kevin-kelly - eyal matsliah on Diigo

Could large groups of animals function together as a single entity with distributed intelligence? Did evolution work through such groups, selecting at the group level rather than the individual? The implications were staggering, not only for bugs but also for humans. Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color.

Edge: THE TECHNIUM AND THE 7TH KINGDOM OF LIFE

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technology kevin-kelly emergence technium meaning-of-life green-technology

THE TECHNIUM AND THE 7TH KINGDOM
OF LIFE [7.19.07]

A Talk with Kevin Kelly
What is the meaning of technology in our lives? What place does technology have in the universe? What place does it have in the human condition? And what place should it play in my own personal life?
21 more annotations...
- The
  emergent system of the technium — what we often mean by "Technology" with
  a capital T — has its own inherent agenda and urges, as does any
  large complex system, indeed, as does life itself.
- The technium is a superorganism of
  technology. It has its own force that it exerts. That force
  is part cultural (influenced by and influencing of humans), but
  it's also partly non-human, partly indigenous to the physics of
  technology itself. That's the part that is scary and interesting.
- Three, we have to be willing to risk surrendering autonomy
  to the technium in order to reap the maximum freedom and benefits
  for ourselves. Invest, let go, benefit. That's the tradeoff in
  control I explored extensively in Out of Control.
- I believe we can't know what technology
  means (or what the technium wants) until we know what we mean.
  More importantly, I believe we'll answer both at once; that only
  by understanding what technology is will we understand who we are.
- Is a sprinter with two prosthetic carbon-fiber springs instead of legs, disabled or enhanced? If he wants to compete in the Olympics, are his springs a crutch, or a jet pack? What is a human anyway?
- Hollywood and science fiction authors are the new theologians.
- Therefore this large scale technological identity crisis is going
  to be the recurring theme of this century.
- in the grand sweep of the cosmic evolution from the Big
  Bang outwards, where does the technium or technology fit in? What
  powers the origin and expansion of the technium? Does it have a
  direction?
- One way to think of the technium is as the 7th kingdom of life. There are roughly six kingdoms of life according to Lynn
  Margulis and others. As an extropic system that originated from animals, one of the six kingdoms, we can think of the technium as a 7th.
- If you look globally,
  I can guarantee that somewhere in the world today, nearly every
  technology you can imagine is still being used, either as a tool
  in everyday life or in either a revival sense.
- technological species,
  unlike biological species, don't go extinct.
- Technology also follows
  life in a cosmic scale migration towards greater complexity, diversity,
  and energy density.
- In this sense the technium doesn't want pollution; it wants the same kind of pristine environment that we want, especially with regards to higher technologies.
- As technology
  has developed and become more sophisticated, it has become more
  and more closely aligned with environmental practices, just as
  humans have.
- It turned out the technium was capable of producing
  substitutes faster than the resources would be eliminated.
- Pollution is the same — the solution to pollution in most cases is better technology. All the trajectories for the technium are towards recycling materials including pollutants, energy efficiency, scarcity substitutions, the replacement of mass with information — all of which we would call green technology.
- We're in that really horrible position where we don't even know how much we don't know.
- But done using DNA sequencing, it seems more likely every day. As the technium accumulates the vast genetic knowledge of all species on earth, and as genetic engineering technologies advance, it may be that this wealth of genetic information will become a reason for the technium to care about species survival.
- To be sure it does produce both problems
  and solutions, but the chief effect of technology is that it produces
  more possibilities. More options. More freedom, essentially.
- These
  opportunities, these freedoms, are a very powerful force. Imagine
  a great artist like Mozart born before the possibility of a piano,
  or orchestra — what a loss that would have been. Or if Hitchcock
  had been born before the technology of film had been invented. Or
  Van Gogh before cheap oil paints.
- we have a moral obligation
  to increase the technology of the world — of the universe — to
  insure that the genius of every person born will have some way to
  express its fullness. In the end, this is what the technium wants,
  too. What the other six kingdoms of life want. What we want. To increase
  choices. To open up new freedoms. To expand the possible.

The Whole Earth Effect — Plenty Magazine

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magazine publishing whole-earth-catalog kevin-kelly collaboration

“We are as gods and we might as well get good at it.”
Comprehensive in this way, the WEC was a catalyst, helping transform a set of disparate individualists into a potent community
1 more annotations...
- But the hippies came along and wanted to share everything. Whatever they discovered, they just wanted to broadcast. The WEC was the very best example of this.”

