A new technology based vision for the next phase of economic and social organization.
A set of technologies is growing exponentially and simultaneously, with the common characteristic of being decentralized, and organized like a network. This contrasts with the traditional organization, centralized and hierarchical, that characterizes today's society and its basic functions. The consequence of this change will be to subject the Nation State to an unprecedented pressure. It's time to extend the activities around the project Network Society, transforming it from a purely informative approach, such an analysis tool also quantitative and applicability of concrete, to allow individuals, companies and society at large to deal positively with change unstoppable.
A new technology based vision for the next phase of economic and social organization.
A set of technologies is growing exponentially and simultaneously, with the common characteristic of being decentralized, and organized like a network. This contrasts with the traditional organization, centralized and hierarchical, that characterizes today's society and its basic functions. The consequence of this change will be to subject the Nation State to an unprecedented pressure. It's time to extend the activities around the project Network Society, transforming it from a purely informative approach, such an analysis tool also quantitative and applicability of concrete, to allow individuals, companies and society at large to deal positively with change unstoppable.
A new technology based vision for the next phase of economic and social organization.
A set of technologies is growing exponentially and simultaneously, with the common characteristic of being decentralized, and organized like a network. This contrasts with the traditional organization, centralized and hierarchical, that characterizes today's society and its basic functions. The consequence of this change will be to subject the Nation State to an unprecedented pressure. It's time to extend the activities around the project Network Society, transforming it from a purely informative approach, such an analysis tool also quantitative and applicability of concrete, to allow individuals, companies and society at large to deal positively with change unstoppable.
A new technology based vision for the next phase of
economic and social organization David Orban Table of Contents Introduction A set of simultaneous technologies is growing exponentially, with the common feature of being decentralized, and organized in a network. This contrasts with the centralized and hierarchical organization of today's traditional society and its basic functions. The shift from the old to the new structure will subject the Nation State to an unprecedented pressure. The Network Society project creates a vision and analytical tools to allow individuals, enterprises and the society at large to deal positively with this unstoppable change. An inclusive and open collaboration is necessary to achieve the goals of the Network Society. Consequently this manifesto and all materials developed by the Network Society Project, unless otherwise noted, are released under the Creative Commons Attribution license. v4, September 2014
Introduction 1 Objectives 2 Pillars of Change 2 Technology Services And Their Disruptors 2 1. Energy 2 2. Manufacturing 2 3. Food 3 4. Health 3 5. Education 3 6. Finance and Entrepreneurship 3 7. Security 4 8. Policymaking 4 Selected Talks And Presentations 4 Contact Information 5 Change log 5 Copyright notice 5 Network Society Project v4 1 Preparing for the coming social infrastructure phase change Objectives The Network Society project aims to: 1. analyze the reasons for change, 2. teach its nature and its technological basis, 3. collect and monitor the dynamic indicators on its development and 4. stimulate the evolution of individual behavior, business strategies and the adoption of policies consistent with its nature. Pillars of Change What are these technologies and what is the kind of change they represent in detail? The eight pillars of the Network Society, the point of arrival of the phase change of our social organization, are the basic functions of the Nation State now, listed here with the technologies that are revolutionizing and decentralizing them: energy, solar panels manufacturing, 3D printing food, plantlabs and vertical gardens, 3d printing of meat health, Quantied Self education, MOOCs (massive access to online courses) nance, Bitcoin and mathematical currencies security, trust platforms like AirBnB policymaking, open data and direct democracy The Network Society Project involves activities with multiplying effects in ever-widening circles of people and organizations. Represents a set of tools for individuals, businesses and policymakers for the design and implementation of strategies compatible with an accelerating future! Technology Services And Their Disruptors Below is a more in-depth description the eight pillars and how they are transformed from hierarchical and centralized activities to distributed networks. 1. Energy Renewable energy solutions, spreading rapidly rst of all through photovoltaic solar panels, are represented by a decentralized installation organization, as opposed to centralized energy production based on coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear. 2. Manufacturing Network Society Project v4 2 The technology of 3D printing allows to accelerate the design, development and production of increasingly sophisticated and varied objects. Contrary to traditional production systems, increasing the complexity of the object created does not increase the production costs. The added value of a complex object that performs complex functions is then accrued by its designer and not by the manufacturing process and therefore the owner of the means of production. 