Future Salon

Join Social Dilemma Movie Roundtable Q&A

We had a lovely time with our The Social Dilemma Watch & Discuss Party the other day. Thanks, everyone for coming out, actually for joining remotely, you didn't even have to come out :-). Really enjoyed our conversation afterward. 

The movie is powerful and highly recommended. The implications of what they showed are still reverberating in my head, well it could also be the smoke that we were exposed to lately :-) 

Did anyone change any of your behavior since watching the movie? What I really like is, that they have a whole page with actions you can take to improve the situation.

They also have a series of online events, the first one being a Roundtable Q&A tomorrow Wednesday 16th of September 5:30pm PST / 8:30pm EST with the filmmaker and some of the participants, see the panel below. 

Check it out and RSVP here! Hope it will be interactive and I can see some of you tomorrow at the event. 

 

What Moves You To Action?

Is there a movie, a TED talk, a podcast that was so impactful, that you changed your behavior? 

Zann Gill and I have done some small circle POW!(Power Our World) sessions where everyone brought a trailer of an impactful movie to share. It turns out it is really hard to point to one that actually changed our behavior. There are many films that opened our eyes and changed our perspective, but very few that moved us to action.

It reminds me of that old Greek story where after one orator's speech people would say: "He is so brilliant with words!" and after the next speaker, they all jumped up with a fist in the air yelling "Let's kill Spara!" and rushed out to war. 

As our phones an social media is woven into all of our lives, there is a small chance, that tonight's film The Social Dilemma is one that moves us to change, hopefully not out to war, but to do something about these dilemmas.   

Please join us for the movie and the discussion afterward this Wednesday, September 9th 6pm PST. Sign up and get the Google Meetup link at the Social Dilemma" Watch & Discuss Party Eventbrite post.

P.S. Another Facebook engineer quits, accuses social network of 'profiting off hate'

Cory Doctorow's IP Update

In 2003 Cory Doctorow presented an early form of his legendary DRM Rant at the Future Salon, back in these early days, we hosted the Future Salon still at the Barns and Noble in San Mateo.  

It was impressive enough that the next day I joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

Cory just posted an update or a summary of his thinking about DRM, copyright, IP, and Free/Open Software.

He writes: Today, Locus published my longest, most substantial column ever, a piece that I wrote in something of a white heat about a month ago, called (somewhat ironically): "IP."

"Software isn’t just a way to put IP into otherwise inert objects. It’s also a way to automate them, to make them into unblink­ing, ever-vigilant enforcers for the manufacturer/monopolist’s interests. They can detect and interdict any attempt at unauthorized interoperability, and call the appropriate authorities to punish the offenders."

The last two sentences of Cory's epic column take it home: 

There are no digital rights, only human rights.

There is no software freedom, only human free­dom.

Let's protect our freedom! 

"Social Dilemma" Future Salon & POW! Watch & Discuss -- This Wed 09/09 6pm PST

Join us this Wednesday, September 9th, 2020 6pm for our The Social Dilemma Watch and Discuss Party Future Salon in combination with POW! (Power our World!)*.

Netflix is releasing The Social Dilemma documentary/social drama hybrid that day. The film was part of this year's official Sundance selection:

In the last 6 months, technology has become a lifeline for so many of us to stay connected. However, the same technology platforms that connect us also control us.

The new Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, offers us a glimpse into how a small number of designers in Silicon Valley are quietly reprogramming civilization.

The Social Dilemma sounds the alarm on surveillance capitalism in hopes of preserving the very fabric of our society before it’s too late.

Let's watch it together and discuss afterward what we can to improve the challenges that the film is tackling. 

Connect via Google Meet at 6pm with the goal to start the movie no later than 6:15pm using Netflix Party. Connect via Google Meet at 6pm with the goal to start the movie no later than 6:15pm using Netflix Party. [According to their virtual tour page and as we are discussing the movie afterward, we are allowed to stream it. No Netflix membership needed.] The movie is 1h33m long, which gives us ample opportunity for in-depth discussion afterward. 

We have started a Social Dilemma Resources Document where we collect resources for further inquiry or links to organizations that are tackling the problem that the movie addresses.

Please sign up and get the Google Meet Link at the "Social Dilemma" Watch & Discuss Party Eventbrite post. 

