Beyond words – reflections from a 4-day gathering in Svalbard

A few weeks ago I participated in an amazing 4 day gathering of about 100 people from all over the world in Svalbard – way up North.

I was invited by The Aurora Borealis Foundation, a Swedish-Chinese organization, which works to explore ways in which human civilization can adapt to the rapidly changing conditions we live in.

It was one of those occasions where you run out of superlatives. It was very intense, touching, inspiring, scary and beautiful.

I have tried to assemble my reflections in the following page, starting from the in-adequacy of our words to express and capture the challenges we face.

The Svalbard gathering was very much about words. Listening, discussing, and searching for words to create a new narrative from which we can understand our situation and act to pursue a better world.

Given how acute it seems to create change, and how complex the challenges we face are, the words we can come up with may seem inadequate, even banal. Clearly, words alone are not enough to convey the depths of what we are trying to express – it takes music, images, dancing… and action, of course.

Never the less, the language we use is important. Words and categorizations define and delimit our thinking. An important part of the change we need is to move beyond old categories and to re-define some central terms.

Words like ”growth”, ”productivity” and ”development” are losing their usual meaning, changing from positive to negative as more conventional growth increasingly seems like less real growth.

Likewise, in our new narrative, we need to acknowledge that ”value” and ”money” are not the same. Certainly, there is overlap, but much of what it most valuable to us has very little monetary value - like love, community, harmony, joy, trust, or the beauty of nature.

The economy is an immensely powerful engine of creation – but there’s a bug in the operating system: Money is the only value it can measure. The economy is set up to maximize the production of money, and that is what it single-mindedly delivers, even if it means neglecting and destroying other values that give our lives meaning. Now, we must fix the algorithm to make the system create values beyond money. We must demand that, which we really want the economy to produce.

The split between rationality and mystery is another core issue that we lack words to reconcile. Science can wrestle solid facts from the fog of mystery, gradually turning what used to reside in the metaphysical realm into laws of nature, which can be predictably calculated and operationalized. Still, there is always another layer below, which we simply don’t understand.

Compartmentalizing our worldviews into either being atheist or religious seems to prevents us from addressing and seeing the world as it is. Can’t we insist on scientific reasoning and demand hard facts as the basis for thinking and decision making – while remaining in awe of the mystery and beauty of it all? Can’t we have agency and assume our responsibility to act to improve the world around us – yet realize that, ultimately, we are completely at the mercy of much greater powers beyond humans?

The narrative of our future is about co-existing with paradoxes and opposites. We are becoming ever more connected and interdependent. We should see diversity and increased complexity as an enrichment, rather than a threat to our conventions.

Yet, how do we then insist on preserving that, which we will not compromise on? Are all values relative and negotiable – or are there absolutes; values which we know are right and which we will defend without compromise? What is so sacred that you cannot question it? And what shall we do if we find that others do not agree?

The yin/yang symbol beautifully shows how every element carries its opposite within. There is no renewal without destruction, no life without death, no victory without the seeds of future loss. Up and down, round and around. Inching our way up the evolutionary ladder.

Scary, but hopeful, too.

Amazing radio program by Martin Wolf on our economic future

Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, has produced a 43 min. radio program for BBC, which provides a very good and timely overview of some of the deep structural issues that are changing the economy and everybody’s future. The program is titled: "The future is not what it used to be". 

Martin Wolf covers issues such as machines taking over jobs, polarization of income and taxation and redistribution. He draws on an amazing line-up of interviews with the world’s leading economists: Thomas Pikkety, Larry Summers, Robert Stiglitz, Robert Gordon, Eric Brynjolfsson… It goes on and on. It’s hard to think of anyone else who could have produced this program.

Generally, Wolf himself sounds a bit more pessimistic than the experts he interviews.

Jeremy Rifkin on an economy where energy, information and things cost next to nothing

Jeremy Rifkin’s latest book ”The zero marginal cost society” looks at how the economy could change as an increasing part of what we consume is produced in ways, where the marginal cost is near zero. We know that once a piece of information has been produced, it can be copied and distributed for nearly free.

