I made a proposal the other day to a project seeking writers who want to Frankenstein a different monster of economic understanding, thereby using the bits and bytes of science fictional fantasizing as a model for a true and doable tomorrow. I jumped in rather blindly, not actually being such a fan of the genre of the strangely possible. I was actually surprised to find out that the entire notion is an actual thing, this Science Fiction Economics ....
Suffice it to say, the nature of the living, breathing domain of online writing causes me to stay away from sharing the details of the plot of my proposal. The spiders that hang in the web have a way of encasing even the tiniest morsel of an amuse bouche, seeking to gobble it down before a secret formula gets sniffed out by the masses -- with the result being that if I tell you too much, this posting space becomes just another graveyard where good ideas lie, unread, for eternity. And who wants that? My goal too is to cash-in on your interest in hopes of unleashing the Wisdom of Crowds while supplying stakes of interest in the hands of the mob that wants to foment Blessed Unrest!
But I digress into book smarts. So let me get to the point. The real monster of economic understanding that will be needed to quell the anger of masses will have to be hobbled together in a way that can satisfy two base urges: the cry for revenge and expectations of reparations as well as the desire for the replacement of the past ugliness with a beast that promises it will no longer indiscriminately scatter inequity or injustice. And such will take a magnificent feat of scientific performance.
In some later pieces, I hope to explore what I mean by this through articles that will try to encourage a collective framing of the definition of what I have tentatively called EPOWERology -- but that too has to be an idea that remains at rest. For this somewhat delayed point here, I turn instead to how the US economy deals with the two seemingly opposing market and philosophical demands for clawback punishments and a rebalancing of access going forward.
My suggestion is to blend the values of realpolitik by testing the feasibility of various combinations of initiatives that in the end are PROparational in scope. We can achieve some degree of open and honest repayment for past mistakes without simply confessing that we owe all to everyone. Even the most misguided of processes can and have gone wrong. But accepting that doesn't mean monetary or huge compensation to all those hurt -- failure is the cost of democracy and the search for effective participation.
At the same time that this compensation is settled upon, other PROactive, even PROphylactic elements have to be conceived of and operationalized. In so doing, these forward-looking reformulations minimize backwards reaching clawback desires ... thus laying the foundation for overall interventions that are truly PROparational to what our society, our culture, expects.
Put simply, there needs to be a concerted and unavoidably clear commitment to installing exactly this type of new programming if the crowds are going to be called upon to upload the apps that serve as portals to change. This is one of the powerfully notable costs that must be incurred: societies have to be willing to reshape their emotional drives away from retributive to restorative economic justice models.
We don't yet have good working plans for this. That this hasn't been figured out and the process of innovation set in place by our presidential leadership candidates ... well, that's what worries me. The hue and cries are loud, demanding better. We have the technology that Dr. Frankenstein could only dream about. But the time is now. The crowds have their stakes of interest in hand and hunting for the proper door to beat down. Once that happens, they will expect payment for their hurt and promises of better results ahead. IMHO, President Black gets the urgency. He has been grappling with what is ahead about the bight of tomorrow. I'm guessing soon-to-be President Woman does too. The others, who seem to favor more that hargingering of doom by their audiences ... well ... not so much. If either of the lesser moves forward, we will find ourselves to blame and have to lay down much greater shares of revenge if we're not careful and don't start being prepared for the worst -- monsters have been created in science fiction stories for a long, long time, but that doesn't mean we should sit around and wait for the next act of the same old tales.
In some later pieces, I hope to explore what I mean by this through articles that will try to encourage a collective framing of the definition of what I have tentatively called EPOWERology -- but that too has to be an idea that remains at rest. For this somewhat delayed point here, I turn instead to how the US economy deals with the two seemingly opposing market and philosophical demands for clawback punishments and a rebalancing of access going forward.
My suggestion is to blend the values of realpolitik by testing the feasibility of various combinations of initiatives that in the end are PROparational in scope. We can achieve some degree of open and honest repayment for past mistakes without simply confessing that we owe all to everyone. Even the most misguided of processes can and have gone wrong. But accepting that doesn't mean monetary or huge compensation to all those hurt -- failure is the cost of democracy and the search for effective participation.
At the same time that this compensation is settled upon, other PROactive, even PROphylactic elements have to be conceived of and operationalized. In so doing, these forward-looking reformulations minimize backwards reaching clawback desires ... thus laying the foundation for overall interventions that are truly PROparational to what our society, our culture, expects.
Put simply, there needs to be a concerted and unavoidably clear commitment to installing exactly this type of new programming if the crowds are going to be called upon to upload the apps that serve as portals to change. This is one of the powerfully notable costs that must be incurred: societies have to be willing to reshape their emotional drives away from retributive to restorative economic justice models.
We don't yet have good working plans for this. That this hasn't been figured out and the process of innovation set in place by our presidential leadership candidates ... well, that's what worries me. The hue and cries are loud, demanding better. We have the technology that Dr. Frankenstein could only dream about. But the time is now. The crowds have their stakes of interest in hand and hunting for the proper door to beat down. Once that happens, they will expect payment for their hurt and promises of better results ahead. IMHO, President Black gets the urgency. He has been grappling with what is ahead about the bight of tomorrow. I'm guessing soon-to-be President Woman does too. The others, who seem to favor more that hargingering of doom by their audiences ... well ... not so much. If either of the lesser moves forward, we will find ourselves to blame and have to lay down much greater shares of revenge if we're not careful and don't start being prepared for the worst -- monsters have been created in science fiction stories for a long, long time, but that doesn't mean we should sit around and wait for the next act of the same old tales.
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Thanks for sharing. The idea is for me to motivate you (and others) to do something with good ideas. Some are mine, some belong to others; all belong to the world of change.