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In the sandbox you can '''play''' with ''wiki syntax'' and more.
In the sandbox you can '''play''' with ''wiki syntax'' and more.


What's wrong with the Singularity as possible strategy
You answered (11jan09):


"As free software moves from the margins to center stage, more and more


Below are excerpts from Eric Hunting in a recent email discussion. I think this is a valuable insight that transcends any critique of transhumanism, but can be applied to similar cultural memes, like the expectation of a fundamental spiritual transformation of the world by 2012. Utopian or apocalyptic visions can actually demobilize because of their stress on inevitability.
corporations adapt to the model, and pay programmers to do such parts of the
free software as needed for themselves, but they use the open licenses.
So these corporations compete, but also collaborate through the common
platform of free software.


Eric Hunting:
For Linux, 75% of programmers are now paid by such corporations, which means
they have an increasing influence over the direction of development, have a
seat in the Foundations etc; (...)


The reality of the various projects is then strongly influenced by the governance model,
which can be controlled primarily by a community-oriented foundation, or by
a corporate-oriented format."


Some remarks about the existence of "hybrid forms" and about the dynamics of these forms.


There's nothing wrong with speculating about the future as long as you have established a specific path from the present and therefore have defined likely courses of action. That's the line between futurism and science fiction. You are using the trends of the present to anticipate possible paths into the future, paths which can become plans of action or intervention. What bothers me about speculation on the Singularity are the presumptions of inevitability and imminence without any defined paths from the present and thus no proposed course of action. So, like the Rapture, it has to be perpetually imminent to have any meaning since there's nothing the average person can do about it beyond guessing on investment in the right stock, waiting in hopeful anticipation, or attempting to will it into existence through some sort of communal form of neurolinguistic programming.
The reality you describe is a hybrid social form of production, borrowing aspects from both systems, capitalism and P2P, or peer production. Using your definition of peer production (free and open input; free volunteering production; universally available output), one can say that there are hybrid aspects at the three moments of the process: 1. input, raw material is partly capitalistic as the computers, the offices, etc. are privately owned by the corporations (as IBM), but, for software production, free/open software is also a "raw material"; 2. production is not based on free volunteering, but some aspects of the production are new, non capitalistic, as the cooperation between programmers of antagonistic corporations; 3. the output can be oriented by corporations more towards their own needs (commercial management software, for example) but the output remains universally available.


Such a shallow focus on the idealized end-result and the most advanced end-forms of technology can actually be detrimental to the goal of its realization because exaggerated expectations cause people to ignore or overlook the necessary near-term developments that need their support and participation. The more we focus exclusively on the post-Singularity the longer Singularity will take to accomplish because technology does NOT spontaneously advance by itself. This has been one of the key problems with space advocacy. Many NASA people curse Star Trek and science fiction in general for creating unrealistic expectations in an American population with a poor science education and a poor grasp of the line between reality and fantasy, thus making it that much harder for them to make a case for the relevance of what's possible to do today. (not that NASA itself is entirely blameless in this itself, mind you...) Too much science fiction is just fantasy with machines because a lot of writers just don't care about scientific plausibility or realistic visions of the future. Like the rest of the culture, it abandoned the actual future a long time ago. But the association with 'science' compels many to assume it must be more than mere fantasy. So far too many people expect the starship Enterprise and see anything less than that to be pointless folly or even part of some conspiracy of technology suppression. Certainly NASA may not be the most efficient at space development -their priorities in research are often irrational because of politics and aerospace industry nepotism- but they actually routinely get accused of conspiring to keep the warp drives, flying saucers, and antigravity under-wraps for the exclusive use of some secrete elite. I've encountered this kind of problem frequently with TMP. It's very hard to relate in relevance the necessary lower-tech long-period activities one must do now to goals as lofty as wholesale solar-system settlement. It's hard to get people to comprehend how starting a media production company, doing real estate development, or engaging in open source artifact development has any relevance to getting to space. And when reality can't meet expectations -particularly the expectation of personally living in space in their lifetime- many people have no compulsion in adopting psuedo-scientific nonsense as a short-cut.
The "social networking" also generates hybrid forms. If you take MySpace or YouTube: 1. the input is partly capitalistic (the infrastructures and the financing by advertising), but for the rest most of the input (videos, blogs, etc.) are free and open; 2. the production process is based partially on capitalist wage relations for the infrastructure management, but the rest is based on free volunteering; 3. the output is supposed to be universally available but corporations impose limits and try to extend these limits, provoking open conflicts with users/producers. (See for example: http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2008/12/31/why-i-am-deleting-my-myspace-account-and-you-should-too/)


Now, it's not fair to generalize here. A lot of people in the transhumanism community are indeed trying to define a specific path into the future, especially those who have a real grasp of actual science and technology. But there are others who, because they have no means to actually participate in advanced technology development in any practical way and have only a rudimentary understanding of it, just engage in that game of speculative fantasy for its own sake. Still, I'd rather see people thinking and talking about a positive future in any fashion than wallowing in the compulsive nostalgia, fantasy, cultural narcissism, and dystopianism that has marked the popular culture in the west for the past half a century.
Hybrid forms also developed in the past transitions between modes of production. Between the 6th and the 10h century, many landlords, including the Church, had simultaneously slaves and serfs (or "coloni" which were the first form of serfs). Between the 12th century and the 19th century many hybrid forms developed especially in the cities where capitalism developed within feudal relationships.
 
