The problem with ideas is that they are a dime a dozen. There are many brilliant ideas out there. Implementing ideas, realizing them and getting buy-in are actually what holds most people back. In any given project there are a lot of people who talk, but very few people who actually roll their sleeves up and get things done. I'm pretty guilty of talking a lot! When was the last time I was at SudoRoom on a clean-up day? (smile) If you want to succeed you have to find a way to find people who actually implement things and do things, and find a way to make these things happen in a way that is as or more effective than capitalism's incentives. I think Mass Effect is on the right track. Message: 8 Date: Wed, 05 Feb 2014 00:16:28 -0800 From: GtwoG PublicOhOne <g2g-public01(a)att.net> To: David Keenan <dkeenan44(a)gmail.com> Cc: "sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org" <sudo-discuss(a)lists.sudoroom.org> Subject: [sudo-discuss] Kapital & ideas (long posts), was Re: Sudo! Wanna co-host this surveillance event? Message-ID: <52F1F35C.7020507(a)att.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Agreed, there are times when one has to choose one's fights, and not everyone chooses the same fights at the same times. Looks like we agree about fair use, anonymity, mesh, and the movement for self-ownership of personal data. Fighting back with ideas: Majorly agreed re. "fight back ...with ideas." And "...all the tech in the world won't help if people don't give a hoot because they're too exhausted by the Spectacle-induced trance of capital etc. to care, or don't see why its necessary or in their self-interest." This point is HUGE, and it's rare to find others in the tech universe who get it. Too often we confuse the tools with which we build, and the things we build, with the purposes for which we build. Martin Luther King had a dial phone and a typewriter. He changed the world with the power of his ideas. Today each of us has a supercomputer on our desk and/or in our pocket, and can reach an audience of millions in the time it takes to blow our noses. What we lack is an idea: but not just "an" idea, rather a set of ideas, an ecosystem of ideas that, taken together, open a new view of the world and ourselves in it, and inspire people to think deeply and act courageously. We've inherited a fortune in ideas from all of history, and yet it appears that something is missing, something that could form a bridge over which we can walk from the past and present into the future. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that happiness is not identical with meaning. The Spectacle and the circuses can produce happiness, but what they don't produce is a sense of meaning. Instead we're told, often by our peers, that the most rational view is that life is meaningless, that the universe has no purpose, and that only a religious or romantic fool would believe otherwise. But two NOTs don't make an AND: so what we're left with is a proverbial hole in our soul and nothing to fill it. "The universe is DEAD!" is hardly a rallying cry for sustainability, much less for revolution. ============================= Romy Ilano romy(a)snowyla.com