Can't wait to see you all there this Wednesday 9th of September 6pm PST. 

POW! (Power our World!).

Is tracking the impact of great films committed to the environment and social justice and developing new media about environment and equity challenges.

POW! [Power Our World] to create a world that works for all!

 

POW! Impact Movie Night: Join Our Netflix Party Showing The Documentary 13th

I would like to invite the Future Salon community to an experimental POW! Network* event this Sunday 26th of July at 6 pm. Here is the framework:

• Come together to watch an impactful movie.
• Discuss the lessons learned from it right after.
• Collectively come up with at least one concrete action that we all can do to impact the situation.

The goal is to go beyond just being informed about a situation, but produce a collective impact together. Will we come up and agree on a joint action? We don't know yet, but it is worth a try. Please join us for this experiment. This Sunday at 6 pm we will watch the 13th documentary film, which some call the most influential and timely movie of the year. https://youtu.be/krfcq5pF8u8 Please have the Netflix Party chrome extension installed. Yes, it currently only works with Chrome.  

Once you installed the extension, an NP shows up next to the right of the URL bar in your browser. It is usually greyed out may be hidden in a dropdown menu. It lights up red once you are on Netflix. On Sunday we will share our Netflix Party URL with you. Unfortunately, you need to be a Netflix subscriber to be able to participate. *POW!(Power Our World) Network is an initiative spearheaded by Zann Gill & team which I am part of. It is tracking and influencing the impact of great films committed to the environment and social justice.

Holo/Holochain Introduction with Jean Russell, Holo ICO Lead

 

Join us next Tuesday, April 17th 6pm for an Introduction to Holo/Holochain the first time in the heart of Silicon Valley at Mozilla in Mountain View. Holo/Holochain is the next level blockchain platform that enables truly distributed internet, rooted in agent centricity, which allows you to be in charge of your own data. More details in Jean's Medium post Get Oriented: 7 Posts on Holochain and Holo. Jean Russell, project lead for the Holo ICO, will introduce Holochain and lead our conversation. Ms. Russell has been championing thrivability for a decade, with several published books on the topic, the most recent of which describes emerging organizational design and culture practices. She brings her skills and vision to the Holochain project where living system principles are being deeply woven into the design of a distributed computing crypto-platform.

We will do our best to webcast the event, but the best is to be there in person :-)

Sign up here, so we know how many are coming. See you all on Tuesday!

 

If you rather get up to speed via a video, there is a whole Holo Youtube channel.

One Matt Schuette internview on Crypto Disrupted has collected 15K views already.

Check it out:

Sister High School Barn Raising

Most everybody loves the new World’s Apart Heineken commercial that is showing us in an experiment on how to bridge the political divide. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here, I’ll wait ;-)

The experiment proves, that the willingness to sit down and listen to get to know the other person and their viewpoint greatly improves, once you solved a problem shoulder to shoulder together. How can we scale this? And boy do we need it. I read about a study that just came out showing that the distrust between Republicans and Democrats is larger than it is between Israelis and Palestinians. [Take that with a grain of salt, as I am struggling to find it. If you do please post in the comments.]

The Twin Towns or Sister Cities, as they are known in the US, movement really helped Europe to come together again after the devastation of the second world war. A couple of months ago I shared my idea in the Sister City Barn Raising post. Such a connection and cultural exchange would really lead to a greater understanding between liberals and conservative citizens. Now most larger cities even in the midwest tend to be democratic. 

Look what is possible if everyone works together! 

I have since refined my idea to do the exchange between high schools from red and blue voting districts and have the students work together on a project:  Sister High School Barn Raising would be a week-long high-school exchange. I think 10th or 11th grade would be ideal. A predominantly liberal high-school connects with a high school from a mostly conservative area of the country. At the beginning of the school year, the classes connect via video conferencing and get to know each other.

Then they come up with a “barn raising” project that they would like to tackle when they are visiting each other later in the year. They are old enough to come up with such a project on their own. The focus of the project should be to create something that is for the benefit of the school or the larger community where the school is located. The rest of the school year is spent preparing for the two projects: making a budget; creating a project plan, securing the funding; learning the skills that are needed to succeed with the project, and so on.

