for - progress trap - Rome - lead poisoning

for + progress trap - traffic fumes - Alzheimer's

entbürgerlichung - purging bourgeois elements

verkameradshaftung - comradeship

volkwerdung - the making of the people

Aufartung durch Ausmerzung - improvement through exclusion.

das lager - the training community camps for german children

brah

sunk-cost fallacy-- they put so much investment into this, they can't back out

giving people who had never had the opportunity to travel-- of course theyre gonna support your regime if it gives them perks. for all accounts this seems like a great deal for germans if you discount the ethnic cleansing happening in the bg

consider the mobilization of memory in propaganda

counter to the argument made in the chapter, many workers under the nazi regime did not feel as though enough progress was being made

ordinary civilians take on leadership positions -- social mobility, chances to move up the ladder. even if not personally aligned w nazi ideology, pretty good choice to work under them in order to boost your standing. plus boosts patriotism

machbarkeitswahn - the possibility of achieving something / making change

for - progress trap - sexually explicit AI deepfake - Taylor Swift - sexually explicit AI deepfake

for - progress trap - tires - micro plastic p pollution

for - nature-based carbon sequestration - reestablish whale populations - Nate Hagen - The Great Simplification - David King - climate crisis - solutions - progress trap - overfishing - whales

for - progress trap - micro plastic in bottled water

• for: canonical unit, collaborative commons - missing part - open learning commons, question - process trap - natural capital

• comment

  • in this context, indyweb and Indranet are not the canonical unit, but then, it seems the model is fundamentally missing the functionality provided but the Indyweb and Indranet, which is and open learning system.
  • without such an open learning system that captures the essence of his humans learn, the activity of problem-solving cannot be properly contextualised, along with all of limitations leading to progress traps.
  • The entire approach of posing a problem, then solving it is inherently limited due to the fractal intertwingularity of reality.

• question: progress trap - natural capital

  • It is important to be aware that there is a real potential for a progress trap to emerge here, as any metric is liable to be abused

• annotate
• for: AI - progress trap, technology - colonialism

• for: progress trap - urgent need for a new science

• comment

  • Science and technology are constantly producing progress traps. Climate crisis is a major example, but there are so many other. We really and urgently need to motivate for a new field of study of progress traps in general.

• for: example - progress trap - AI - mistranslation

• for: progress trap -AI, carbon footprint - AI, progress trap - AI - bias, progress trap - AI - situatedness

• for: quote - Marjorie Kelly, quote - finacialization, progress trap - financialization, progress trap - capitalism, speculative investing

• quote: Marjorie Kelly

  • we're not in the economy of the 1950s anymore.
  • And we act as though we are, that finance is this productive force and it's building, it's building wealth.
  • Well, for the most part, it's not.
  • There's so much financialization, so many financial assets, that they've become an extractive force.
    • And a big piece of this is that we're not really distinguishing between
      • productive investments and
      • speculative investments

• for: progress trap - green growth - nickel mining - evicting uncontacted tribe

• progress trap: green growth - mining

  • Capitalist logic justifies this violence
  • We destroy the earth in order to save the earth
  • Question
    • Is this really the way we should be doing things?
    • Is the green growth agenda really going to keep humanity safe? Or will the unintended consequences, the progress trap be worse than the problem it is attempting to solve?

• for: progress trap, Inner Development Goals, SoNeC, SRG Mapping Tool

• comment

  • nice! (emoji: pleasant surprise) I wonder if Ferial or Joseph gave some inputs here, or was the SoNeC team already familiar with progress traps?
  • SRG mapping tool and Deep Humanity are designed to reveal complexity emerging from multiple, diverse perspectives mapped together so can compliment SoNeC application of Inner Development Goals

• for: definition - Kaizen, progress

• definition: Kaizen:

  • good change or improvement = progress
  • It's still subject to progress traps

• for: progress trap - economic

Video Title: Taking notes from YouTube videos in Obsidian

Various ways and plugins to annotate or take notes on videos (e.g. YouTube) in Obsidian

Audio notes? How?

