Future Salon

3 Answers by David Brin Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon Presenter Thu April 15th 6pm PST

As a little teaser to our upcoming Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon, I ask our distinguished guest visionary Science Fiction author David Brin 3 questions: 

1. What is the latest Science Fiction that you feel depicts our likely future the most?
   David: In VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood, I describe several goals of SF novels and films, raning from pure entertainment and money-making to changing the perspective of readers and viewers, making them think new thoughts or arming them with awareness against dangers. In that case, what you have is a self-preventing prophecy whose aim is to prevent itself from coming true!  Hence, accurate prediction is less the point than prevention. - http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html
2. What can we do to bring back the innovation inspiration that Project Hieroglyph was trying to revitalize?
   David: Today we are experiencing one of the weirdest phenomenon in all of history. A large minority of the population of the most advanced nation in the world… one that benefited most from an explosion of knowledge and calm reasoning and expertise… has allowed itself to get talked into a venomous campaign of hatred toward nearly all of the expert castes and professions! From scientists and doctors to journalists, civil servants and law professionals. You name it, and there are active campaigns to discredit them. Now who would want that?
3. What near-term technology are you the most excited about and why? 
   David: Naturally, artificial intelligence will likely create the greatest challenges and opportunities, as will methods of ‘human augmentation” in brain and physical function.  In some of my novels I talk about how the animals we share the planet with might join us in sapiency, helping modify this civilization with their own kinds of wisdom.  In the near term, though, I'm anxious for new kinds of GAMES that let young people actually gain knowledge and skills while playing, rather than today’s lobotomizing addictions.

Going to be a very interesting evening. Join our Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon happening on the 15th of April 6pm PST online & free. 

Vivid Tomorrows Future Salon with David Brin Thu April 15th 6pm PST

I am totally psyched that David Brin is presenting again at the Future Salon. Join us on the 15th of April 6pm PST for an engaging evening. 

David just published his 3rd non-fiction book Vivid Tomorrows which looks at the influence Science Fiction has on Hollywood and with that on our overall culture.  

David Brin writes: 

Can science fiction — especially sci-fi cinema — save the world? It already has many times.

"My 3rd non-fiction book reconnoiters famous SF media — from E.T. and Star Trek to The Arrival and Gattaca — and how they help craft a civilization that's obsessed with self-criticism, suspicion of authority, individualism and tolerance, along with appreciation of ecology and diversity... values that might save us all! But shouldn’t we at least understand how these relentlessly proselytized values made us unique among all human societies, across 6000 years?"

Please join the Future Salon Community where we collect questions that we would like to ask David Brin during the Salon. One I have is about the Project Hieroglyph: "In his article entitled“Innovation Starvation,” Neal Stephenson calls for a return to inspiration in contemporary science fiction. That call resonated with so many and so deeply that Project Hieroglyph was born shortly thereafter." I really loved that premise of a positive future vision that leads us to create it. David was one of the contributing authors. Time to check in what the status of Project Hieroglyph is.

Don't miss out on this engaging free online event. 

P.S. Check out the recording from the last Future Salon with David Brin in 2014. 

 

 

Join the New Future Salon Commumnity

 

Join us on the new Future Salon Community site where we have shared the recording from the Future of Democracy Salon. 

Future of Democracy Salon Tue Feb 23 6pm PST

 

Major shifts are happening right regarding democracy and our freedom. Please join us on the 23rd of February at 6pm PST, where we together will try to make sense of what is going on and where we collectively discuss what we can do to nudge our society towards a positive future. [Zoom Link]

This event is a collaboration between the Next Now Network around Bill Daul; POW! Power Our World! Impact Forum around Zann Gill; and Mark Finnern's Future Salon.

Mark Finnern will host and lead the event this month.

We are collecting links to good content that helps us frame our conversation. Please add your own and ideally make yourself familiar with that content, so we can have an informed conversation.

We have three main presenters to set the stage. All coming from different perspectives:

• John Robb, dialing in from the East Coast, goes first: There is a big danger that Long Night is near. To prevent that we need A Digital Bill of Rights as he detailed in this report.

• Ismael Gahlimi makes a case for a New Rationalist movement: with courage, unity, and rationality we can chart a different course and overcome our current problems.
• Lauren Cory in conversation with Mark Finnern will share her insights from leading the Mid-Peninsula ACLU organization for many years. (She stresses that she sharing her own opinion, not the ACLU one that night). One of her insights is: To lower distrust we must change our approach to problem-solving. More information, more “facts”, are not the majority of the answer.

Each will have 10-15 minutes to share their perspective before we open up for discussions.

Find additional and more up to date information in our Future of Democracy 2.0 Future Salon document.

Fighting for more freedom is nothing new, the many pro-democracy songs from years past attest to that: We have a collection of songs in English and German for you to enjoy and play/sing. We started a small YouTube channel where we introduce some of these songs.

Mark Finnern will perform one of them as the opening act of the Future of Democracy 2.0 Salon.

We are also collecting cartoons, screenshots, or funny tweets that give us comic relief. Add yours too!

Can't wait to discuss with you what our best way forward is on the 23rd of February, Mark.

P.S. Walk down memory lane: Many years ago in 2004 we had an Extreme Democracy Future Salon with Tom Attlee introducing the Tao of Democracy; Ross Mayfield his chapter in the Extreme Democracy book, and Zack Rosen introduced Civic Space.

P.P.S. The official program is set for 90 minutes, but if you would like to hang out longer afterward with your favorite beverage or snack, please do!

P.P.S. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84244802475

Here is a little promotional video I recorded:

POW! [Power Our World] Future Salon – Movies that Move Us (to action?) & Make a Difference!

Join us tonight 8th of October 6pm PST at this link: https://meet.google.com/yap-iscr-jcd?hs=122&authuser=1

Yeah, just what you need another Zoom call :-) We promise this is different. Bring your favorite beverage and snack, relax and share impactful movies that moved you, maybe even to change your life in a positive way, which is a high bar. 

Tonight extra special as my cohost Zan Gill has invited the Dennis Britton, and he is going to share an impactful 8 minutes long short film tonight. I have not seen it yet, and am really excited about this evening. [I got some details wrong in the video, my apology].

I will open up with a song that was composed in 1679 when Vienna was in the grips of the Black Plague and it really uplifted them. A story of survival. 

Join us tonight 8th of October 6pm PST at this link: https://meet.google.com/yap-iscr-jcd?hs=122&authuser=1

Here is the flow: 

1. Everyone on the call can suggest an impactful movie they want to share by adding it to this list. 

2. We select a movie from the list and the person that suggested it briefly introduces the film. We will only select movies where the person who suggested it is present. 

3. We watch the trailer together. 

4. We discuss the movie for 5-10 minutes and explore: 

   • What lessons can be learned?  

   • What actions can be taken? 

5. We select the next movie from the list and continue until the hour+ is up. 

See you this Thursday, October 8th @ 6pm (a flexible “Baker’s Hour”) to watch/ discuss trailers of your favorite impactful movies. 

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.