Then, towards the end of the school year, when they visit each other for a week, they can hit the ground running, working shoulder to shoulder to create their “barn”. I envision a buddy system, that the students visiting are living in the families of their buddy from the other school, which also ensures a much deeper understanding of the circumstances of the other student.

At the end of each visiting week, there is going to be a big party where everyone, even non-school people, are invited to come and celebrate what the students created. Some of the students may have focused on the party all week, created food, rehearsed music together, maybe even developed a play or musical that they perform that night.

These two weeks of working and living together will open up the eyes of everyone involved. They will realize, that their hopes and dreams are not that far apart: Living a good life, raising a family, creating things, coming together, and celebrate. It would make such a difference. Let’s do it.

If you are interested in making Sister High School Barn Raising a reality may be in your local high school, please fill out this form. Having grown up in Germany, therefore not even having first-hand experience with the High School system here in the US, I don't think that I am the most qualified person to make this idea come to fruition. Which organization has as its mission to create greater understanding and collaboration among our youth? Ideally with close ties to school administrations. Please comment if you know of any and introduce them to Sister High School Barn Raising.

Sister City Barn Raising

Picture from Wikipedia

Since the election there is a lot of soul searching going on about what went wrong and what can be done to get back on track. The two camps are drifting further and further apart. Red states and blue states seem less and less to get along. But we have so much in common: Love of our families, our country, our friends, music, and to make this country a better place for our children.

Sister City Barn Raising is an idea, that is not fully formed yet, but would be a very cool way to have joint experiences and celebrate our common ground. After the second world war, one of the ways the countries overcome their hatred for each other was by building partnerships between cities.

Twin Towns or Sister Cities, as they are known in the US, were formed and cultural and economic exchanges were formed. One famous one is Dresden who was bombed to ashes by the allied forces as retaliation to the Germans bombing of Coventry. In 1959 they formed a peace and reconciliation city friendship. I grew up in Schramberg, a small town in Germany.

One of the most memorable events of my youth was a trip to Whitby in York. Together with our amazing teacher Raviol we organized that trip in 11th grade. We stayed for a week with families that had kids our age. Of course, we played them our music: Falco Der Kommissar and to this day we laugh about their reaction: “Where is your Kate Bush? She is rubbish, but much better than this.”

To live for a week among the Brits really opened my eyes to the larger world and made me understand them better.    How about we organize such kind of exchanges between predominant republican cities and more liberal cities and towns. How about a week-long high school student exchange?

Last week at the Social Innovation Summit they had an excellent breakout about Maker Cities moderated by Peter Hirshberg with panelists Sherry Huss, Mark Muro, and Kate Sofis. Listening to that panel it clicked.

The Sister City exchanges should not only be to follow the twin town kids in school and visiting local tourist attractions, but it should be like a barn raising. The community of the two cities coming together around a common goal that helps the whole community.

Here is how it could look work: at the beginning of the year, the students collaborate with the Sister City school and agree which barn they want to raise aka which problems they want to tackle during the week that they are together in either city. One possible project could be funding and building a Makerspace at their school.

Throughout the year the students prepare for that week of working together so that they can hit the ground running once they meet. At the end of that week, there is going to be a big barn-raising party to celebrate all the things that have been accomplished. Some of the students may choose to make music together or develop their own theater piece to be performed during the celebration.

As I said in the beginning, Sister City Barnraising is an idea that could be implemented in all kinds of ways. Joined summer camps, festivals, economic collaboration, … <insert your idea here>. Greater understanding and hopefully friendships will form from these joint experience together. Cultural and economic ties will be strengthened, a win win for everyone involved. P.S. In part this post is inspired by Doc Searls posting about Barn Raising for civilization.

Tomorrow: Ceptr @ Thrivable Future Salon

Can't wait to see you all tomorrow Wednesday 20th of January 6pm for our: Ceptr @ Thrivable Future Salon at the IFTF in Palo Alto. Register now if you haven't yet.

Ceptr is a toolset for building semantic, mashable, fully decentralized applications. As Bitcoin goes through a rough patch, Arthur Brock suggests a fractal method focusing on autonomous distributed processing as a more viable and scalable approach than global ledger consensus. Ceptr is a better way forward.