• for: quote - Yuval Noah Harari - AI progress trap, progress trap - AI, quote - progress trap

• quote it is extremely dangerous to create such an autonomous agent when we do not know how to control it, when we can't ensure that it will not escape our control ad start making decisions and creating new things which will harm us instead of benefit us

• author: Yuval Noah Harari
• date 2023

• for: example - stupid AI - nuclear launch, AI - progress trap - example - nuclear launch

• for: quote - Thomas Homer-Dixon, quote - danger of AI, AI progress trap

• quote: danger of AI

  • I think the most dangerous thing about AI is not super smart AI, it's stupid AI that is good enough to be put in charge of certain processes but not good enough to not make really bad mistakes
• author: Thomas Homer-Dixon
• date: 2021

• for: progress trap

• progress trap: speed of vaccination

  • If the vaccine was imperfect and caused harm, it could have caused harm to 40% of three population in a short period of time.
  • the shorter the time for something to spread globally, the faster unintended consequence can spread and cause harm

• for: definition - enough vs feasible dilemma, double bind, progress trap

• definition: enough vs feasible dilemma

  • the changes that are actually required are not feasible to do
  • what is feasible to do is not enough
  • this puts us in a double bind
  • we need to have interventions that are BOTH
    • enough to solve these problems and are
    • feasible to execute

• for: progress trap - Kevin Anderson

• validation: SRG mapping tool, Indyweb

reply to u/FusRoDaahh at https://www.reddit.com/r/commonplacebook/comments/188j2xt/getting_over_the_fear_of_perfection/

I had this problem too, but eventually switched to keeping my commonplace entirely on index cards, which also allows me to move them around and re-arrange them as necessary or when useful. (It also fixed some of my indexing problems.)

The side benefit is that if I botch a single card, no sweat, just pull out a new one and start over! If you like the higher end stationery scene afforded in notebooks, then take a look at Clairfontaine's bristol cards from Exacompta which are lush and come in a variety of sizes, colors, and rulings. (They're roughly equivalent to the cost per square meter of paper you'll find in finer notebooks like Leuchtturm, Hobonichi, Moleskine, etc., though some of the less expensive index cards still do well with many writing instruments.) Most of their card sizes are just about perfect for capturing the sorts of entries that one might wish to commonplace.

Once you've been at it a while, if you want to keep up with the luxe route that some notebook practices allow, then find yourself a classy looking box to store them all in to make your neighbors jealous. My card indexes bring me more joy than any notebook ever did.

When penmanship becomes a problem, then you can fix it by printing your cards, or (even better in my opinion), typing them on your vintage Smith-Corona Clipper.

And of course the first thing one could type out on their first card and file it at the front where you can see it every day:

"Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien" (The better is the mortal enemy of the good).<br /> — Montesquieu, in Pensées, 1726

aka "Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good."

• for: progress trap - free market, example - government policy - why it's needed

• for: Progress trap - mouthwash, mouthwash - blood pressure

• for: example - complexity - automobile, example - progress trap - automobile

this is a good start at a definition of teaching

• for: progress trap, moloch - progress trap, progress trap - Moloch
• comment
  • This explanation leaves out one variable that defines the progress trap
    • https://hyp.is/6Lb6Uv5NEe2ZerOrftOHfA/www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/321797-a-short-history-of-progress

• for: progress trap

• comment

  • this is similar to the Deep Humanity, contextual preamble that introduces progress traps.

• for: holism, progress trap, double bind, SDG failure

• comment

  • In the current silo'd approach typified by the SDGs, unintended consequences, or progress traps are unavoidable and are built into the approach itself.

• for: definition, definition - double bind

• definition: double bind

  • the definition of a double bind is that you have a problem (a bind) in one context and you can't actually solve it in that context because it's caught in another context
  • Gregory Bateson defined the double bind as an evolutionary trait of species due to their changing nature.
    • Since individuals of a species are constantly changing, there comes a day when all that it knows what to do in order to survive is outdated due to the changing environment. When it repeats the old behavior that served its survival in the past, it dies.

• comment

  • adjacency
    • between
      • double bind
      • progress trap
  • adjacency statement
    • progress traps are related to double binds because in a progress trap, an implemented solution to a problem in one context gives rise to a new problem in another context.
    • the original problem (bind) in one context appears to be resolvable but actual isn't. Future unfolding of the implemented solution unfold a future unexpected problem.
    • The two problems are not simultaneously occurring as in a double bind, but time-delayed
    • both double bind and progress traps emerge from the same root of violating holism
    • in not grasping the implications of the emptiness of phenomena, we ignore intertwingled nature of reality, we circumvent Indra's meet of jewels at our own peril

• for: polycrisis, quote, quote - polycrisis, quote - Nora Bateson

• quote

  • every time we pick at one piece of those polycrisis we end up actually creating more problems in other contexts

• author: Nora Bateson

• example

  • climate change If we do, all emissions suddenly, we will create an economic crisis, then without money, a health and social crisis

• for: metacrisis framework, progress trap - metacrisis sensemaking

• comment

  • progress trap framing would help provide an overarching sensemaking framework

• for: progress trap, progress trap - climate change - zombie virus

• for: progress trap, progress trap - AI, progress trap - AI - writing research papers

• comment

  • potential fakes
    • climate science fakes by big oil think tanks
    • Covid and virus research
    • race issues
    • gender issues

• for: instant evolution, AI - instant evolution, progress trap, progress trap - AI - instant evolution, progress trap - robotics

