THINKERS / THOUGHT LEADERS
Dirk Helbing
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About Dirk Helbing
Dirk Helbing is Professor of Computational Social Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences and affiliate of the Computer Science Department at ETH Zurich. In January 2014 Prof. Helbing received an honorary PhD from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). Since June 2015 he is affiliate professor at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management at TU Delft, where he leads the PhD school in “Engineering Social Technologies for a Responsible Digital Future.”
The work of Prof. Helbing is documented by hundreds of media reports and publications, among them more than 10 papers in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He won various prizes, including the Idee Suisse Award. He co-founded the Competence Center for Coping with Crises in Complex Socio-Economic Systems, the Risk Center, the Institute for Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP) and the Decision Science Laboratory (DeSciL).
While coordinating the FuturICT initiative (www.futurict.eu), he helped to establish data science and computational social science in Europe, as well as global systems science. A further result is the Nervousnet platform (nervousnet.info). Helbing is an elected member of the German Academy of Sciences “Leopoldina” and the World Academy of Art and Science.
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URGENT: Reboot Needed: A seven-essay series by Dirk Helbing, Professor of Computational Social Science at ETH Zurich is an urgent appeal to save the planet before it is too late. Along with the author, we are looking forward to your feedback.
August 26, 2017 8:00 AM
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Part I: The Moral Duty of the Elites
It is the moral duty of the elite to avert global disaster. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/population-environment-technology-society-climate-change-disaster/
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Part II: Rethinking the World Economy: From Push to Pull
If we changed our throw-away society, there would be enough resources for everyone. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/world-economy-sustainability-environment-society/
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Part III: A New Social Contract
It is time to work out a new social contract that allows everyone to lead a proper life and determine it to a larger extent. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/united-nations-world-government-peace-sustainability-society/
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Part IV: Upgrading Today’s Capitalism
Capitalism in its current form is neither fair nor sustainable. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/capitalism-society-equality-sustainability-crowd-funding/
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Part V: Reform of the Financial System
A “socio-ecological finance system” would be efficient, innovation-friendly and democratic at the same time. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/financial-system-reform-economy-internet-of-things-capitalism/
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Part VI: Digital Upgrade of Democracy (“Digital Democracy”)
We need social systems that are able to produce better solutions to complex problems. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/democracy-technology-social-media-artificial-intelligence/
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Part VII: Guiding Principles for a “Golden Age of Prosperity and Peace”
Ethics is not about putting obstacles in people’s way, but about fundamental success principles for a prosperous and peaceful society. | By Dirk Helbing.
https://www.theglobalist.com/society-technology-peace-sustainability/
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Future Of Globalization
By Dirk Helbing, August 20, 2017
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PETER BURGESS COMMENTARY
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Part I: The Moral Duty of the Elites
It is the moral duty of the elite to avert global disaster.
If innovation within the current system is not sufficient, the system itself has to be reinvented and changed.
Faced with climate change, financial, economic and spending crisis, mass migration, terrorism, wars and cyber threats, it appears we are very close to global emergency.
Given this state of affairs, we are running out of time to fix the problems of our planet. Here, we present what should be decided during the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2017 and a reflexive preamble.
We acknowledge your efforts to improve the quality of life. However, these efforts have also caused a further increase in the consumption of resources and energy.
It appears that this is now driving our planet to the edge: Climate change affects the global water system, agriculture and the basis of the lives of billions of people. It causes environmental disasters, mass migration and armed conflicts. Moreover, it is estimated to threaten about one-sixth of all species on our planet.
There is still time
Nevertheless, global disaster is not inevitable — if we re-organize the world in a suitable way, as discussed below.
The lives of billions of people are at risk. It is the moral duty of politicians, religious, cultural, scientific and business leaders – in short: the elite – to avert likely disasters, humanitarian crises and ethical dilemmas as much as possible.
This requires bringing about the necessary changes of society on the way in a timely manner.
With the aim to “save the planet,” many have urged the world community to reduce carbon emissions drastically by 2030 and almost completely by the end of the century.
However, given that the world population has grown roughly proportional to global oil and gas consumption, such a drop would largely reduce the carrying capacity of the Earth for people — unless the reduction in carbon-based energy can be replaced by renewable energy in a timely manner.
