revolution of the present

from site:

Our documentary team is honored to be part of the Global Economic Symposium 2014. We are pleased to offer GES participants free streaming of our new documentary; available for a limited time. Revolution of the Present (81 min.) presents 17 international thinkers who speak to the complexity of our contemporary moment as they discuss what is and what can be.

We encourage Global Civil Society at large to watch the film and actively participate in this important conversation. Please share the film amongst your social networks and make sure to include the hashtags #revofpresent & #ges2014 in your tweets.

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intro via Rob.

https://pinboard.in/u:robertogreco/b:c491ed7b5279

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trailer:

Michael Hardt, Douglas Rushkoff, Greg Lindsay, ….

cast: http://www.revolutionofthepresent.org/Meet-the-Cast/

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entire film (for a limited time):

what does national/global mean

the notion of system itself.. ?

not individuals anymore.. we are brands.. Lindsay

easier to imagine the end of the world.. than to imagine the end of the current order – Hardt

crisis of agency – via climate crisis – what do we do – Natalie

lost our ability to think of ourselves in time

did we ever.. or is it always after?

5 min – by losing our ability to sequence.. we become more unmoored.. we accept world as natural/eternal/unchanging.. understanding the world historically would help..

7 min – hunter gatherers – had to be forced

8 min – society as not natural.. start as wandering bands.. and come together to protect themselves.. i surrender to you on condition that you surrender to me.. in order to form civil society as protection…

by 2015 – 2/3 will live in city

how do we know that? what does that mean?

10 min – cities have outlived all these other power systems, because they are complex and incomplete

10:30 – idea of city as a corrupting force

we didn’t invent cities… ants have cities.. bees.. bacteria.. this business of getting together and thriving has been around since beginning of life – Bloom

12 min – shape of city changes/expands with tech – commute didn’t change – time to travel didn’t change.. 60 min daily.. the scope of human action has changed… local to global – LIndsay

cities 2 ways – land locked (well-defined identity) or water bounded – maritime ports (have never created a regional culture.. more a foreign culture.. ie: w/many languages – hybrid culture)

16 min – world becomes a globalized unit

17 min – nation states can’t act as sovereign powers.. a new form of order.. empire.. a network of unequal powers – – Hardt

18 min – countries appear and disappear w/regular frequency

how do formalized systems of power come down? not usually by superior military force… so how does change come about… Locke – narrator of emergence of new ownership ness – means of production – the subject of liberal democracy.. mass production.. the middle class.. 1940s, and every generation does a little better.. and now we have the other side of the curve.

20 min – 60s – this top down planning that was created – has failed… so seeking bottom up.. F Hayek, M Friedman.. argued for leaderless society

21 min – we do need new concepts.. new ways of thinking.. all recognizing shift – say 68-73 – like the man w/the elephant.. so what if we put them (views) all together.. – Hardt

24 min – all universalisms are potentially fallable.. have they been progressive or regressive..?

everything we see around is going to double in 2 decades.. you can build bottom up.. but increases the hurried ness mentality… greater tempation of the state than ever to build.. it’s like a race – to solve economy.. and .. global youth rut.. a generation of young people that feel superfulous … too many people.. too much money.. there simply is no time.. it’s not like there’s a genius .. we need someone to make the decision and move on it.. (so a problem)- Lindsay

27 min – human constructs that are changing the human nature – so we’re losing naturalness – a different ontology of what reality is. we’re inventing life.. constructing it.. sometimes w/intention and sometimes not

real difference of animals… only one animal teaches grandchildren stuff systematically across time.. we get more and more efficient at this.. but eventually – so much knowledge – we have to simplify into alphabet/printing press .. and all of a sudden instead of having one cave wall… millions and millions of books. 30 yrs ago – we collapsed our code to a 2 letter alphabet.. – Enriquez

your ability to move through space.. tech gives us the illusion that we are living simultaneously.. – Lindsay

31 min – Heidegger – humans have no agency – he was reacting to nuclear bomb.. a tech existentialism

easy to fall into a nastolgic trap w/tech.. techne – knowledge required to get the job done.. – Galloway

so intertwined that you can’t distinguish – Shah

33 min – now we are haunted by the bigger picture..

dashboard of civilization – post modernity – distributed/rhizomatic networks.. interactivity/individuality.. have to have heavily managed and codified interfaces.. so we are all on interfaces.. – Galloway

scale of individual thought has changed.. check my feeds every morning to see what’s going on everywhere – Lindsay

35 min – i was hopeful that people would move through the worm hole to active participation – as internet unfolded it became much more about commerce than i imagined – Rushkoff

36 min – tons of people performing voluntary labor to support companies online – Galloway

network culture – a world of light/mobile tech – also a world where network has become dominate metaphor/model.. for societies and individuals – Varnerlis

38 min – like network’s an explanatory gesture.. actually think network is a response to the confusion.. what’s emerging is the science of the network.. it’s a scaling device.. at what point do people beleive they are part of a network…- Chun

we can be trapped by our metaphor.. and network is perfect example of that – we thnk we can understand world through www- ing.. problem – the network is very non-hierarchical… but that’s not the way the world works.. networks don’t deal with emergent qualities.. – Bloom

40 min – what if we took seriously the amounts of interactions that are happening around us all the time.. wouldn’t that change how we understand and interact with it – Chun

when system is compromised.. when an exploit is discovered.. you create a new network.. it’s that dynamic of the networks being changed by antagonism.. part of what networks are all about – Galloway

