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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) – … Definition (II) – … Solutions (III)
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Eco-Singularity? Never heard of it?
About “the Singularity” you find a lot on the web, due to the wellknown notions of Vernor Vinge, I. J. Good and of course Ray Kurzweil. But before I introduce the concept of eco-singularity I will tell you the personal backstory for better understanding.
Extended fires (n=600) in Russia after high temperature anomalie in 2010 (image is processed; source: Google earth, dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
Hello, the world is burning, I am back blogging
You know the Social Web universe is still in dynamic change – and it will remain so. Did twitter kill the blogs – and my blogging drive? No. The 140 characters limit is really restrictive. It is absolutely impossible to unfold arguments, showing some new theory or an innovative point of view in this tiny space (see the post of Paul Carr, Techcrunch). And it is meant to be for status messages, aka it is the beat of the social pulse in your network somehow – at least for some. Even the (more than ambigious) ”power of Facebook” was not the reason to retreat a bit from my narrowcasting habit, which never was very ambitious.
Backstory: Fail of global politics causes crisis on the individual level, sometimes
What was the reason to become hesitant with blogging? It was something beyond social media overkill and the inevitable social media fatigue I felt since end of 2009: It was a crisis in thinking and orientation. This phase actually started same time, when the Copenhagen Climate Summit failed in December 2009. No political realist thought of a “real success”, but the summit failed to an extent I did not expect. I was not prepared to this total fail of politics. Brave men have identified eight reasons for the disaster (news.bbc.co.uk), maybe I would find eight consequences resulting from it on a personal scale.
Consequences of Russian heat record 2010. First man tamed the fire, now it might tame him. (Source: dutchintell.com http://bit.ly/cU3g57)
For me the Kopenhagen fail meant rethinking the business of corporate foresight, being concerned with the future in general. Assume that the very framework for our global/local/personal future is about to be destroyed, why should you construct any narratives around that term, why construct scenarios the way you did the last ten years? Responsible foresight should stop the “business as usual” attitude here, it should take a break and think about the big picture, reflect the own role and draw some consequences. Fore some months now I am trying to develop insight, strategy, find a viable path for the decade ahead, a decade which might be more troublesome than e.g. the financial crisis, which apparently is lying behind (second dip not excluded).
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Three posts about ecological singularity and the avalanche of change
The Eco-Singularity is near. Preface (I) - … Definition (II) - … Solutions (III)
Prof. Knight is angry – but does this help to recover and transform? (source: thisislondon.co.uk)
G20 summit under immense pressure
Radical measures must be decided at the G20 summit or it could become the “fateful moment” when the global recession lurches into an outright slump, Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, said today. (guardian.co.uk, 2009-03-30)
The crisis and the consequences for business and politics are still in the focus of mass media and the blogosphere. When I check the stats of future facts blog I find a lot of phrases containing “financial crisis” still on the top of the most used search terms. Surprisingly most of the visitors checked in here on the post of Oct. 2008 Global financial crisis may end 2009 – which is not really a typical post in a blog concerned with long-term trends. The news seemed significant at that time because
- it had been expressed by an insider, Michel Camdessus, the former chief of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and
- it was extraordinarily optmistic.
Let us contrast this sunny quote of last year with doomsday news like this of March 25th 2009: “Russia Expects New Financial System Crisis Outburst”. Russia’s Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin said:
“We were standing on the brink of the financial collapse, but we prevented it, and I must here thank the Central Bank and the State Duma for giving us an opportunity to take decisions quickly,” (my emphasis, www.marketoracle.co.uk)
The coincidence of some news urges me to come back to the issue of the spreading crisis. In these days we read Read the rest of this entry »
Early switchers at earth2tech.com
Fears and hopes
Guess you know Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (youtube). When the wall came down in Berlin some 19 years ago it happened that this easy swinging a cappella sound was the somehow perfect soundtrack for the ambiguity in the mood of the reunified Germans. Ambiguity of fears and hopes – and what followed really was political “change management XXL” – with the inevitable pains of transformation.
Now, this is end of October 2008 and I feel a certain resemblance to the situation of 1989. In these days a lot of commentators suppose that the financial crisis is just the beginning of a longer lasting downturn of the global economy.
One last look back
Futurists and scenario planning people are prepared for the discontinuities of complex systems. This time the wild card was to expect. Warnings date back to 2006 (nypost.com) and even 2004 (abajournal.com). By the way recession cycles of market economy are observed since its beginnings. And Talebs book about the improbable “black swan” has been written in 2007. But who wants to hear bad news? We have to. That’s why we are implementing early warning systems and pay experts, even futurists.
Looking forward – Opportunities in times of transformation
This is the time of cutbacks and layoffs, but that is only the one side. At O’Reilly’s Web2Expo Europe some days ago I heard Robin Daniels (Salesforce.com / Cloud Computing: Freedom to Focus on Innovation”). One of the messages was: “Don’t optimize, but innovate!”. So don’t worry to much, Read the rest of this entry »
Collective knowledge. Search behavior according to Google trends, 9/29, last 12 month.
Futurists and analysts are rather bored by some trend phenomena. For example there are trends with rather high predictability and long waves of change – as in demographics. What is exciting and frightening at the same time is the surprise, the unpredicted event with a high impact and a turbulent change pattern. Yesterday 2008-09-29 was historical – the “Black Monday of 2008″.
After a political decision against the rescue plan to save the financial system from collapse the US stockmarket suffered the severest loss in history, more than after the 9/11 disaster. The loss of trust seems to spread from the economical powers to political powers. With high impact to the world economy and maybe geopolitical power equilibrium. Are we witnesses of the agony of a super power – and cui bono? Europe, Russia, China? Read the rest of this entry »
Some personal remarks
Today it gets a bit personal and subjective, sorry for that. Ok, it is quite inevitable that on the occasion of G8 some “selected” men come together, men which have met the selection criteria of a political system, as it is today in the early 21st century, sometimes a strange fabric of political, of media and economic power. Great opportunity to see the elected leaders Bush, Berlusconi and Sarkozy at one place and analyzing their different “semiotics of power”. When I watch the scene, their “tv faces”, their postures then there seems to be some contrast to the severity of the situation ahead (maybe I am somehow biased as a futurist and analyst).
