, it is only a few thousand credits to sort out that sort of thing, it is just vulgar going about in that state.
My great grandfather is now on the full battery of support systems. With any luck he might pop his clogs soon, and that will boost the old sadly depleted. Of course my useless grandfather will hog most of the money, but even he could not waste all of it on himself.
EmVa is hopeful that the genetic testing will give us a 99%, don't want any useless prole spas genes, just the best blue blood and LVMH CyberEnce. Get one in the gene tanks, and onto the wating list for EtoSEAD.
This is a cold wet country. Too cold and wet for scratching a living from the soil to ever be terribly appealing. An orange or even some spices are unspeakably exotic. Of course there is always the surplus processed food from time to time, but I'm used to living on root vegetables and kale for half the year, so a chocolate bar would make me vomit.
We live in the corners that are too small, or steep or crooked to be farmed. We none of us really own our land, we have no money to pay lawyers or argue our case. We just rely on the fact that what we have is too trivial for anyone else to want. It is a system that works well enough. My family has been here for a couple of generations, as have most of our neighbours.
If anyone ever listened to us, they would hear that we have a myriad of ideas to expand our foodbase. If we could have some common land then we could each maintain some livestock, we might fish the streams, and create freshwater ponds if the water were allowed to run freely. But this landscape is not here for us. It is concreted over, bulldozed and scraped into whatever form suits the people with power.
We live in this country, but we are not of this country. We are the voteless nameless poor. But I am teaching my children to read, I hope that with an education they might find a better life.
#2
I speak five languages fluently, and have qualifications in three major work areas. I work a standard ten hour day, but have to travel for three hours daily, catching a variety of buses and trains to reach my place of work. I feel tired all the time. When I get home I just sit, sometimes I go straight to sleep. At work I seem to live on coffee, I always have to be courteous and professional. We are monitored constantly, any deviations from our set scripts or designated customer transit routes is punishable by pink ticket, more than three pink tickets in a three month period, or a running average of two for three consecutive periods or one for a year, means that you are automatically dismissed. On dismissal it is virtually impossible to find another job. Every year the universities produce a million new people looking for work, and employers only want the keenest and most enthusiastic of employees. Most of us work an hour or two of unpaid overtime each day. I have spent weekends helping my boss with housework. There is no loyalty here, I hope that my boss is dismissed and I will be a candidate for his job. He is hoping that his boss will be dismissed and he will be a candidate for his job. No one ever retires any more. We are all dismissed before we go grey. I hope to get my children educated and a little spare money saved up, so that when I am no longer quick enough for this work, I can find some lower paid work closer to home. It is not much of a life, you are treated in a vile manner. People that have never done anything better hate anyone that has been something once. Mostly people just commit suicide.
I am just so tired all the time, maybe my children will have a better life. They are learning their languages and programming skills, and not wasting their time in the virtual world or with any books and music. I am so proud of them, they have no personality to speak of at all, they are good citizens.
#3
Friday nights are good. Last week I got some speccy kid from the loop on the ground and kicked his head like a football. He thought he could cut through our patch. The police were round pretty quick and we all legged it. We all save up our credits and get a skinfull on the Friday. The rest of the week is just crap. This place is a dump. They stuck in some stupid art things, but we had them all trashed in no time. Or they send in some poncy do gooders to speak to us. I really fancied one, she had skin smooth like plastic. She was all full of nice words, but you could tell that she couldn't wait to get out this place, back to her nice HabUnit. Not that I needed her, I've got dozens of kids, don't know all their names, but they are all over. Can't be so bothered with the shagging now. The girls just give you earache, and christ they get ugly as they get older. Young they are not bad, but after a few kids and years here they are dog ugly.
I don't care though, get munged all week, save up the credits for a Friday, tried all that book stuff, but it was just rubbish, who wants to spend years learning all that stuff. I don't need to be bossed around, I'm my own man. I've got respect and no one messes with me.