• for: synthetic biology, progress trap - synthetic biology

• for: progress trap, progress trap - AI

• for: progress trap, progress trap - Aza Raskin, progress trap - internet, quote, quote - Aza Raskin, quote - progress trap, quote - progress trap - internet

• quote

  • Unless you've felt it, unless you've cried over the fact that we really thought we were making the world a better place with the internet... We 100 per cent believed that.

for: quote, quote Aza Raskin, quote - progress, quote - scientific progress and expanding perception

• quote
  • science progresses generally not because of a thing that we see
  • but because we increase our ability to perceive
• author
• Aza Raskin
• date: 2023

Watch the scale and scope of what you're doing. If you read a book and make a hundred highlights and small notes, DO NOT attempt to turn all of these into permanent notes. You might fell like that is the thing to do, but resist it. A large portion are small things or potentially useful facts that you'll likely never use again or would easily remember, particularly once you've read a whole book.

Find the much smaller subset (5-10% or less of the overall total of notes and highlights as a ballpark rule of thumb) of the most interesting and potentially long term useful ones, and turn those into your permanent notes. Anything beyond this is sure to cause overwhelm. Also don't think that your permanent notes need to be spectacular, awesome, or even bordering on "perfect". They just need to be useful enough for you.

If you own the books or keep your brief notes and highlights written down and need them in the future, you'll still have those to search/find and do something with later as a backstop just in case.

• for: annotate, annotate - social media, progress trap - social media

• source: connectathon 2023 09 23

  • session on social media

• for: unintended consequences, progress trap, progress trap - toothpaste, progress trap - fluoride

• for: progress trap, progress trap - REP, progress trap - Renewable Energy Prosumerism

-progress trap - commercialization - exclusion - instrumentation - projectification - Responsibilization and overburdening - Hidden systemic repurcussions

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, progress trap - new life forms, progress trap - bioengineering
• comment
  • this opens up a big can of worms. A general theory of progress traps (https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=progress+trap) is urgently needed to systematically study the unintended consequences of progress.

• for: progress trap, AI, AI - care drive
• comment
  • the precautionary principle needs to be observed with AI because it has such vast artificial cognitive, pattern-recognition processes at its disposal
  • AI will also make mistakes, but the degree of power behind the mistaken decision, recommendation or action is the degree of unintended consequences or progress trap
  • An example nightmare scenario could be:
    • AI could decide that humans are contradicting their own goal of a stable climate system and if it's in control, may think it knows better and perform whole system change that dramatically reduces human induced climate change but actually harms a lot of humans in the process, for reaching the goal of saving the climate system plus a sufficient subset of humans to start all over.

• for: progress trap, progress trap - atomic bomb

• for: cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, CCE, bioengineering, novel life form, culturally evolved life, bioethics, progress trap, progress trap - bioengineering, progress trap - genetic engineering
• comment
  • cultural evolution, which itself emerges from biological evolution is acting upon itself to create new life forms that have no evolutionary backstory
  • this is tantamount to playing God
  • progress traps often emerge out of the large speed mismatch between cultural and biological/genetic evolution.
  • Nowhere is this more profound than in bioengineering of new forms of life with no evolutionary history
  • This presents profound ethical challenges

• for: progress trap, red fire ants, fire ants, progress trap - shipping, unintended consequences, unintended consequences - shipping

• paraphrase

  • Fire ants would be devastating if released in continental Europe and even more all around the Mediterranean Sea.
  • The cost for human economies and well-being would be enormous. Where they have been invasive, they have:
    • displaced native ant and other species
    • damage electrical equipment
  • A genetic analysis of the Italian ants suggests they likely came from either China or the United States.
  • In the U.S., the species causes an estimated $6 billion in damage each year.
  • The insects spread internationally via shipping, especially of plants and soil.
  • Red fire ants have been detected in imported products in Spain, Finland, and the Netherlands, but not as wild colonies.

• for: dualism, dualism - psychology, unintended consequences, unintended consequences - dualism in psychology, progress trap, progress trap - dualism in psychology

• paraphrase

  • The dualism of scientific materialism gives rise to one-person psychologies
    • and are arguably complicit in much of the psychological and social damage we are now recognising.
  • For instance, a good deal of the historical denial of the role of psychological and social trauma has been traced
    • back to the Freudian model’s almost exclusive focus on the internal world;
      • the actual impact of others and society has been, as a result, relatively ignored.
  • Modern psychiatry, which accepts the same philosophical model but changes the level of explanation, is just as culpable.
  • Likewise CBT, with its focus on dysfunctional thought patterns and rational remedies administered from the outside, also follows the same misguided philosophy.