New solutions needed
New solutions are needed not only for heating and transportation, but also for the chemical industry, because the production of plastic and fertilizer currently depends on oil. Altogether, a radical re-organization of major parts of our economy appears to be urgently necessary.
Even though philanthropy and engagement in responsible innovation have increased, this urgent transformation has not taken place to the required extent. To a considerable degree, this is because those who have “vested interests” in the old system have often obstructed change.
However, “vested interests” are no excuse for inaction or delays. Property and power imply responsibility. If this responsibility is not adequately exercised, power lacks legitimacy.
If people have to pay with their lives for “vested interests”, these interests clearly undermine the very basis of societies.
Human dignity, which underpins many fundamental values and human rights, is the imperative that all individual, political and economic action should be oriented at. It is the key value and central pillar of many modern societies and, according to many constitutions, must be actively protected by all means.
A final call to action
If humanity wants to bring a positive future or even a “Golden Age of Prosperity and Peace” on the way, we need to dramatically reform our basic societal institutions, e.g. the present financial and monetary system, our economy and society.
Even though it seems that the current organizational principles of our world have served us well for a long time, they are now often failing to deliver the right solutions early enough.
Within the current framework, time and again we got trapped in suboptimal solutions to complex coordination games, “tragedies of the commons” and problems of collective inaction.
In our highly networked cyber-physical world, linear thinking (the assumption that effects are proportional to their causes) and the ethics of small-group, face-to-face interactions in relatively simple settings are often leading us astray.
Fundamental change is inevitable. It seems that what needs to take center stage now is not how much money or power someone can accumulate, but how much he or she is benefitting others and the world. Apparently, our societies have largely lost track of this basic guiding principle.
A lack of imagination
Claiming that our problem is overpopulation of the planet reveals lack of imagination.
By now it is obvious that all traditional problem-solving approaches have failed to work.
Also, the attempt to revive historical forms of societal organization, empowered by Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, does not seem to work, as the recent experiences in various countries with technocratic Smart Cities approaches have shown.
However, if innovation within the current system is not sufficient, the system itself has to be reinvented and changed.
It seems paradoxical that – in times of an abundance of data and the best technology ever – centralized control attempts failed to boost our most advanced economies and societies to a new level of satisfaction and prosperity, sustainability and resilience.
The reason for this lies in the complexity of hyper-connected systems, in which processing power cannot keep up with data volumes and those cannot keep up with the combinatorial increase in complexity.
Such networked systems often behave in unexpected and counter-intuitive ways: Rather than the intended effects, one will frequently find side effects, feedback effects and cascading effects.
Artificial intelligence is not enough
Given these circumstances, centralized control attempts perform often poorly. Even the most powerful artificial intelligence systems will not be able to manage the overly complex and often quickly changing systems of our globalized world well enough.
As a consequence, a new, decentralized control paradigm is needed, which implies the need for modular designs, diverse solutions, and participatory opportunities.
Therefore, we need new ways of participatory decision-making as well as new designs of the monetary, financial and economic system. In the new framework we propose, co-creation, co-ordination, co-evolution and collective intelligence are the main underlying success principles.
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Takeaways
... We are running out of time to fix the problems of our planet.
... Global disaster is not inevitable -- if we re-organize the world in a suitable way.
... A radical re-organization of major parts of our economy appears to be urgently necessary.
... Claiming that our problem is overpopulation of the planet reveals lack of imagination.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
Good ... a pretty clear articulation of the problem. They do say that it is easier to solve problems when they are clearly understood ... so this is an excellent start!
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part II: Rethinking the World Economy: From Push to Pull
If we changed our throw-away society, there would be enough resources for everyone.
The world’s supply chains must be organized in a completely different way. What we need is a combined circular and sharing economy, as many have pointed out.
Presently, however, because it’s often cheaper, we have many “linear” supply chains. In these, fresh resources are used to produce large numbers of products for the sake of economies of scale, which are then sold (“pushed”) to as many customers as possible using massive marketing campaigns.
The customers will then consume the products — and eventually throw them away. Supply chains must hence be organized in a better way.
From push to pull
Rather than today’s “push economy,” we need an economy driven by demands, i.e. a “pull economy.” The world’s resources would be enough for everyone, if we reused and shared them.
Today, inhabitants of the industrialized world produce about 50 tons of waste in a lifetime. This includes several cars, computers, smartphones, a lot of furniture and other things that are probably enough for, say, five people.