#4
This society is all wrong, if those lazy dogs in the government could just do their job then I would not have to put up with all their rubbish. The Louis Vuitton was caught up in traffic for an age this morning. I'm busy, RupMac (spelt Rupert Mackenzie-Smythe) was at the Pear Tree, had to catch up with him before he headed over to the Dubai TriCity, dreadful garish place, but everyone is there these days, and almost missed him. Saw EmVa, and SoEl, and their usual crowd. Talking about the latest schemes, might go for that derivative shorting carbon trades, that whole system is teetering and I could make a shed load shorting it. I think the organ business is on the way out, been good for a while, but those Chinese monkey boys only have so many kidneys and livers. If you have brains, the contacts and a little hard work, there is always money to be made. When the Louis Vuitton stopped there was some proles moaning on about things. One was crippled, that is just offensive, I should not have to look at that, it is only a few thousand credits to sort out that sort of thing, it is just vulgar going about in that state.
My great grandfather is now on the full battery of support systems. With any luck he might pop his clogs soon, and that will boost the old sadly depleted. Of course my useless grandfather will hog most of the money, but even he could not waste all of it on himself.
EmVa is hopeful that the genetic testing will give us a 99%, don't want any useless prole spas genes, just the best blue blood and LVMH CyberEnce. Get one in the gene tanks, and onto the wating list for EtoSEAD.
Sunday, 9 August 2009
eyecandy works
My blogging has been much depleted of late. Of course this just means that I been off doing something more interesting.
There was the annual family holiday, which really was excellent. What with the tunnel vision to study for my paralegal qualification, everything else rather got shoved to one side, so there has also been catching up, with the garden and community work. At the same time work has shifted from mad deadlines, to a more measured pace, which is letting me get in about some of the more strategic thinking and longer term work.
I have also been ramping up the number of applications for promotion that I have been putting in. I suspect that my fate is forever to be a very creditable second choice, always getting pipped by someone who's experience is just a bit more relevant. Fortunately there is no danger of me ever running out of ideas for things to do, but it would be nice to rake in a bit more money doing it!
I have recently been enjoying MyTexts which is another bare bones word processor type thing, pretty much like WriteRoom, Voodoopad, Devonthink, all of which I have bought and use. I guess that having a whole stack of different word processors is like my vast pen collection. Not really about functionality. Anyway MyTexts is clean simple and elegant. Recommended.
Also been admiring the Kuler website which means you can tap into a zillion colour schemes, or create your own, and Mondrianum which allows these to be incorporated into the Mac colour picker.
There was an article recently about someone's house, an incedibly colourful house, mainly white, with splodges of fantastic bright colours. And the person said that colours gave them energy, and it made me think that I am sort of like that. Bright colours and attractive shapes, eye candy if you will, do give me energy. I like forming ideas into simple venn diagrams that explain how things are related to each other, I like using my lamy four colour pen to organise my notes into different types of stuff. I love the anglepoise lamp I recently got from Habitat because it is red and a nice shape.
Of course different things motivate different people, but if I like colour then I should use it to organise my world, and help me to engage with things. So for me, eye candy is tax deductible, eye candy works!!!
John Lautner
What I love most about the architecture of John Lautner is the way that he sets his buildings within their surroundings, sometimes a building is designed to blend in or stand out, from its environs, but Lautner designed his buildings so that when you were inside one, looking out, it was hard to tell where the inside ended and the outside began.
The curves of the Mar Brisas house mimic the curve of the bay beyond,
The Elrod Residence encapsulates the boulders that surround it
The Pearlman Cabin uses pine trunks to frame the windows, so the frames merge into the surrounding woods when viewed from inside
These look to be splendidly livable houses for people who like to look out at the world. Perhaps in a perfect world we could all live in John Lautner designed houses, or our houses could encapsulate some of the technical chutzpah and site specificity that make them so special.