• question

  • what are concrete ways this has caused harm?
• future work
  • perform literature review on case studies where Winnicott's approach has been a more constructive therapeutic one

for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - Elon Musk, progress trap - Elon Musk - comment - the US military, Ukraine military have to deal with the unintended consequence of a vital communication system that can be turned off without notice or warning - what if Putin calls up Musk and says to him: - If you don't turn the Starlink off when Ukraine tries to mount major attack on Crimea, I will launch my nukes - What will Musk do then?

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, playing God, Elon Musk - Starlink - Ukraine, Elon Musk- Crimea, Elon Musk - nuclear war, quote, quote - Elon Musk - nuclear war - starlink - crimea
• quote
  • How am I in this war?
  • Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars.
  • It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.
• author: Elon Musk
• comment
  • the Tech genius could not predict the progress trap of starlink being used by the Ukrainian army to send submarine drones to blow up Russian ships
  • so he was forced into a position of playing God

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, nuclear war, Elon Musk - Ukraine, playing God

• comment

  • Here, Elon Musk demonstrates how the most powerful technological leaders are themselves unable to predict the unintended consequences of progress.
  • This story exposes the power that no tech titan is immune to
    • making one dimensional decisions based on high dimensional information whose salient relationships can not be predicted ahead of time.
  • The dilemma of power - it is opaque and puts the fate of humanity in the decision of a few God-like individuals
  • Do 8 billion people really trust one man to decide the fate of civilization?
  • And yet, this is the kind of world that those in power continue to reify by consolidating their positions
  • The myth of dictators wanting to hold onto power at all costs goes beyond the sphere of politics

• for: debt trap, economic colonialism, progress trap, JETP, UETP, Invesitgate, investigate - JETP
• progress trap
  • in building out renewable infrastructure, these loans and grants may further increase debt to disenfranchised countries
  • then it is no longer Just energy transition but becomes Unjust Energy Transition Partnerships (UETP)
  • if not done right, JETP can turn into UETP
  • This definitely requires further investigation!
• investigate
  • whether JETP are REALLY JUST!

• for: fossil capitalism, progress trap, intersectionality, social norms, social norms - waste, externalization, capitalism

• title

  • Waves of Abandonment
    • The Permian Basin is ground zero for a billion-dollar surge of zombie oil wells

• summary

  • a story that illustrates the intersectionality of fossil capitalism
    • progress trap
    • exploitation
    • tragedy of the commons
    • fossil fuel industry
    • gold rush
    • externalization
    • fossil capitalism

• Comment

  • Yet another example of capitalism's tendency to externalize manifests at the most basic level.
  • The tendency to treat nature as an inexhaustable garbage dumping ground seems to be built into our culture's economic norms taught to us by most parents and society at large.
  • There are not enough parents that teach their children to love, respect and feel that they are an intrinsic part of nature.
  • The externalization our society teaches us in the form of destructive, widely-accepted social norms of waste such as::
    • having the concept of waste and garbage
    • garbage taken out once a week
    • waste bins everywhere
    • keep our backyard clean, but at the expense of trucking out our garbage to some unknown place
  • has been enculturated into us from early age

Making things messy from the start as advice for getting started.

I've seen this before in other settings, particularly in starting new notebooks. Some have suggested scrawling on the first page to get over the idea of perfection in a virgin notebook. I also think I've seen Ton Ziijlstra mention that his dad would ding every new car to get over the new feeling and fear of damaging it. Get the damage out of the way so you can just move on.

The fact that a notebook is damaged, messy, or used for the smallest things may be one of the benefits of a wastebook. It averts the internal need some may find for perfection in their nice notebooks or work materials.

• for: misinformation, disinformation, fake news, quote, quote - Greg Shatan, quote - misinformation, progress trap - misinformation, progress trap - digital technology, indyweb - support
• quote
  • The instinctual BS-meter is not enough.
  • The next version of the ‘BS-meter’ will need to be technologically based.
  • The tricks of misinformation have far outstripped the ability of people to reliably tell whether they are receiving BS or not
• author: Greg Shatan
  • lawyer, Moses & Singer LLP
    • not to mention that it requires a constant state of vigilance that’s exhausting to maintain.
  • I think that the ability and usefulness of the web to enable positive grassroots civic communication will be harnessed,
    • moving beyond mailing lists and fairly static one-way websites.