In principle, our planet could offer a higher quality of life for more people, with less resources.
Reusing and recycling these resources would need renewable energy. Such energy has gained increasing market shares in many places, but the focus has been on big solutions.
For example, power stations that would produce energy for hundreds of thousands of people, as this implies the most attractive business models.
There is an increasing amount of evidence that more energy-efficient or environmentally-friendly solutions have often been suppressed by established industries in attempts to maintain their “cash cows.”
A better future
In order to bring about a better future for mankind, we need to reinvent about half of our economy within a few decades. This is possible, but the process needs to start now.
It is obvious that the current governance system of the world has failed to deliver the needed solutions on time. Therefore, a new social contract should be urgently made.
The United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2017 is the right place for this to take place. Decisions in accordance with these proposals should be implemented in the seven years following this date.
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Takeaways
... Today, inhabitants of the industrialized world produce about 50 tons of waste in a lifetime.
... The world’s supply chains must be organized in a completely different way.
... Rather than today’s “push economy,” we need an economy driven by demands, i.e. a “pull economy.”
... In order to bring about a better future for mankind, we need to reinvent about half of our economy.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
Yes ... rethinking how a better world must work is essential. The idea that rich countries have become wealthy while producing a huge amount of waste is true ... but why has this happened? A big part of the reason for this is that far too much of decision making is based on optimizing profit performance of companies and the creation of financial wealth. There are measures for this, but the damage to society and the damage to the environment gets ignored in large part because there are no effective measures for these.
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part III: A New Social Contract
It is time to work out a new social contract that allows everyone to lead a proper life and determine it to a larger extent.
Rather than advancing their own benefits, elites can — and must — be formidable agents of change for good.
Therefore, they should (be able to) live up to their responsibilities for the future of our planet and coming generations in proportion to their wealth, power and positions.
Reform of the United Nations
The United Nations have been a useful instrument to progress world affairs in a number of areas. However, it has failed to produce world peace, to eliminate the production and proliferation of arms and to reduce the level of inequality in the world.
The United Nations Agenda 2030 shows that there are a lot of urgent matters still on the to-do list.
Most people concur with the idea that we should have a global organization of world affairs, and that national egoism should be largely overcome.
In contrast to the current concept of a “world government,” however, we need a more decentralized, participatory and diverse approach, which leaves freedom to experiment with new solutions.
Therefore, regions should play a more important role. They could form global cooperation networks to address shared problems more effectively.
For example, they could regularly perform City Olympics, i.e. engage in friendly competitions to innovate, find and implement the best energy-saving, environmentally-friendly, socially responsible, sustainable and resilient solutions.
To foster open innovation, these solutions shall be shared with the world under open source and Creative Commons licenses.
More transparency, less lobbying
Lobbying by industrial and other interests should be replaced by a transparent mechanism of policy and decision making.
Therefore, industry representatives should sit in the World Council suggested below, while in the future, traditional lobbying should be abolished by law (as it constitutes an non-transparent form of attaining political influence).
In order to make sure that decision-making will be based on facts, science should be represented in the envisaged World Council too. Furthermore, the presence of citizen representatives should ensure that the interests of normal people are represented as well.
The following illustration represents the suggested composition of the proposed World Council:
World Council
• Each of the four sections of the World Council would be of equal size (e.g., 1,000 representatives each). The Council should aim to achieve the best possible balance over world regions and interests.
• There should be no veto right. Instead, binding votes should require a “grand majority” of two thirds. If this grand majority is not reached, one should offer choices to enable locally fitting solutions and some degree of diversity, e.g. by creating a “best of list of solutions.”
If an urgent vote must be taken and the choice of a single solution is inevitable, the proposed solution getting the highest number of votes should be implemented, but the solution should be temporary in nature, carefully evaluated, and taken back, if necessary.
• The first and main duty of members of the Council is to serve the interest of the world, and their activities must be fully transparent (particularly in sensitive matters, activities may be recorded and disclosed with a 10 year delay).
Decisions should be taken on the basis of individual insights, not formal or informal memberships of political parties or interest groups.
• Members of the Council will have to completely disclose their property, sources of income, formal or informal memberships, special opportunities and anything that might compromise independence or create a conflict of interest.
• The business sector may devise their own rules to select their representatives, but the rules should be approved by the other three council parts.