Some logistics for tomorrow:

• We created a ride sharing document. Please use it to coordinate. We have people who want to come but lack transit!
• Thanks to IFTF for providing sodas and water. We have limited donations for beer and wine. Please help out by bringing snacks, beer & wine to share to tide us over until...
• Afterwards, we will march to Pizza My Heart down the block at the end. Fill your stomach then!

Agenda

• Door open and networking 6pm
• Starting 6:15pm
• Welcome and  Thrivable Future Salon History from Mark
• IFTF Welcome from Andrew
• 6:30 Unpanel facilitated by Jean
  • Arthur Brock introduction to Ceptr
  • Matthew Schutte Collaborative Internet and Ceptr
  • Deb Schultz Social Contract and Ceptr
  • Kevin Marks Indieweb and Ceptr
  • Group discussion among panelists
• 7:30 Breakout small group discussions
• 8:15 Whole group discussion and wrap-up
• 9pm Brass Off with make shift TFS Marching Band down the block to Pizza My Heart. Don't forget your brass instrument!

Continue discussion over a slice of pizza and a beverage of your choice. We can't wait to see you all there. P.S. Can't be there in person? Join the Ceptr Thrivable Future Salon Spreecast for remote participation. We will do our best to include you in the discussion.

Let's continue the Learning Revolution started by Jay Cross

Just got the sad news that Thrivable Future Salon speaker Jay Cross suddenly died. We don't know the details yet, but wanted to share his great spirit from last month at the Thrivable Future Salon where he unveiled his new book:

Real Learning: The missing manual for the do-it-yourself learner.

We are very glad that we recorded the session via Spreecast and are able to share a video of his presentation, and, with that, the call for the learning revolution in his own words: 

Jay Cross presenting at the Thrivable Future Salon October 2015[/caption] Couple of highlights:

• He needs our help to spread the details about Real Learning, as he wants a couple of million people using these ideas by next year.
• In this world working and learning are converging.
• Do the exercises, in the book, as this is experimental learning, not regular learning.
• Informal learning people didn't know what to do with it. It was handing the keys to the worker rather than the manager.
• Lots of scientifically proven things improve learning: If you have a lightbulb graphic in front of you, then you are 15% more creative.

Q: Learning versus Brainwashing?

• People should be in charge of their own lives. The more they know about themselves the more they know what they want to do.
• Experimental learning is like the Sierra Nevada and school learning is like the North Pole.
• School convinces us that you have to learn the curriculum to get a certain grade and it isn't worth shit to lead a better life.

Q: You went to Harvard?

• Yes, my 50th anniversary is coming up.

Q: Why not create a school from your idea.

• A school is a place where you get programmed. I love some schools, but I went to Stanford a few months ago, and I hear people speak from the national science foundation. MIT is writing this up ... everything we know about how people learn was violated. They are talking about: "Well, we got to be more open," but they didn't take a question until 4 hours into the event.

In summary real learning is not happening in the classroom. Please check out and implement the proven idea from Jay's latest book: Real Learning they will help you to live a better life. There is no better legacy than having us improve, and continuing to improve, people's lives via your ideas.

Inspiring Thrivable Future Salon

Thanks for coming last week. We loved it. Let's make it even better. Give us feedback by filling out this short survey. Thanks!

What are the 3 most powerful words ever spoken right after "I love you"? In my world, it is "You inspired me!" After our Thrivable Future Salon last Thursday, Augustin Bralley wrote us:

Wonderful night last night! I woke up inspired to write: The future doesn't have to suck.

Thank you, Augustin, it makes our effort all worthwhile. Loved the event. Thank you all for coming, especially the other 5+5 speakers: Jay Cross, Mei Lin Fung, Greg Chase, Travis Wellman, plus last-minute addition from Pete Forsyth [who has some upcoming events].  

Extra thanks goes to Greg Chase for opening the Pivotal Labs doors, especially the elevator ones. ;-)

The very night I was talking about self-driving cars taking over the transportation industry and its jobs, many Tesla cars got their software updated and have now an autopilot mode. Apparently every Tesla built in the last 12 months has 12 sensors including HD cameras. The Tesla fleet is a self-learning network, as most likely every car is sending back their recording to Tesla. That needs to be confirmed. As a Tesla driver, it would make me a bit uneasy to know that my every move is HD tracked. On the other hand, I would be stoked about the constant improvements that Tesla will be able to generate based on the data gathered from all of the Teslas. To be continued.