• for: gig economy, progress trap, unintended consequence, quote, quote - unintended consequence, quote - progress trap, quote James Mickens
• quote
  • the gig economy is enabled by technology;
  • technology finds buyers for workers and their services.
  • However, given the choice between
    • an economy with many gig workers and
    • an economy with an equivalent number of traditional middle-class jobs,
  • I think that most people would prefer the latter.
• author: James Mickens
  • associate professor of computer science, Harvard University

• for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, unintended consequence, quotation - unintended consequence
• quote
  • Technology and social innovation intended to overcome the negatives of the digital age
    • will likely cause additional negative consequences. Examples include:
      • the decentralized web,
      • end-to-end encryption,
      • AI and machine learning,
      • social media.
• author: Larry Masinter -internet pioneer, formerly with Adobe, AT&T Labs and Xerox PARC, who helped create internet and web standards with IETF and W3C

• for: progress trap, unintended consequences, Indyweb - justifiication
• description
  • a great source of quotations by thought leaders on the unintended consequences of technology,
    • in other words, progress traps
• comment
  • also a lot of rich material to justify the Indyweb's design ethos

• for: progress trap, quote, quote - progress trap, quote Brian Southwell, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International

• quote

  • We are likely to make some gains in personal health, are likely to face some collective concerns in terms of environmental health and
  • are not likely to cope with the alienation and despair that is a part of a life lived largely online.
  • In the latter case, there is a disconnect between the long period of evolution that honed our humanity and
  • the short period of rapid technology change we are facing.

• author: Brian Southwell

  • director, Science in the Public Sphere Program, RTI International

• for: quote, quote - Stowe Boyd, quote - progress trap, quote - unintended consequences, unintended consequences, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap
• quote:
  • Technological change is an accelerant and acts on the social ills like pouring gasoline on a fire
• author: Sowe Boyd
  • consulting futurist on technological evolution and the future of work
• paraphrase
  • In an uncontrolled hyper-capitalist society,
    • the explosion in technologies over the past 30 years has only
      • widened inequality,
      • concentrated wealth and
      • led to greater social division.
    • And it is speeding up with the rise of artificial intelligence,
      • which like globalization has destabilized Western industrial economies while admittedly pulling hundreds of millions elsewhere out of poverty.
  • And the boiling exhaust of this set of forces is pushing the planet into a climate catastrophe. -The world is as unready for hundreds of millions of climate refugees as it was for the plague.
  • However, some variant of social media will likely form the context for the rise of a global movement to stop the madness
    • which I call the Human Spring
  • which will be more like
    • Occupy or
    • the Yellow Vests
  • than traditional politics.
  • I anticipate a grassroots movement
    • characterized by
      • general strikes,
      • political action,
      • protest and
      • widespread disruption of the economy
    • that will confront the economic and political system of the West.
  • Lead by the young, ultimately this will lead to large-scale political reforms, such as
    • universal health care,
    • direct democracy,
    • a new set of rights for individuals and
    • a large set of checks on the power of
      • corporations and
      • political parties.
  • For example,
    • eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns,
    • countering monopolies and
    • effectively accounting for economic externalities, like carbon.

-for: quote, quote - Jennifer Jarratt, quote - progress trap, progress trap, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, quote - unintended consequences, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap - quote: with new technologies come new crimes and criminals – opportunities for all! - author: Jennifer Jarratt - co-principal of Leading Futurists LLC

• for: quote, quote - Robert Epstein, quote - search engine bias,quote - future of democracy, quote - tilting elections, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
  • The big tech companies, left to their own devices , have already had a net negative effect on societies worldwide.
  • At the moment, the three big threats these companies pose
    • aggressive surveillance,
    • arbitrary suppression of content,
      • the censorship problem, and
    • the subtle manipulation of
      • thoughts,
      • behaviors,
      • votes,
      • purchases,
      • attitudes and
      • beliefs
    • are unchecked worldwide
• author: Robert Epstein
  • senior research psychologist at American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology
• paraphrase
  • Epstein's organization is building two technologies that assist in combating these problems:
    • passively monitor what big tech companies are showing people online,
    • smart algorithms that will ultimately be able to identify online manipulations in realtime:
      • biased search results,
      • biased search suggestions,
      • biased newsfeeds,
      • platform-generated targeted messages,
      • platform-engineered virality,
      • shadow-banning,
      • email suppression, etc.
  • Tech evolves too quickly to be managed by laws and regulations,
    • but monitoring systems are tech, and they can and will be used to curtail the destructive and dangerous powers of companies like Google and Facebook on an ongoing basis.
• reference
  • seminar paper on monitoring systems, ‘Taming Big Tech -: https://is.gd/K4caTW.