41 min – presumption of hierarchy.. someone at the top. typical network diagram.. is an impoverished representation.. doesn’t expose the dynamic qualities of networks.. ie: because they have no centers/edges… are always being reformulated.. so being able to put a frame around it, ie: this is the center.. this is the most connected person or this is the hub.. etc.. is a lie. we’re confronted with irreducibly complex system that we have to deal with – Jeremijenko

network gives you an apparatus to allegedly have the knowledge to map/navigate.. so it seems we can’t map.. but we’re always producing maps.. – Chun

these maps let us feel so secure/safe or something that we surrender this ongoing human project – natural impulse to retreat into a system. our inability to distinguish between system and reality. understand ways people tend to mistake maps for reality.. – Rushkoff

44 min – question of scalability – … the politics of speed.. these valuable experiences – tend to break up so easily.. so there’s a strong urge to keep that momentum.. knowing it could disappear overnight..

myth – we aren’t able to map.. or think of ourselves in larger society. networks are oriented around consumption/lifestyle.. rather than a broader public in which we could all participate in.. – Varnelis

47 min – you and all of you

public persona .. once you get rid of the idea of society as a whole.. smaller entities.. society becomes very complex – de Lanza

we love hero narratives.. ie: heroes.. but we shouldn’t kid ourselves about ways systems have action/agency – Galloway

individual w/agency – system always changing – tensions – Lindsay

what is properly mine.. where i begin – with the i

as i see it .. the individual is a sham – a fiction – Rushkoff

community is i turning into we – you is singular and plural – Chun

the more we think of ourselves as individuals – the less of a commons we have – Rushkoff

as soon as you call something a community – you start talking who gets access to what.. colonial history of commons – allowed for masters to regulate – Shah

you can’t make a capitalist fortune out of the common good – notion that public that has something that emerges outside of govt – and outside of private.. so a place to talk about these things that isn’t bought and paid for by capital interest that may be harmful- how to generate voices that aren’t just voices of the corporation – we need to preserve a public voice – Delbourgo

52 min – unimaginable futures – we feel comfortable doing things that can be taken away.. the computer is a huge oxymoron.. but can we open it up.. and see a different kind of space.. wounding.. where collective action can emerge – Chun

the general assembly at occupy wall street – a form of direct democracy – every voice is heard..

(but there are tons of people chanting..at occupy)

if you understand this multiple form of power.. as having a center .. then you know how to resist it.. you storm the palace.. it might be hard… but conceptually it’s easy. if you instead see it as with no center.. then how do you attack it.. – Hardt

the idea of the multitude is helpful.. no single quality/adjective.. rather operates in a subtractive way. ie: we are together by a virtue of a low level generic commonality. a deflationary humanism. we are common by virtue that we have nothing in common. – Galloway

digital is producing precarious present and unsure futures.. people are coming on streets to demand presence.. in happier time – the present was uncertain – but future was imaginable.. that’s where you can produce a paradigm shift.. digital has produced this 3 pronged .. i don’t know who i am.. i need to find out.. what do i do tomorrow.. who will i be- Shah

58 min – program the world

marxism – individual is superfluous.. when everyone knows everyone – gossip travels fast.. esp bad/violation ones.. community acts as resevoir for reputation.. enough people remember.. when you live in a community – you care about your reputation. community as a whole acts as enforcement and reputation storage.. as long as critical mass doing this (punishment/remembering) individual identities don’t matter.. – de Landa

why focus on punishment..? and remembering bad>.?

1:00 – as individuals don’t have political power – have to form small groups to go to political board – Jeremijenko

unless we change how we do politics.. no?

if we want to participate we have to learn tech of time.. – Rushkoff

the power – if even people that don’t have access can participate – Sassen

1:04 – being biologically present.. ie: friend who scrapes hashtags.. found that more in movement of hashtag were from us.. only 12% from country where it was happening – Shah

do we really want to participate? or was Dewey wrong.. ? – Rushkoff

part of political/conceptual challenge – how to construct powerful political subjects .. ie: used to think only if organized do you have power.. today i think opposite is true.. only if netorked organization (messy organization) can you be effective.. – Hardt

spatial fix – keep dismantling to keep up with the 3% growth rate – market – labor and capital are both stagnate right now .. looking for ways to get going – Lindsay

last 20 yrs – proof that liberal democracy is not functioning.. it is a formalized system of power that is going to end.

1:10 – when you think you have a complete answer – you’re in trouble.. not compartmentalized.. not everything is fungible..

failure has to be tolerated/facilitated at the societal level – we need a structure to allow for that.. so we tell people not to do things because we don’t understand them. regulation tries to tweak self-interest to fit in with assumption of society – Isenburg

1:13 – talking a need for everyone to get a go everyday.. nice – but then talks about the need for educating people.. ugh

we are the forces that can create the new – Hardt

the narrative arch of great traditional book movement – where they get credit/ends justify means…. the real enemy is not just the corporation – but these giant abstract models that people have mistaken for the commons/reality – Rushkoff

change the structure of participation – is what new tech allows us to do – our biggest resource – draw on the interpretation of the many people.. on each one of us. – Jeremijenko

1:17 – it’s important to think of love as a political concept. a way of naming a politics of constructing a community. that social bond of our differences. – Hardt

my initial response – we are following the shiny.. frantically.. because we’re afraid of being left behind.. and we’re doing it after hours.. so we’re too tired to be curious. the rush and the fear are helping us to not think. yet.. we have all we need within us.. if we would just think/listen.

we need a year on ness. a tech facilitated time of quiet/still/reflection.. to find our curiosities/us …again.

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