Jeremy Rifkin argues that the same logic will apply to 3D printed physical objects and to renewable energy.

It will be expensive to establish the infrastructure and the machinery for producing and delivering, and it will take investments to design and create the first version of a product – but from there on, all the following copies are essentially free.

As Rifkin writes:

”Like the communications internet where the up-front costs of establishing the infrastructure were considerable, but the marginal cost of producing and distributing information is negligible, the up-front costs of establishing an energy internet are likewise significant, but the marginal cost of producing each unit of solar and wind power is nearly zero. Renewable energy, like information, is nearly free after accounting for the fixed costs of research, development, and deployment”.

Obviously, this completely changes the conventional logic in business:

”As more and more of the foods and services that make up the economic life of society edge towards near zero marginal cost and become almost free, the capitalist market will continue to shrink into more narrow niches where profit-making enterprises survive only at the edges of the economy”, Rifkin writes.

One consequence of this is that the need for human labor to reproduce will be very limited. To be of use, you must create variety and novelty – you can’t make money on the second item.

A lot of people will find it very hard to find employment or earn an income – yet we will live in an era of abundance:

”When the exchange value of producing additional units of a good or service is nearly zero, it means that scarcity has been replaced by abundance. Exchange value becomes useless because everyone can secure much of what they need without having pay for it. The products and service have use and share value but no longer have exchange value”.

In my opinion, Rifkin tends to gloss over the risk of creating an economy in which a very small group of people own the infrastructure, and have the capital and intellectual resources to operate the machinery that delivers at near zero cost. Business will need VERY large-scale operation to get a return on their investment, when every transaction is so small – so the monopoly tendencies are extremely strong.

Only the superstars will be able to make money by creating designs that are so novel, that everyone will want to use them for a small fee.

Rifkin acknowledges the risk, but only in a sketchy way:

”Whether the new potential inherent in the Internet of things infrastructure can be realized will be determined by who finances the platform”.

”The prospect of a new economic infrastructure and paradigm that can reduce marginal costs to near zero makes the private firm, whose very existence depends on sufficient margins to make a profit, less viable. Cooperatives are the only business model that will work in a near zero marginal cost society”.

The solution he points to is cooperatives – however, there’s not much in terms of description of what a plausible type of cooperative. He does link the zero margin cost logic to the explosion of the ”collaborative economy” with sharing, makers, open source and social entrepreneurs exchanging value in new ways.

And I completely agree, that this is perhaps the most important trend pointing the way to an economic model for the 21st. Century.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship to Rifkin. He has a particular knack for sensing new major shifts in the way our societies operate long before most others. He’s very good at big picture thinking, and when he is at his best, he really delivers great vision and insight.

I just wish he wasn’t so pre-occupied with promoting himself and making sure we all understand his magnitude.

Luckily, if you want a quick overview, there’s an excellent podcast where Jeremy Rifkin explains hisideas in a conversation with Paul Saffo. In fact, his ideas seem a lot crisper in this hour-long talk than in the book, which in sections tends to get overly detailed, and to spread out in too many directions.

I strongly recommend starting out with the podcast.

http://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/jeremy-rifkin-are-we-moving-capitalist-collaborative-economy-4914

Hvad vil du leve af, når robotterne overtager dig arbejde?

Jeg anmeldte Brynjolfsson og McAfee's glimrende bog "The Second Machine Age" i Politiken. Den er bestemt værd at læse. Det er et af de store paradokser vi står overfor: Vi udvikler os derhen, hvor vi selv (eller rettere: størstedelen af os) bliver overflødige. 
Det kunne være rart at have en håndfuld troværdige forslag til løsninger.

Video-foredrag om scenarie-metoden

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I forbindelse med “Young Digitals” arrangementet i Sønderborg indspillede jeg fornylig et videoklip, hvor jeg forklarer den grundlæggende metode bag scenarier - et af fremtidsforskningens væsentligste værktøjer. 

I det her tilfælde handler det om at undersøge udsigterne for brugen af teknologi i fremtidens undervisningen, men scenarie-metoden kan bruges til alt mulig andet.