• for: progress traps, progress, unintended consequences, technology - unintended consequences, unintended consequences - technology, unintended consequences - digital technology, progress trap - quotations, quote, quote - progress trap
• title: Experts Predict More Digital Innovation by 2030 Aimed at Enhancing Democracy
• authors: emily A Vogels, Lee Rainie, Janna Anderson
• year: June 30, 2020
• description: a good source of quotations on progress traps / unintended consequences of digital technology from this Pew Research 2020 report on the future of the digital technology and democracy.
  • the Pew Research Center interviewed a lot of experts in the field
  • in particular, section 5 of the report entitled
    • "Tech causes more problems than it can solve" is quite salient for the topic of progress traps
  • The Indyweb actually addresses many of these problems:
    • https://opencollective.com/open-learning-commons/projects/indy-learning-commons

• for: quote, quote - Barry Chudakov, quote - progress trap, progress trap, cultural evolution, technology - futures, futures - technology, progress trap, indyweb - support, future - education
• quote
• paraphrase
  • Technology’s greatest contribution to social and civic innovation in the next decade
  • will be to provide
    • accurate, user-friendly context and
    • honest assessment of
      • issues,
      • problems and
      • potential solutions / comment - indyweb /
  • We are facing greater accelerations of
    • climate change,
    • social mobility,
    • pollution,
    • immigration and
    • resource issues.
  • Our problems have gone from complicated to wicked.
  • We need
    • clear answers and
    • discussions that are
      • cogent,
      • relevant and
      • true to facts.
  • Technology must guard against becoming a platform to enable targeted chaos,
  • that is, using technology as a means to
    • obfuscate and
    • manipulate.
  • We are all now living in Sim City:
  • The digital world is showing us a sim,
    • or digital mirror,
  • of each aspect of reality.
  • The most successful social and civic innovation I expect to see by 2030
  • is a massive restructuring of our educational systems based on new and emerging mirror digital worlds. / comment: This bodes well for Indyweb for education/
  • We will then need to expand our information presentations to include
    • verifiable factfulness that ensures any digital presentation faithfully and
    • accurately matches the physical realities.
  • Just as medicine went from
    • bloodletting and leeches and lobotomies to
    • open-heart surgery and artificial limbs,
  • technology will begin to modernize information flows around core issues: urgent need, future implications, accurate assessment.
  • Technology can play a crucial role to move humanity
    • from blame fantasies
    • to focused attention and working solutions.”

• for: corporate power, technology - capitalism, capitalism - exploitation, Danah Boyd, progress trap
• paraphrase
• quote
  • technology in the U.S. is caught up in American late-stage (or financialized) capitalism
    • where profitability isn’t the goal;
    • perpetual return on investment is.
  • Given this, the tools that we’re seeing developed by corporations
  • reinforce capitalist agendas.
  • Innovation will require pushing past this capitalist infrastructure to achieve the social benefits and civic innovation that will work in the United States.
  • China is a whole other ball of wax.
  • If you want to go there, follow up with me. But pay attention to Taobao centers.
  • We haven’t hit peak awful yet.
  • I have every confidence that social and civic innovation can be beneficial in the long run
    • with a caveat that I think that climate change dynamics might ruin all of that
  • but no matter what, I don’t think we’re going to see significant positive change by 2030.
  • I think things are going to get much worse before they start to get better.
  • I should also note that I don’t think that many players have taken responsibility for what’s unfolding. -Yes, tech companies are starting to see that things might be a problem,
    • but that’s only on the surface. -News media does not at all acknowledge its role in amplifying discord,
    • or its financialized dynamics.
  • The major financiers of this economy don’t take any responsibility for what’s unfolding. Etc.
• author: Dana Boyd
  • principal researcher, Microsoft Research
  • founder, Data & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Doc Searls
• quote
  • What won’t change is people’s tendency toward gossip,
    • tribalism driven by gossip and the ability of anybody to inform anybody else about anything,
      • including wrongly.
  • The only places where news won’t skew fake will be localities in the natural world.
  • That’s where the digital and the physical connect best.
  • Also expect the internet to break into pieces, with
    • the U.S.,
    • Europe and
    • China
  • becoming increasingly isolated by different value systems and governance approaches toward
    • networks and
    • what runs on them.

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - David Weinberger
• quote: I see no reason to think that the current situation will change:
  • Tech will cause problems that require innovative solutions and
  • tech will be part of those solutions.
  • Machine learning (ML) is right now an example of this
• author: David Weinberger
  • senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, unintended consequence - digital technology, quote, quote - progress trap, quote - Jonathan Grudin
• quote: Can our fundamental human need for close community be restored or
  • will we become more isolated, anxious and susceptible to manipulation?
• author: Jonathan Grudin
  • principal researcher, Microsoft

• for: quote, quote - Esther Dyson, quote - progress trap, quote - progress traps, progress trap,
• quote: "If tech doesn’t contribute to solving some of the problems it creates, we are doomed"
• author: Esther Dyson
  • internet pioneer
  • journalist
  • entrepreneur
  • executive founder of Way to Wellville

• for: progress, progress trap, exponential growth - knowledge, exponential growth - technology, technology - exponential growth, US patents, patents, intellectual property -description: GIF graph of US patents from the start in 1825 to 2021