• Citizen representatives would be chosen in each region based on an open competition transmitted by public media, in which willing participants would demonstrate their knowledge and commitment to the public interest.
• Scientific representatives should be internationally leading experts, who are economically independent and cover the scope of fields and disciplines in a balanced way. Their research must be funded in full by public sources.
It is unacceptable for these members to pursue (or have pursued in the past 7 years) research on behalf of companies or foundations, as these may have a special agenda and bias the scope of research or amount of resources invested in certain questions, approaches or solutions.
• Representatives from the four sectors would have to be completely disentangled. Family or other ties, interest groups, political parties or other parties are strictly discouraged in the interest of representative, unbiased decision-making.
The attempt to undermine independent decision-making will be sanctioned by exclusion from the World Council.
• The World Council will establish and run “democratic capitalism” and a multi-dimensional, socio-ecological finance or incentive system as described below. Its members may get a certain percentage of new value created by it, i.e. payoffs shall be performance-based.
Taxes (money to create public goods) shall also be directly derived from this new monetary and financial system.
• The Council’s may be led by a 24 person group of people, composed of 6 elected representatives of each section, which would be coordinated by a chair person.
The decisions of this Steering Group would be preliminary and would have to be approved by the World Council. Otherwise they will run out by the end of the next World Council meeting.
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Takeaways
... Rather than advancing their own benefits, elites can -- and must -- be formidable agents of change for good.
... The United Nations Agenda 2030 shows that there are a lot of urgent matters still on the to-do list.
... Most people concur with the idea that we should have a global organization of world affairs.
... Lobbying should be replaced by a transparent mechanism of policy and decision making.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
The idea that major international institutions like the UN are in need of massive reorganization is easy to talk about ... but really difficult to do. It would have been nice if the UN had been 100% successful in helping to avoid bad things and keeping the peace, but in my view (and based on a lot of personal experience) the UN has done an enormous amount of good at a quite modest cost. By contrast there are major areas of the global socio-enviro-economic system like the global military industry complex, several 'for profit at any cost' segments of the global economy like trafficking in drugs, human beings, etc which are tolerated in all sorts of ways because of human greed and lack of moral compass. The UN is not the weak link. Rather it is ignorance about powerful bad actors and far too little accountability by institutions (like international banks, national governments, etc ) that ought to know better.
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part IV: Upgrading Today’s Capitalism
Capitalism in its current form is neither fair nor sustainable.
As today’s form of capitalism is not compatible with our social and cultural value system, sooner or later it will be damaging to the foundations of societies and the values they are built on.
Therefore, capitalism must be upgraded in a way that is compatible with societal and cultural values and with the fairness principle to provide equal opportunities.
Since a change of the world’s carrying capacity by 1% effectively decides over the lives and deaths of about 80 million people, it is unacceptable that innovations are obstructed or restricted to those that are compatible with current business models.
The survival of billions of people will depend on our ability to drastically increase innovation rates and to generate more pluralistic innovations.
In other words, it is morally imperative to enable mass innovation, as neither venture capitalism nor philanthropy nor other standard means of supporting innovation were sufficient to solve the existential problems of our planet.
We are quite far from having made it a place where all people can live in dignity and unfold their talents.
Inequality creates instability
For this and a number of other reasons, the monetary system needs urgent reform. The current system is not fair and creates serious distortions. It further promotes inequality, which creates political instability.
In fact, it tends to undermine the very basis of democracy and other institutions. The current monetary system implies existential and political dependence, which constrains individual and collective development.
Therefore, in the future, everyone shall have equal opportunities to unfold their talents and engagement. This shall also include the right to benefit from money generation.
From a legal point of view, everyone should be equal, and hence this should also apply to money creation.
Democratic capitalism
Benefitting from money creation can no longer be the privilege of a few private persons and banks.
Moreover, in times of digital, ecological and societal transformation, everyone should be able to experiment and discover new solutions.
Therefore, everyone shall soon get a universal investment premium. This money will not be provided from taxes, but by money generation.
The overall amount of money in circulation shall be kept at bay by a negative interest rate. The underlying idea is to take money out of the system that is not being used, because it is desirable for the economy and society that money is being invested.
The investment premium shall not be kept or spent by the person who receives it. It should rather be invested into the best ideas and projects engaging for social and environmental affairs, new technologies, improved neighbourhoods, etc.