As a child Lautner's parents brought him up with substantial and rich time in the great outdoors. It is inspiring to hear about parents making such a conscious effort to offer opportunities to their children that are thoughtful and unique, rather than the more generic aspirations that seem to come without thinking.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
tinkering with my website
Thankfully things have quietened down a little recently, and I have been distractedly tinkering with my website.
Running a website is one of those things that seems to be entirely resistant to methodical project planning. Rather than setting out with a clear objective, it seems to be a process of tinkering, fixing the problems you created, finding new things you want to do, getting fed up with the time it is taking, leaving it alone, coming back to it with a better idea. Probably an iterative process in the jargon.
Specifically I have returned to trying to put a search function onto my website, I had tried before with the Google Search option that you could insert using code that Google supplied. However this never seemed to pick up on material deeper within my site, so I ended up removing it.
Lately a new RapidWeaver plugin has appeared. [RapidWeaver is the Macintosh application that I use for coding the website, but it is supported with a rich ecosystem of plugins and themes.] So I have tried RapidSearch, it seemed to encounter similar problems, the developer advises that no one else has reported anything similar, so I am wondering if it might be how the pages are nested within each other that is offending the Google sitecrawlers somehow.
Anyway, I have installed a sitemap, courtesy of Sitemap by Loghound, and tried to simplify my website so that there is less nesting of folders, page elements, and the main blog page is now the home page, rather than deeper within the structure.
I will just have to put the whole issue to one side for a while and wait and see if once the Google sitecrawlers have passed over the site again it is all tickety boo.
I have also been doing a little additional tinkering. Yesterday I put in a favicon. No I didn't know what it was either, it is the wee icon in the address bar that some sites have.
I really will need to get the RapidWeaver manual and read through it properly, my site is getting to be complicated enough that it is probably worth me having a rough idea what I am actually doing.
I might even get round to enabling comments on my blog!
All in all it is just a gradual process of getting the hang of a certain level of complexity, tinkering away around the limits of my capability, and thereby gradually expanding them. There is probably a lot else in life that is much the same.
Running a website is one of those things that seems to be entirely resistant to methodical project planning. Rather than setting out with a clear objective, it seems to be a process of tinkering, fixing the problems you created, finding new things you want to do, getting fed up with the time it is taking, leaving it alone, coming back to it with a better idea. Probably an iterative process in the jargon.
Specifically I have returned to trying to put a search function onto my website, I had tried before with the Google Search option that you could insert using code that Google supplied. However this never seemed to pick up on material deeper within my site, so I ended up removing it.
Lately a new RapidWeaver plugin has appeared. [RapidWeaver is the Macintosh application that I use for coding the website, but it is supported with a rich ecosystem of plugins and themes.] So I have tried RapidSearch, it seemed to encounter similar problems, the developer advises that no one else has reported anything similar, so I am wondering if it might be how the pages are nested within each other that is offending the Google sitecrawlers somehow.
Anyway, I have installed a sitemap, courtesy of Sitemap by Loghound, and tried to simplify my website so that there is less nesting of folders, page elements, and the main blog page is now the home page, rather than deeper within the structure.
I will just have to put the whole issue to one side for a while and wait and see if once the Google sitecrawlers have passed over the site again it is all tickety boo.
I have also been doing a little additional tinkering. Yesterday I put in a favicon. No I didn't know what it was either, it is the wee icon in the address bar that some sites have.
I really will need to get the RapidWeaver manual and read through it properly, my site is getting to be complicated enough that it is probably worth me having a rough idea what I am actually doing.
I might even get round to enabling comments on my blog!
All in all it is just a gradual process of getting the hang of a certain level of complexity, tinkering away around the limits of my capability, and thereby gradually expanding them. There is probably a lot else in life that is much the same.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
why democracy is over-rated
Within the western world we have always taken our particular society to be the model to which other, less developed societies should aspire. With the current economic depression, and building climate change, it is increasingly impractical that other countries should aspire to exactly our model of consumerist democratic capitalism.