• for: transition, transition - energy, progress, progress traps
• title: The Energy Transition Is a Technological Revolution — with a Deadline
• subtitle: What historical transitions — from water wheels to semiconductors — can teach us about today’s energy transition.
• authors
  • Yuki Numata
  • Laurens Speelman
• date: Aug 10, 2023
• source: https://rmi.org/the-energy-transition-is-a-technological-revolution-with-a-deadline/

• for: progress trap, cumulative cultural evolution, gene-culture co-evolution, speed of cultural evolution, human genome project
• paraphrase
  • the human genome project took 10 years and cost 3 billion dollars
  • with NGS technology, 10 years later, the same job takes 1 day and costs $15,000 dollars

• for: indyweb, silos, emptiness - example, entanglement - example, progress trap
• paraphrase
• quote
  • all the problems I've mentioned are being tackled by groups of people
  • sad thing is those people are often operating in silos just concerned to solve their particular problem
    • not realizing that if they don't have the whole picture they may solve their problem
    • and cause problems in other places
• author
  • Jane Goodall
• comment
  • the Indyweb and SRG strategy is designed specifically to mitigate progress traps through radical collaboration built into the communication and information system itself.

• for: progress trap, sense of lack, the lack project, collective lack project, individual lack project
• key insight
  • progress, and the shadow side, the progress trap
  • is the collective lack project, that corresponds to the individual's lack project

• for: for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power, gene culture coevolution
• key finding
  • paraphrase
    • In AET,
      • multi-level selection acting on the genome and
      • occurring in concert with selective and non-selective mechanisms acting on culture and technology
    • results in a species that is prone to
      • niche construction and
      • ecosystem engineering,
    • and the scale of these processes continues to increase as the population rises.
    • This increasing scale
      • coupled with human propensity for niche construction
    • leads to human unsustainability

• for: ecological collapse, overshoot, progress trap, progress trap - cultural evolution, ultra-sociality, Lotka's maximum power
• paraphrase
  • to Gowdy and Krall, the ultra-social nature of human groups allowed for a shift in the primary level of selection
    • from the individual level
    • to the group level.
  • Thus, “With the transition to agriculture the group as an adaptive unit comes to constitute a wholly different gestalt
    • driven by the imperative to produce surplus

• for: AET, Anthroecological theory, anthropocene - causes, ecological crisis - roots, overshoot
• paraphrase
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) hypothesizes that
    • human social and cultural evolution is the ultimate cause of the ecological crises currently damaging earth systems

• for: gene culture coevolution, carrying capacity, unsustainability, overshoot, cultural evolution, progress trap

• Title: The genetic and cultural evolution of unsustainability

• Author: Brian F. Snyder

• Abstract

• Summary
• Paraphrase
  • Anthropogenic changes are accelerating and threaten the future of life on earth.
  • While the proximate mechanisms of these anthropogenic changes are well studied
    • climate change,
    • biodiversity loss,
    • population growth
  • the evolutionary causality of these anthropogenic changes have been largely ignored.
  • Anthroecological theory (AET) proposes that the ultimate cause of anthropogenic environmental change is
    • multi-level selection for niche construction and ecosystem engineering.
  • Here, we integrate this theory with
    • Lotka’s Maximum Power Principle
  • and propose a model linking
    • energy extraction from the environment with
    • genetic, technological and cultural evolution
  • to increase human ecosystem carrying capacity.
  • Carrying capacity is partially determined by energetic factors such as
    • the net energy a population can acquire from its environment and
    • the efficiency of conversion from energy input to offspring output.
  • These factors are under Darwinian genetic selection
  • in all species,
  • but in humans, they are also determined by
    • technology and
    • culture.
  • If there is genetic or non-genetic heritable variation in
    • the ability of an individual or social group
  • to increase its carrying capacity,
  • then we hypothesize that - selection or cultural evolution will act - to increase carrying capacity.
  • Furthermore, if this evolution of carrying capacity occurs - faster than the biotic components of the ecological system can respond via their own evolution,
    • then we hypothesize that unsustainable ecological changes will result.

