Sunday, March 19, 2017

Thinking About Another Kind of Reminder System

Two big things, among others of course, going on now are coordinated marketing, and augmentation.
The link below is to a Ted Talk on augmentation, as that is way more sexy.

Coordinated marketing, though, has become so pervasive you almost hardly notice it any more, but just to be clear, that's the thing where, checking out, say, video projectors one place, for whatever reason, suddenly has you see video projector ads on every website you visit there on, until you either buy one, and then you get a subsequent cascade of associated product ads; or, if you don't purchase, maybe the ads change to other kinds of video screens, or VR sets.

People selling ideas, unfortunately, are using great economic clout to use these same coordinated marketing techniques to their advantage. Targeting demographics. Opinions. And then messaging to suggest buying into ways of proceeding more in line with the person, or group, making the investment. And just remember the "net gain" rule involved here. Such people don't make such investments for your benefit. They make them in the full expectation of profitable gain.

What if, in another parallel universe, instead of the money system we have now, the people there chose something like... Well, since it's convenient, like my alternative. I'd like to think that we'd still have something akin to the web we have now, focused, hopefully, a good deal more on the free flow of information for its own sake, of course, but also, at least in the case of the community's sub net, it would be an integral connection system, linking you to the community (ok, starting to get sidetracked here).

Anyways... In the process of going about your day, when you have some free time, and you were perusing items of interest online, and instead of ads you got reminders of not only what you had come to think were ideas, or descriptions, or habits, that would help you stay positive about things; remind you to have hope; remind you to remember the things you do have, as opposed to the things you don't have; reminders of the possible acts you could take to achieve other, broader range goals. And like I said, maybe it's not just what you were thinking might be good ideas, but personal AI assisted suggestions; a personal AI perhaps, that, from birth would keep track of how you did things, how you best succeeded, what made for your biggest difficulties. And what if you, or your parents early on, could control how much it did or didn't help. Just as you could control letting it consult with further, outside sources, to allow for a wide variety of input.

What I'm trying to talk about here is the notion of how we encourage people to get a better inner dialogue going. Of how we create better norms of what makes for good habits in doing everything we do. How do we do that in an ongoing, dynamic way? Keeping it both a personal discussion, as well as a community discussion, because the integration between both must always be ongoing process. And then, of course, how do we integrate the messages into everyday, community life.

I think about things like this and then I think about all of the potential of augmentation and, one way or another, knowing that it will come. Whether we like it or not. Whether it get's implemented in our best interests or not.

I also have to admit in this that my alternative would benefit greatly from even the most rudimentary form of this (having, say, glasses that could be any combination of see through,  or to see in combination with what's in front of you, as well as what truly integrated databases might provide across the depth, and breadth, of human experience, and abstract knowledge. All in real time and, with the right mix of wearable sensors, could make you capable beyond your wildest dreams. At the very least to operate current machines, or perform current tasks, you wouldn't be able to do now otherwise.

Or it could simply be the most cost effective means of social control ever devised. Control, which, given the disproportionate distribution of power now in existence, would not likely to be in your best interests.

What will guide the content of those databases, and what the main intent of the information thus provided by said sources is, ought to be of the utmost importance to you now. We can have augmentation for distraction. Disinformation. Escape. Hating on cue. Loving on Cue. Just to name a few examples. Or we can have it for what would be in the consensus best interest of the community. I believe that we cannot have both.

The choice here is in the hands of all of you. Keep in mind, though, that this may not last a great deal longer. Not only is the manipulation of the process of getting consensus in the first place in danger, our ability to organize effectively to counter the power of money also has a shelf life now. There's probably more than one angle to this but the main one that concerns me now is that the one weapon left to us as peaceful protest may not last. And that is our ability to organize as workers.

This problem concerns more than just an increasingly effective anti union campaign the right has been waging for decades now. It goes to the heart of what being made much less viable, "skill as commodity" wise, as competitors in the marketplaces of skill. A decade or two more and the number of alternatives to replace, or source elsewhere, they will have, even if very large numbers of us strike, will likely allow them to let us starve for as long as it takes to put the movement down.

Please think on this. Become better informed. Ask deeper questions. Take peaceful action.




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