Crowd funding for all
This “crowd funding for all” may be realized by a new kind of money. Its height shall make sure that the better half (or at least a third) of proposed projects can be realized.
People will be able to earn an additional income by winning projects and contributing to their realization, such that there is a mechanism encouraging innovation and engagement.
Project results realized with these investment premiums shall become open source and Creative Commons after a two-year time period, such that combinatorial innovation and as well as a participatory information, innovation, product and service system can emerge and thrive.
Everyone will benefit
Note that everyone would benefit from this approach, and it is not expected that this will be to the disadvantage of large companies.
The above described measures are intended to boost the massive, pluralistic innovation that will now be needed to solve the world’s existential problems collectively as soon as possible.
Within just a few years, half of the economy will have to be reinvented to make it sustainable and create new jobs in the wake of automation that it is now driven by Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.
This requires existential security, experimental opportunities and access to innovative and productive means.
If the above reforms are made, a redistribution of property from the rich to the poor may be avoidable – otherwise it will be inevitable.
In any case, property that is not actively used by the owner(s) for more than a year should be made accessible for use through a sharing economy platform that provides fair access to anyone who is qualified for use.
Private property that is not publicly registered shall be administered by the region where the property is located.
Likewise, services and products that have been discontinued, patents or business models that are not being used, shall become Creative Commons within two years’ time.
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Takeaways
... Today’s form of capitalism is not compatible with our social and cultural value system.
... We are quite far from having made the world a place where all people can live in dignity and unfold their talents.
... Benefitting from money creation can no longer be the privilege of a few private persons and banks.
... From a legal point of view, everyone should be equal, and hence this should also apply to money creation.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
Great piece ... the role of money in enabling wealth creation is not well understood but money is a key constraint in limiting socio-enviro-economic performance. When the global financial system failed in the 2007 / 2008 time period, bankers revived banks and related financial institutions by the creation of massive amounts of 'money' ... and the systems is still running on top of a huge amount of this funny money. In engineering there is the idea of potential and kinetic energy ... and this idea has relevance for the world of economics and finance. People have potential and they need something that enables this potential to be realized. Financial money has been how this has been done ... but other ways are possible, and might emerge in the near future including systems built around blockchain and some forms of complementary currency. Thinking in terms of GDP growth and financial wealth cannot work in the modern world as it did 100 years ago or even 50 years ago!
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part V: Reform of the Financial System
A “socio-ecological finance system” would be efficient, innovation-friendly and democratic at the same time.
Due to the implications of the new wave of automation on the job market and the need to create a resilient and sustainable world, we have to re-invent about half of our economy.
We have just a few decades to build an ecological, digital economy that consumes much less coal, gas, oil, water and other resources.
At the same time, it is important to be able to distinguish innovations that hurt nature or other people from those that don’t — and to promote the latter.
Better coordination systems
How can this be achieved? The financial system is essentially a coordination mechanism, which decides who receives how much of what resource at what price.
But there could be a myriad of better coordination systems. Instead of managing society with a complicated tax system with a 1-2 year delay, the Internet of Things will soon enable a real-time management of complex systems, namely by real-world measurements and real-time feedback.
This can be set up in such a way that the values of society are built into the system (“values by design”).
With the Internet of Things, the effects of our actions, including our “externalities,” can now be measured at low cost: noise, stress, carbon dioxide (CO2), other emissions, waste, etc.
The same applies to desired outcomes such as job creation, social cooperation, education, health and the reuse of resources.
These would be attributed a price or value in the socio-ecological finance system, which would be determined in a participatory way based on a subsidiary organization of the world.
New currencies
With the addition of numerous new currencies, existing alongside today’s one-dimensional monetary system, one could increase the desired effects and activities and reduce unwanted ones. Social and ecological commitment would no longer be expensive – it would pay off.
With such a multi-dimensional feedback and incentive system, a circular economy would basically emerge by itself, driven by new market forces rather than regulation or a digital command economy.
Numerous regulations could be replaced by measurement processes and participatory (subsidiary) pricing processes.
Through a hierarchy of incentive systems, one could promote local commitment to achieve global goals. The economy would become resource-efficient and driven by people’s needs.
Socio-ecological financial system
Businesses and citizens could benefit alike. In the interest of digital democracy and collective intelligence, the socio-ecological financial system would be jointly managed by representatives of the economy, politics, science and the general public as described above in the section on the World Council.