• for cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson,
• comment
  • Freeman Dyson opines that cultural evolution of humans now determines the genetic fate of all species on the planet
    • and gives a warning of how human cumulative cultural evolution now has the potential to threaten, via genetic sciences to play God over biology itself -reference
  • Musician Yoyo Ma quotes Freeman:
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdocdrop.org%2Fvideo%2F2fBmGXqHvk8%2F&group=world

• for: cultural evolution, cumulative cultural evolution, speed of cultural evolution, progress trap, Freeman Dyson, Anthropocene
• comment
  • while Freeman spoke to the direct dangers of genetic engineering,
    • he neglected to point out the broader threat of progress itself, which has already placed our species in the position
      • of playing God with the evolution of many species on the planet already, via the enormous impacts of organized human activity - ie. the Anthropocene

• for: human impacts, MET, major evolutionary transition, progress trap, human responsibility to life, CCE, cumulative cultural evolution, playing God
• comment
  • Very true, in fact our species is in the unprecedented position that
  • human activity, and specifically our cumulative cultural evolution (CCE) now determines the biological / genetic evolutionary future not only of our own species, but of all life on earth.
  • In other words, of evolution itself! -This is an awkward position as we have nowhere near the wisdom to play God and determine the future direction of evolution!
• References
  • Cumulative Cultural Evolution
    • https://jonudell.info/h/facet/?max=100&expanded=true&user=stopresetgo&exactTagSearch=true&any=cumulative%2Bcultural%2Bevolution

• for: progress trap, unintended consequence, ecological realization, ecological awakening
  • claim
    • the idea that we need a profound, sudden and massive change in ourselves in a dangerous notion
    • comment
      • why?
      • it presumes we have a deficit as an ecological being
      • when in actual fact, we cannot be otherwise
      • so instead, our job is to awaken our already ecological nature
      • by this, we mean our deep, intrinsic ecological nature as ecological (interdependent) beings
      • we humans have a strange and very limited kind of interdependence, which is exploitative to other people and other species
      • we have to become aware of that culturally conditioned limitation

• for: progress trap

• example

  • progress trap
    • quote
      • Where we get caught is thinking that we can identify a static snapshot in an ecological process
      • and get control over it, we can enact something upon it,
      • and thinking that we can do that toward what has been perceived as a positive outcome.
      • Without recognizing that with all of these different organisms that are changing each other all the time,
      • we're actually going to make a mess. -author
      • Nora Bateson

• for Indra's Net of Jewels, progress trap
• definition
  • Muir Web
    • A diagram that shows all the relationships between species of a particular ecological habitat

• for: progress trap
• definition
• quote
  • progress trap
    • A progress trap is the condition in which we find ourselves when science, technology and industry create more problems than they can solve. Often inadvertently.
• author
  • Dan O'Leary
• source
  • https://www.progresstrap.org/2010/02/12/the-progress-trap/

• for: progress trap
• quote
  • Since humanity is a small product of nature, he can by definition not control nature. To believe that he can is a delusion.
• Author
  • Dan O'Leary

• for: progress trap, progress traps

• Tttle

  • Escaping The Progress Trap
• Author
  • Gordon Kubanek
• Source
  • Canadian Association for the Club of Rome
  • https://canadiancor.com/escaping-the-progress-trap/
• Description
  • Gordon Kubanek shares his review of Dan O'Leary's book, "Escaping the Progress Trap"

• If we magically transformed the global economy overnight, and air pollution fell to near zero, we’d get:
  • an immediate rise in global temperatures of between 0.5 and 1.1 degrees Celsius, according to the new study.
    • (For reference: The climate has warmed about 1.2 degrees Celsius since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century.)
  • The warming would be concentrated over the major cities of the northern hemisphere,
    • close to where most aerosols are emitted.
  • In the hardest hit parts of highly-urbanized East Asia, for example,
    • the complete removal of aerosols would likely have a bigger effect than all other sources of climate change combined.
  • Temperatures in the Arctic could jump as much as 4 degrees Celsius – a catastrophe that would shove the region further toward a permanently ice-free state.

• Aerosol progress trap
  • a devil’s bargain:
  • Aerosols
    • are necessary for normal weather and
    • help moderate rising temperatures,
  • but they’re also killing us.
  • Turns out we have been unwittingly geoengineering for decades,
  • and just like in the movies, it’s gone off the rails.

• Title
  • Devil’s Bargain: Why Aerosols Pose a Deadly Climate Change Threat
• Author
  • Eric Holthaus
• Date
• Feb 8, 2018
• Source
  • https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/devils-bargain-why-aerosols-pose-a-deadly-climate-change-threat-126855/

• Title
  • One Billion Happy

• Author

  • Mo Gawdat

• Description

  • Mo Gawdat was former chief business officer at Google X, Google's innovation center.
  • Mo left Google after seeing the rapid pace of AI development was going to lead to a progress trap in which
    • the risk of AI destroying human civilization is becoming real because AI will be learning from too many unhappy people whose trauma AI will learn and incorporate into its algorithms
  • Hence, human happiness becomes paramount to prevent this catastrophe from happening
• See Ronald Wright's prescient quote
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goodreads.com%2Fwork%2Fquotes%2F321797-a-short-history-of-progress&group=Q2X5j1pR

• Singularity
  • will happen within the next few decades