The sacred cow amongst all the features of our society has always been democracy. It is difficult to defend consumerism or capitalism as something that starving people should aspire to, but democracy is surely all that is right about our society.
Democracy is invaluable in a post conflict society, unfortunately those are not that rare. It is useful in polarised debates.
However democracy is ridiculously clunky. You are allowed to vote a few times each decade. Is that really the best we can do.
It creates all sorts of distorting behaviour.
It encourages ridiculous and polarised arguments.
It encourages careerist politicians to align themselves with political parties, rather than their own ideals.
It places undue reliance on the small number of people who can combine popular support with the technical ability to govern to an adequate standard.
For a long time we have been defending democracy as a least bad system, rather than one that was actually good in itself.
But the bulk of the world is not run through democracy. I live within a small family, it is not democratic, nor is my wider family. My working environment is not democratic, nor is the community organisation that I am involved in.
That is not to say that people's concerns are ignored, or that things are never put to the vote.
All of these systems operate on a common sense sort of approach, where clear roles are ascribed, people have the opportunity to raise concerns, if you want something done, you will probably have to do a fair chunk of it yourself, and finally people have broadly similar abilities to do something.
These are not situations where there is a lot of telling other people to do something. There is a lot of asking people, influencing people, supporting people, being given permission to do things, etc etc.
Practical experience even supports this. If you are in a group that is forever putting things to the vote, then you are in a group that is frankly disfunctional. If you are in a group then there should be sufficient common ground on what you as a group are actually about, that issues that are so divisive and binary that they require a vote, should be remarkably rare.
The answer to a post democracy society is not that we should all be voting more often. Within America where they vote on propositions it is worse than anarchy. Democracy makes appalling decisions all the time, Hitler was democratically elected.
The people who make decisions should be the ones who have invested the time and effort to gain some understanding of the issue, and have some investment in the outcome. Clearly this has to be wider than just a particular interest group, demonstrating their venality. Recently British MPs seem to have been demonstrating far more venality than public interest.
There is a good supply of people willing to represent the public interest, probably never enough. These people are like gold dust within our modern super complex society. They are not motivated by greed or power, but the simple human desire to make things better, to leave things somehow better than they found them, or look after things that they know to be valuable.
These people are the capacity within our society, and they need to be nurtured and supported. They need to be offered opportunities, and development, given confidence and validation.
We want to live in a society that is more finely tuned to us. We do not all want to wear standard Mao jackets, whether they fit or not, all drive Model T Ford's in black, whether we like the colour or not.
I live in a small country, but I keep on getting told that all manner of things need to be administered on a regional basis, and even a region is far too big an area in which to make generalisations. Just as consumers of goods we demand near infinite variety and customisation, from houses to tee-shirts, as consumers of public goods, we demand a highly nuanced product. One that reflects where we live, our asprirations, how we see ourselves.
And between the public good and the private goods, there is a third area. The times when we are not delivering a public or a private service. Do we stop and offer advice to a traveller with a map, do we smile at our neighbours, do we tidy up the spilt rubbish, do we volunteer within our community. We increasingly need to operate within all these different realms if we are to create the kind of society that we want to live in.
That is not to say that these changes are onerous. We instinctively want to live in a village with a common village green, where we know everyone, and everyone knows our name, we want to know what is going on, and have people take an interest in our well-being.
Strangely the public sector seems to be falling behind the private in providing this sort of nuanced neighbourhood. Look at Amazon, RedBubble, LiveJournal. We want to create little online neighbourhoods, to look out for each other, insult each other from time to time, disagree certainly, but we keep on coming back to the honeypot of human interaction. That is why media is dead. How slow to watch a film, or tv programme. We want to be there with our friends, real or virtual. We want to stop to get a cup of tea, then make jokes as they occur to us. The interactivty with people you enjoy is now the killer product.