In addition, the socio-ecological finance system could be designed in such a way that it would automatically generate taxes to pay for public goods and infrastructures.
By means of the differentiated, multi-dimensional incentive system, one could manage complex systems much better, and even build self-organizing or self-regulating systems.
The externalities underlying this incentive system would be measured in a crowd-sourced way, using sensors in smartphones and the Internet of Things.
By sharing the measurements and making the data available to all, one could earn different kinds of money. Even without a redistribution of money and wealth, everyone could benefit, simply by organizing the use of resources much better.
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Takeaways
... The financial system is a coordination mechanism. It decides who receives how much of what resource at what price.
... We have just a few decades to build an ecological, digital economy that consumes much less resources.
... It is important to be able to distinguish innovations that hurt nature or other people from those that don’t.
... With the Internet of Things, the effects of our actions can now be measured at low cost.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
Great piece ... the role of money in enabling wealth creation is not well understood but money is a key constraint in limiting socio-enviro-economic performance. When the global financial system failed in the 2007 / 2008 time period, bankers revived banks and related financial institutions by the creation of massive amounts of 'money' ... and the systems is still running on top of a huge amount of this funny money. In engineering there is the idea of potential and kinetic energy ... and this idea has relevance for the world of economics and finance. People have potential and they need something that enables this potential to be realized. Financial money has been how this has been done ... but other ways are possible, and might emerge in the near future including systems built around blockchain and some forms of complementary currency. Thinking in terms of GDP growth and financial wealth cannot work in the modern world as it did 100 years ago or even 50 years ago!
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part VI: Digital Upgrade of Democracy (“Digital Democracy”)
We need social systems that are able to produce better solutions to complex problems.
Around the world, many democracies have come about as a response to revolutions and wars. Therefore, their defining features reflect the lessons learned through history.
These features include human dignity and human rights, the respect of a private sphere (in the sense of protection from exposure or misuse and the right to be left alone).
They also include self-determination, pluralism and protection of minorities, checks and balances, the separation of powers, anonymous and equal votes, equal opportunities, transparency, fairness, legitimacy and justice.
Good education, enlightenment and empowerment of people in order to enable them to make constructive contributions to our collective future are important elements of modern societies, too.
Role of social media
Social media have recently increased participatory opportunities, but they also have some drawbacks.
They have been criticized for promoting hate speech, filter bubbles and echo chambers, polarization and extremism, fake news and disinformation, as well as the manipulation of emotions, opinions, decisions and behavior.
Against this backdrop, it has been claimed that democracy and the wisdom of crowds do not work in the digital age.
New, data-driven, technocratic ways of decision-making would be more efficient and should, hence, replace democracy, which is claimed to be an “outdated technology.”
However, we need social systems that are able to produce alternative, better and diverse solutions to the complex problems we are faced with.
In particular, what matters for the performance of economies and societies is that people can unfold their knowledge, ideas, talents and resources well.
Harnessing collective intelligence
This requires a societal framework that is oriented at increasing co-creation opportunities for all and harnessing collective intelligence.
The creation of collective intelligence requires a good educational system, reliable, unbiased information, independent search of information and solutions and diversity.
Under such conditions, the combination of several solutions creates often a better solution to a complex problem than the single best solution.
Constructive forms of massive open online deliberation (MOOD) require new kinds of participatory platforms, which allow people affected by a problem to contribute arguments, ideas and concerns to the related debate.
These contributions would have to be organized in a logical, fact-based argument graph that works out the various perspectives on a complex problem and its various implications for diverse kinds of stakeholders.
Working out integrated solutions
Artificial Intelligence could help to organize the arguments, while experienced and trusted people should moderate the process in an unbiased manner.
Once the different arguments and perspectives are clear and possible solutions have been suggested, one should start a round table with key representatives of the different perspectives to work out integrated solutions in an innovative deliberation process.
A vote by the affected people on a “best of” list of integrated solutions should then decide which of the integrated solutions fits the needs of the people in the respective region best. It should then be implemented there.
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Takeaways
... Around the world, many democracies have come about as a response to revolutions and wars.
... Social media have recently increased participatory opportunities, but they also have some drawbacks.