We are living in interesting times. One of my favorite moments was when Pete, at the beginning of his session about Wikipedia, asked the audience how many people have ever updated Wikipedia. Almost all hands went up. That is the attitude of the Thrivable Future Salon participants: We are improving the world even with small or large entries on Wikipedia.

If you got inspired to present your own ideas towards a more thrivable world, please fill out this Suggest 5+5[+5] Minute Thrivability Session form, and we will contact you regarding our next one.

Augustin loved our Thrivable Future Salon; Jean and I did too. Alas we know that there is room for improvement. You can help us by filling out this short questionnaire. Make sure to be on our mailing list and share this post with folks that are interested in building a thrivable world with us.

5+5[+5] Sessions Oct 14 Thrivable Future Salon

We love the diversity of sessions that participants are going to present, tomorrow, Wednesday 14th of October at the Thrivable Future Salon [register now].

After an introduction to Thrivability and the Future Salon we are having 5+5[+5] open mike sessions: 5 minute of introduction to a theme. 5 minutes of discussion in the room, and if the activity in the room is high, we add another 5 minutes to the discussion before we start the next session.

Here is the lineup:

Regenerative commons -- Aaron Haldiman

The regenerative commons is a concept which seeks to shift public spaces such as local parks, from existing as government maintained spaces that we visit to integrated commons which we share ownership and maintenance. The goal is to create robust food production systems, harvest and store water, build soil, educate and empower the local community, produce local energy, etc. Using functional systems, education, and empowerment, these under utilized communal hubs (parks) can become the village commons that meet the needs of the local community to create deep resilience and minimize dependence on centralized systems for food, water, energy, etc.

Take away: Our communal structures can be redesigned to create dynamic community resilience

Consequences of Unlimited, and Free, Clean Energy, here in less than 20 years -- Paul C. Hoffman

Washington Post ran story on this a year ago. This is coming. Discuss what this will mean for planet. Can suck massive amounts of carbon OUT of atmosphere; end global warming. Can provide ample water, food, for all. End involuntary poverty.

Take away: Learn exponential thinking. The Future is vastly better than most people currently are aware.

Real Learning -- Jay Cross

Learning and work are converging. Corporations tell people they are responsible for their own learning but give them no help. Learning is not schooling, but that's the common assumption. I've set up the Real Learning project for DIY learners to enable bottom-up learning.

Take away: You can learn to work smarter and boost your intelligence.

People Centered Internet -- Mei Lin Fung

Digital disruption of ways to earn income opens up space for new approaches. What if we could use the convergence of the mobile phone and banking in order to disrupt project financing ? If we make it possible for micro financing of projects by individuals or team to be transacted and tracked over the mobile phone, we can find those people who are most successful at taking in $'s and generating outcomes which are good for humanity. And how might we do that? Track project outcomes along the 17 dimensions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Take away: Every voice, every person has something to contribute - people, organizations, global entities

The Pivotal Way: Our style of work, software & data -- Greg Chase 

This is a brief overview of Pivotal Software including our unique way of working and providing software to companies. Perhaps this is a way to improve thrivability, if used right in the corporate world.

Take away: A better way for companies to work

Thrivable Systems must be Free -- Travis Wellman

Why the architecture of global connective systems has to be different than people-with-accounts-on-web-servers for the emergence of liberating (free) human systems. The answers are old, but have not been adequately popularized. We missed the bus. We need to somehow get excited about old ideas again to build the platform right.

Take away: The answers are not new.

Basic Innovation Income -- Mark Finnern

It makes economic and societal sense to provide basic innovation income to everyone on the planet for a transition to a post-scarcity society. It will allow everyone to focus on thriving for themselves and their community.

Take away: Basic Innovation Income kickstarting a thriving world of abundance.

Co-Creation -- Jean M Russell

How do we move across the spectrum of cooperation and collaboration to co-creation?
It means being leader-full rather than leaderless. It doesn't mean co-creative on all dimensions. Dictate goal, process, or participants.

Take away: Try to be co-creative, leaderfull, and clear on process

The sessions we don't get to tomorrow will be covered in the next one.

Join us tomorrow 14th of October Thrivable Future Salon in San Francisco at Pivotal Labs.