3. Food Agribusiness green revolutions have allowed us to avoid the most dire predictions of the Club of Rome from the 70s that included, in case of inaction, global famine. The challenge today is to go beyond this and new solutionshydroponics, urban and vertical gardening, and container-based plantlabs with crops lit 22 hours a day, which do not require pesticides transform agriculture from an activity whose output is proportional to the area occupied to one that grows with the volume. It is then possible to feed a growing population while increasing food quality, with a radically smaller environmental impact. 4. Health Monitoring the state of personal health, with mobile apps and increasingly sophisticated sensors, makes customized preventative medicine available to everyone.This is a fundamental contrast to the traditional focus on illness and the disease and its treatment in hospitals. 5. Education The opportunities of modern society are open to all, with barriers to entry that get progressively lower, as long as knowledge is accessible and the ability to put it into practice increases. The schools are in chronically and increasingly late in developing curricula that prepare their students to play an active and useful role in society. The online learning revolution challenges schools at all levels, and universities, disrupting their role and the providing of all the necessary tools for a customized continuing education, driven by passion and value. 6. Finance and Entrepreneurship The mathematical invention of the Blockchain, and its implementation with Bitcoin has revolutionized the world of payments. But even more generally, the explosion of innovative cryptocurrencies and their applications, offers an alternative to central banks, nancial institutions and their products and services. Decentralized, viral, accessible to all, the new world of Bitcoin promises solutions that lead to the emancipation of the individual, and to the increase of creative entrepreneurial initiative. We are already in the implementation phase of insights on how notaries, legal services, and investment and startup funding can be based on a similar algorithmic approach. Network Society Project v4 3 7. Security The exceptional nature of the war is visible by how the attention of the world immediately focuses on the luckily few contemporary examples. External security today is not based on traditional military forces, but it is more that of the e-borders, which are not geographically dened, the sound practices of data management and advanced security. Internal security is fundamentally changing: I do not know you or we have never even met? Do you want my car or my house while I'm on vacation maybe? There is no problem! The only requirement is that we're both on the same car sharing or apartment exchange platform and the network will deal with the verication and reputation management in an incomparably more streamlined and efcient manner than any police force. 8. Policymaking Recursively, because a priori also responsible for the regulation of the activities of the other pillars, new tools are needed to design the transparent discussion, support and implementation of policies at local, regional, national or supranational levels. The limits of representative democracy are evident and our accusations against the politicians are hypocritical: they are simply human beings, faced with challenges that they often do not understand and for whose solutions they are not suitable. New tools and platforms that involve direct participation for increasingly large groups of the population are emerging, putting pressure on traditional systems that are based on more opaque politics. Selected Talks And Presentations Immune Reactions Against The Network Society Singularity University NASA Research Center, CA, USA, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKmCNTcUrlk Creativity, Passion, and Innovation in Banking and Finance - H-ack Bank, H-Farm Venice, Italy, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wieJQkqiRCA Network Society - Login Vilnius, Lithuania, 2014 http://www.slideshare.net/davidorban/network-society-login-2014 http://www.login.lt/conference/speakers?id=232 Human-Machine Coevolution - GALA Miami, USA, 2013 http://www.gala-global.org/gala-2013-miami-keynote-david-orban Network Society Project v4 4 The Coming Societal Phase Change - TEDx Bologna Bologna, Italy, 2012 http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Network-Society-The-Coming-Soci Contact Information Web http://netsoc.org Email info@netsoc.org Facebook facebook.com/netsocproj Twitter twitter.com/netsocproj Change log v4 Updated: logo, contact information. Added: open collaboration paragraph to Introduction, copyright notice, talk at Singularity University. Copyright notice This document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ You are free to: Share copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. Adapt remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms: Attribution You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits. Network Society Project v4 5