... The creation of collective intelligence requires a good educational system and reliable unbiased information.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
Modern technology has enabled many amazing things but better mass 'understanding' is probably not one of them. Communication may be more and faster, but maybe not so good. Dialog seems to have been hollowed out, and having computer algorithms thinking for you may have unexpected consequences. I have used management data all my life. The data only had value when we were able to understand what it meant and could act accordingly. What does social media mean? My impression is that it 'means' rather little! I see the challenge as being better to understand something more about what it is that constitutes quality of life, and what needs to happen in order for an individual, a family, a community to have a better quality of life. Collective intelligence is interesting, but bad algoriths are dangerous and might be the norm! Social media seems to be too much about me, not to mention wht advertisers want to know about me. A better world needs better understanding about everyone ... and a rebuilding of human community and physical community ... maybe facilitated in some way by virtual assistance, but in the end more about human and physical than digital.
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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Part VII: Principles For a “Golden Age of Prosperity and Peace”
Ethics is not about putting obstacles in people’s way, but about fundamental success principles for a prosperous and peaceful society.
Science, technology and our inventions have allowed us to dominate the Earth and everything that lives on it. By now, we have increasingly understood what the side effects and impacts of our man-made interventions are.
Therefore, it is now time for an ethics that makes us fit for our future.
So, what kind of fundamental values may be guiding us in the densely connected, digital society of the future?
12 fundamental principles
1. Respect: Treat all forms of life respectfully; protect and promote their (mental, psychological and physical) well-being.
2. Diversity and non-discrimination: Support socio-economic diversity and pluralism (also by the ways in which Information and Communications Technologies are designed and operated). Counter discrimination and repression, prioritize rewards over punishment.
3. Freedom: Support the principle of informational self-determination; respect creative freedom (opportunities for individual development) and the freedom of non-intimidating expression.
4. Participatory opportunities: Enable self-determined decisions, offer participatory opportunities and a choice of good options. Ensure to properly balance the interests of all relevant (affected) stakeholders, particularly political and business interests, and those of citizens.
5. Self-organization: Create a framework to support flexible, decentralized, self-organized adaptation, e.g. by using suitable reputation systems.
6. Responsibility: Commit yourself to timely, responsible and sustainable actions (or omissions), by considering their externalities.
7. Quality and awareness: Commit yourself to honest, high-quality information and good practices and standards; support transparency and awareness.
8. Fairness: Reduce negative externalities that are directly or indirectly caused by your own decisions and actions, and fully compensate the disadvantaged parties.
9. Protection: Protect others from harm, damage, and exploitation; refrain from aggressive or war-like activities (including cybercrime, cyberwar, and misuse of information).
10. Resilience: Reduce the vulnerability of systems and increase their resilience (e.g. through decentralization, self-organization and diversity).
11. Sustainability: Promote sustainable systems and long-term societal benefits; increase systemic benefits.
12. Compliance: Engage in protecting and complying with these fundamental principles.
To summarize the above even more briefly, the most important rule is to increase positive externalities, to reduce negative ones, and to be fair.
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Takeaways
... Science, technology and our inventions have allowed us to dominate the Earth and everything that lives on it.
... What kind of fundamental values may be guiding us in the densely connected, digital society of the future?
... The most important rule is to increase positive externalities, to reduce negative ones, and to be fair.
COMMENTARY: Peter Burgess ·
Founder, CEO at TrueValueMetrics.org
This has been an excellent series of essays ... but not so much this one! The reason is simple. It is impossible to summarize what has been written in the series in a useful way. The socio-enviro-economic system is complex and there are somewhere between 7 and 8 billion actors in the system. Most of these actors are nice people who merely want a modest improvement in their quality of life and not to be treated unfairly by anyone. We have amazing technology that would enable this. The system, however, has been using a reward system simply based on the idea that quality of life correlates with more money wealth in a very simplistic way. There is most likely a correlation ... but not a simple one!
I argue that if we improve the measurements used to report progress and performance of the socio-envior-economic system in ways that are relevant to everyone, then everyone will be in a position to make better decisions ... and these in turn will ripple through everything. When consumers buy healthier products, their wellness will improve. When consumers buy sustainable products, the companies that make them will flourish, and others will start to change their behavior. People do have power ... but advertising has pushed people in a lot of wrong directions.
Possibilities are huge ... exciting times.
And thank you
Peter Burgess http://truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess
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