[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] Indexes: Main | Date | Thread | Author

Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Alternative viewpoint on "Tragedy of the Commons"

stephen white wrote:
1EFD3CCE-D41A-11D6-9136-000393774D2C@chariot.net.au"> http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/9/28/22156/1582
Sounds pretty right to me.
I could not agree with the thrust of this article more. The hopelessness that accompanies the loss of "the commons" continues to this day.
See, for example, this recent article in the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/29/national/29POVE.html

Summary:
Enlarge This Image

Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
In Trenches of a War on Unyielding Poverty
By JOHN W. FOUNTAIN
In Pembroke Township, Ill., escape routes to a better life are blocked by the lack of jobs and child care, by geographic isolation, and by hopelessness.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. How succinctly it summarizes the world-historic economic problematic that we are experiencing so acutely. How this seems "the one thing necessary" to correct. [cf. etymologically: commons, communication, communion, communal, commerce, comment, commonsense, etc.]
1EFD3CCE-D41A-11D6-9136-000393774D2C@chariot.net.au"> The sad thing is that the Internet is being transformed from a commons to corporate controlled empires. It's easy to visualize humanity as a herd of sheep contentedly cropping on weeds, but  I think it's more because there's a lack of true direction and money can create that illusion.
Wellk, let's not dispair. Charles S. Peirce says that pessimism is illogical as it stands in the way of inquiry. We have to articulate that "true direction" better and better in the Engelbartian/Peircean-pragmatic sense of counteracting "that illusion." So, THAT'S what we can do (Henry is quite right about this).
1EFD3CCE-D41A-11D6-9136-000393774D2C@chariot.net.au"> I'm firm in my belief that collaboration is the next big thing in humanity's evolution. Collaborative activity is more than just the tools. It's a way of thinking where people are aware of the kinds of tasks that are better done by groups than by single people.
(I completely agree. See, for example,  the work of Aldo de Moor on this.)

I must immediately note the obvious: This evolutionary collaboration is clearly of the greatest interest to all those, like Jack and Henry, who are optimally responsive to Doug Engelbart's work, as well as to all authentic Peirceans, such as Mary Keeler, the founder of PORT, and John Sowa, the inventor of Conceptual Graphs (after Peirce's Existential Graphs). In Europe this line of thought is developed to an extent (but not evolutionarily IMO) by Karl-Otto Apel and Jurgen Habermas). Aldo de Moor's work springs from this Continental influence, although I have seen him become more and more an Engelbartian.
1EFD3CCE-D41A-11D6-9136-000393774D2C@chariot.net.au"> The way I visualize this to myself is to imagine if I was back in the 1600's trying to comprehend "scientific thinking". The process of logical thought is just one of many ways of thinking about things and the only reason we bother with this specific pattern is because it generates results.
And here I would direct us all to Peircean--and all truly scientific- inquiry methods and processes.. We ought want to optimize inquiry in the direction of the truth that is congruent with reality as we see it to be. This is clearly no personal matter, but one which ought engage the community of inquiry in relation to that reality--which is what it is whether you or I or anyone else imagines it to be or not (Peircean formulation).

Touching upon THAT together gives reason for hope IMHO.

Thank you Stephen for elevating further this line of inquiry. I imagine that your contribution will tend towards the optimal.

Gary


--
  spwhite@chariot.net.au



stephen white wrote:
1EFD3CCE-D41A-11D6-9136-000393774D2C@chariot.net.au"> http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2002/9/28/22156/1582

Sounds pretty right to me.

The sad thing is that the Internet is being transformed from a commons to corporate controlled empires. It's easy to visualise humanity as a herd of sheep contentedly cropping on weeds, but  I think it's more because there's a lack of true direction and money can create that illusion.

I'm firm in my belief that collaboration is the next big thing in humanity's evolution. Collaborative acitivity is more than just the tools. It's a way of thinking where people are aware of the kinds of tasks that are better done by groups than by single people.

The way I visualise this to myself is to imagine if I was back in the 1600's trying to comprehend "scientific thinking". The process of logical thought is just one of many ways of thinking about things and the only reason we bother with this specific pattern is because it generates results.

--
  spwhite@chariot.net.au