The evolution of these forms has been often slow, with periods of acceleration but also periods of recession. The example of the Arsenal of Venice, which in the early 16th century employed some 16,000 people and could produce almost a ship per day using production-lines, something not seen again after until the industrial revolution, illustrates how non-linear this evolution can be.
 
The dynamic of that evolution depends on many factors. The evolution of technologies is one of them, but it is far from explaining everything, as the Venetian Arsenal example shows. Here the social consciousness, the social and political conflicts play a crucial role. The European wars of religion after the 16th century and the bourgeois revolutions where indirect or direct expressions of the conflict between the old feudal logic and the raising capitalistic one.
 
In the conflict you refer to about the management of Free/open software foundations, between "community-oriented" and "corporate-oriented" formats, we are witnessing the same kind of conflict between the old logic and the new. Its dynamic depends and will depend not only on material-technological realities but also on social and "political" struggles, at micro and macro scales. And things should become harsher when peer production will pretend to extend to the realm of material production.
 
 
You also wrote:
 
"This is inevitable, as no free software project can survive in the long run
without a core of developers being paid."
 
Yes. As long as the material means of production (and thus the material means of consumption) remain under the capitalist logic governance, the peer production realities will be in a way or another limited.
(At a certain level, the problems to finance the 4th Oekonux Conference, or your personal difficulties to keep working the P2P Foundation while being obliged to work in order too feed your family are also materializations of that reality).
 
The development of the present economic crisis should make more visible at a social scale the need to overcome the dominant logic. The "invisible hand" is paralyzing an increasing share of the material means of production while workers are made redundant and unsatisfied material needs explode. Let's hope that this evidence will help to develop the consciousness of the urgency to extend peer production principles to the material sphere.

Latest revision as of 11:40, 29 January 2009

In the sandbox you can play with wiki syntax and more.

You answered (11jan09):

"As free software moves from the margins to center stage, more and more

corporations adapt to the model, and pay programmers to do such parts of the free software as needed for themselves, but they use the open licenses. So these corporations compete, but also collaborate through the common platform of free software.

For Linux, 75% of programmers are now paid by such corporations, which means they have an increasing influence over the direction of development, have a seat in the Foundations etc; (...)

The reality of the various projects is then strongly influenced by the governance model, which can be controlled primarily by a community-oriented foundation, or by a corporate-oriented format."

Some remarks about the existence of "hybrid forms" and about the dynamics of these forms.

The reality you describe is a hybrid social form of production, borrowing aspects from both systems, capitalism and P2P, or peer production. Using your definition of peer production (free and open input; free volunteering production; universally available output), one can say that there are hybrid aspects at the three moments of the process: 1. input, raw material is partly capitalistic as the computers, the offices, etc. are privately owned by the corporations (as IBM), but, for software production, free/open software is also a "raw material"; 2. production is not based on free volunteering, but some aspects of the production are new, non capitalistic, as the cooperation between programmers of antagonistic corporations; 3. the output can be oriented by corporations more towards their own needs (commercial management software, for example) but the output remains universally available.

The "social networking" also generates hybrid forms. If you take MySpace or YouTube: 1. the input is partly capitalistic (the infrastructures and the financing by advertising), but for the rest most of the input (videos, blogs, etc.) are free and open; 2. the production process is based partially on capitalist wage relations for the infrastructure management, but the rest is based on free volunteering; 3. the output is supposed to be universally available but corporations impose limits and try to extend these limits, provoking open conflicts with users/producers. (See for example: http://bang.calit2.net/tts/2008/12/31/why-i-am-deleting-my-myspace-account-and-you-should-too/)

Hybrid forms also developed in the past transitions between modes of production. Between the 6th and the 10h century, many landlords, including the Church, had simultaneously slaves and serfs (or "coloni" which were the first form of serfs). Between the 12th century and the 19th century many hybrid forms developed especially in the cities where capitalism developed within feudal relationships.

The evolution of these forms has been often slow, with periods of acceleration but also periods of recession. The example of the Arsenal of Venice, which in the early 16th century employed some 16,000 people and could produce almost a ship per day using production-lines, something not seen again after until the industrial revolution, illustrates how non-linear this evolution can be.

The dynamic of that evolution depends on many factors. The evolution of technologies is one of them, but it is far from explaining everything, as the Venetian Arsenal example shows. Here the social consciousness, the social and political conflicts play a crucial role. The European wars of religion after the 16th century and the bourgeois revolutions where indirect or direct expressions of the conflict between the old feudal logic and the raising capitalistic one.

In the conflict you refer to about the management of Free/open software foundations, between "community-oriented" and "corporate-oriented" formats, we are witnessing the same kind of conflict between the old logic and the new. Its dynamic depends and will depend not only on material-technological realities but also on social and "political" struggles, at micro and macro scales. And things should become harsher when peer production will pretend to extend to the realm of material production.


You also wrote:

"This is inevitable, as no free software project can survive in the long run without a core of developers being paid."

Yes. As long as the material means of production (and thus the material means of consumption) remain under the capitalist logic governance, the peer production realities will be in a way or another limited. (At a certain level, the problems to finance the 4th Oekonux Conference, or your personal difficulties to keep working the P2P Foundation while being obliged to work in order too feed your family are also materializations of that reality).

The development of the present economic crisis should make more visible at a social scale the need to overcome the dominant logic. The "invisible hand" is paralyzing an increasing share of the material means of production while workers are made redundant and unsatisfied material needs explode. Let's hope that this evidence will help to develop the consciousness of the urgency to extend peer production principles to the material sphere.

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