I have long argued that any meetings that are not enjoyable are unsustainable, any job that is not enjoyable is unsustainable. If you have to bully people into doing something you can only do it until they find another option.
While the private sector is increasingly offering this sort of nuanced, interactive, fun, engagement, the public sector is stuck with old models. The public sector still works on democracy, struggles with the idea of focus groups and qualitative evidence gathering, what do they tell us, are they undemocratic, why not stick a user group/board on top, would that fix it.
What is required is truly decentralised decision making. The centre has a function, but it is not the top of the hierarchy. It is merely one node within the structure. A node with more connections than most, granted, but merely a node that specialises in facilitating and co-ordinating other nodes within a network.
Through my life I have always thought that the real decision making power lay somewhere just outside my direct experience, whenever I accessed one source of power, I realised just how limited and constrained it was. They were able to influence, and make decisions granted, but not on a whim, and only within certain parameters. Where ever you go to, the real power seemed to lie somewhere just out of reach, just beyond the horizon.
That is because all the nodes just have different types of power and influence. None are absolute. The accounting department is no more or less important than the chief executive's office.
We need to change the narrative, away from the cynical red-top and Private Eye narrative that those who make decisions are venal and self serving. The people who make decisions are ourselves. The barrier to entry is not money or who you know. It is the patience and diligence of getting involved and accepting you have power but like a cyclist that power is only proportionate to how much effort you put in, how much you actually do yourself.
A world of cyclists is always safer than a world of motorists. Because the effort and energy and decisions are decentralised and spread out. It is more difficult for cyclists to make bad decisions, they make bad decisions more slowly, and suffer the consequences more directly.
We need to re-engineer our world where we are not cynics but participants. Where it is our time and energy that drive decisions. Where we know things could be better, and we work towards that. There is a role for government in this, for the private sector, but the real motor needs to be the people asking for more power, not politicians trying to find someone to take it.
[attached video by Bruce Sterling is on a vaguely similar theme, and is incredibly worth listening to.
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/video-from-reboot-11/
]
The sacred cow amongst all the features of our society has always been democracy. It is difficult to defend consumerism or capitalism as something that starving people should aspire to, but democracy is surely all that is right about our society.
Democracy is invaluable in a post conflict society, unfortunately those are not that rare. It is useful in polarised debates.
However democracy is ridiculously clunky. You are allowed to vote a few times each decade. Is that really the best we can do.
It creates all sorts of distorting behaviour.
It encourages ridiculous and polarised arguments.
It encourages careerist politicians to align themselves with political parties, rather than their own ideals.
It places undue reliance on the small number of people who can combine popular support with the technical ability to govern to an adequate standard.
For a long time we have been defending democracy as a least bad system, rather than one that was actually good in itself.
But the bulk of the world is not run through democracy. I live within a small family, it is not democratic, nor is my wider family. My working environment is not democratic, nor is the community organisation that I am involved in.
That is not to say that people's concerns are ignored, or that things are never put to the vote.
All of these systems operate on a common sense sort of approach, where clear roles are ascribed, people have the opportunity to raise concerns, if you want something done, you will probably have to do a fair chunk of it yourself, and finally people have broadly similar abilities to do something.
These are not situations where there is a lot of telling other people to do something. There is a lot of asking people, influencing people, supporting people, being given permission to do things, etc etc.
Practical experience even supports this. If you are in a group that is forever putting things to the vote, then you are in a group that is frankly disfunctional. If you are in a group then there should be sufficient common ground on what you as a group are actually about, that issues that are so divisive and binary that they require a vote, should be remarkably rare.
The answer to a post democracy society is not that we should all be voting more often. Within America where they vote on propositions it is worse than anarchy. Democracy makes appalling decisions all the time, Hitler was democratically elected.
The people who make decisions should be the ones who have invested the time and effort to gain some understanding of the issue, and have some investment in the outcome. Clearly this has to be wider than just a particular interest group, demonstrating their venality. Recently British MPs seem to have been demonstrating far more venality than public interest.
There is a good supply of people willing to represent the public interest, probably never enough. These people are like gold dust within our modern super complex society. They are not motivated by greed or power, but the simple human desire to make things better, to leave things somehow better than they found them, or look after things that they know to be valuable.
These people are the capacity within our society, and they need to be nurtured and supported. They need to be offered opportunities, and development, given confidence and validation.
We want to live in a society that is more finely tuned to us. We do not all want to wear standard Mao jackets, whether they fit or not, all drive Model T Ford's in black, whether we like the colour or not.
I live in a small country, but I keep on getting told that all manner of things need to be administered on a regional basis, and even a region is far too big an area in which to make generalisations. Just as consumers of goods we demand near infinite variety and customisation, from houses to tee-shirts, as consumers of public goods, we demand a highly nuanced product. One that reflects where we live, our asprirations, how we see ourselves.
And between the public good and the private goods, there is a third area. The times when we are not delivering a public or a private service. Do we stop and offer advice to a traveller with a map, do we smile at our neighbours, do we tidy up the spilt rubbish, do we volunteer within our community. We increasingly need to operate within all these different realms if we are to create the kind of society that we want to live in.
That is not to say that these changes are onerous. We instinctively want to live in a village with a common village green, where we know everyone, and everyone knows our name, we want to know what is going on, and have people take an interest in our well-being.
Strangely the public sector seems to be falling behind the private in providing this sort of nuanced neighbourhood. Look at Amazon, RedBubble, LiveJournal. We want to create little online neighbourhoods, to look out for each other, insult each other from time to time, disagree certainly, but we keep on coming back to the honeypot of human interaction. That is why media is dead. How slow to watch a film, or tv programme. We want to be there with our friends, real or virtual. We want to stop to get a cup of tea, then make jokes as they occur to us. The interactivty with people you enjoy is now the killer product.
I have long argued that any meetings that are not enjoyable are unsustainable, any job that is not enjoyable is unsustainable. If you have to bully people into doing something you can only do it until they find another option.
While the private sector is increasingly offering this sort of nuanced, interactive, fun, engagement, the public sector is stuck with old models. The public sector still works on democracy, struggles with the idea of focus groups and qualitative evidence gathering, what do they tell us, are they undemocratic, why not stick a user group/board on top, would that fix it.
What is required is truly decentralised decision making. The centre has a function, but it is not the top of the hierarchy. It is merely one node within the structure. A node with more connections than most, granted, but merely a node that specialises in facilitating and co-ordinating other nodes within a network.
Through my life I have always thought that the real decision making power lay somewhere just outside my direct experience, whenever I accessed one source of power, I realised just how limited and constrained it was. They were able to influence, and make decisions granted, but not on a whim, and only within certain parameters. Where ever you go to, the real power seemed to lie somewhere just out of reach, just beyond the horizon.
That is because all the nodes just have different types of power and influence. None are absolute. The accounting department is no more or less important than the chief executive's office.
We need to change the narrative, away from the cynical red-top and Private Eye narrative that those who make decisions are venal and self serving. The people who make decisions are ourselves. The barrier to entry is not money or who you know. It is the patience and diligence of getting involved and accepting you have power but like a cyclist that power is only proportionate to how much effort you put in, how much you actually do yourself.
A world of cyclists is always safer than a world of motorists. Because the effort and energy and decisions are decentralised and spread out. It is more difficult for cyclists to make bad decisions, they make bad decisions more slowly, and suffer the consequences more directly.
We need to re-engineer our world where we are not cynics but participants. Where it is our time and energy that drive decisions. Where we know things could be better, and we work towards that. There is a role for government in this, for the private sector, but the real motor needs to be the people asking for more power, not politicians trying to find someone to take it.
[attached video by Bruce Sterling is on a vaguely similar theme, and is incredibly worth listening to.
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2009/07/video-from-reboot-11/
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