26 Oct 08

evidence of a global brain - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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internet-inteligence global-brain kevin-kelly predictions

It is not artificial – i.e. a mechanical -- because it is extracted from billions of humans working within the One Machine. It is a hybrid intelligence, half humanity, half computer chip.

11 Oct 08

Wired 7.09: Prophets of Boom

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economy predictions wired kevin-kelly economic-crash

Bull markets end when a generation stops spending
and stops being more productive as worke
Our growth boom will end around
2008 or 2009, as the boomer generation begins to cut its spending. We'll
see falling prices, high unemployment, and massive consolidation in industry.
This depressionary economy will last for about 12 to 14 years, from
approximately
2009 to 2022.

05 Oct 08

6.08: Features

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java technology kevin-kelly internet connectivity networking trends

26 Sep 08

Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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long-tail kevin-kelly

24 Sep 08

better_than_free - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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economics free-economy kevin-kelly technology network-economy

how does one make money selling free copies?
When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.

When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.
14 more annotations...
- When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
- In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them "generatives." A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.
- Eight Generatives Better Than Free
- Immediacy -- Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it is released -- or even better, produced -- by its creators is a generative asset.
- Personalization
- Interpretation -- As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual, $10,000.
- Authenticity -- You might be able to grab a key software application for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might like to be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay for authenticity.
- Accessibility -- Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date, and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included, will be happy to have others tend our "possessions" by subscribing to them. We'll pay Acme Digital Warehouse to serve us any musical tune in the world, when and where we want it, as well as any movie, photo (ours or other photographers)
- Embodiment -- At its core the digital copy is without a body.
- Patronage -- It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators. Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect. But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount, and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators.
- Findability
- A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen;
- Rather, these new eight generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with a click of the mouse.
- In short, the money in this networked economy does not follow the path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and attention has its own circuits.

13 Mar 08

Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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kevin-kelly wikipedia

I hate to say it but there is a new type of communism or socialism loose in the world, although neither of these outdated and tinged terms can accurately capture what is new about it.

10 Mar 08

Edge 235

BETTER THAN FREE
By Kevin Kelly

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internet kevin-kelly network-economy

Our wealth sits upon
a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly.
In a
real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight
uncopyable values. I call them "generatives." A generative
value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated,
nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated,
counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place,
over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to
free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.
15 more annotations...
- Immediacy — Sooner or later you can find a free copy of whatever
  you want, but getting a copy delivered to your inbox the moment it
  is released — or even better, produced — by its creators is a generative
  asset.
- Personalization
- As many
  have noted, personalization requires an ongoing conversation between
  the creator and consumer, artist and fan, producer and user. It is
  deeply generative because it is iterative and time consuming.
- Interpretation — As the old joke goes: software, free. The manual,
  $10,000.
- Authenticity — You might be able to grab a key software application
  for free, but even if you don't need a manual, you might like to
  be sure it is bug free, reliable, and warranted. You'll pay for authenticity.
- Accessibility
  — Ownership often sucks. You have to keep your things tidy, up-to-date,
  and in the case of digital material, backed up. And in this mobile
  world, you have to carry it along with you. Many people, me included,
  will be happy to have others tend our "possessions" by
  subscribing to them.
- The fact that most of this material will
  be available free, if we want to tend it, back it up, keep adding
  to it, and organize it, will be less and less appealing as time goes
  on.
- Embodiment — At its core the digital copy is without a body. You
  can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps
  you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D?
- Patronage — It is my belief that audiences WANT to pay creators.
  Fans like to reward artists, musicians, authors and the like with
  the tokens of their appreciation, because it allows them to connect.
  But they will only pay if it is very easy to do, a reasonable amount,
  and they feel certain the money will directly benefit the creators.
- Findability — Where as the previous generative qualities reside
  within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs
  at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does
  not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder
  it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is
  seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions
  of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications,
  millions of everything requesting our attention — and most of it
  free — being found is valuable.
- From an ocean of possibilities the PSL find, nurture and refine the
  work of creators that they believe fans will connect with.
- Rather, these new eight
  generatives demand an understanding of how abundance breeds a sharing
  mindset, how generosity is a business model, how vital it has become
  to cultivate and nurture qualities that can't be replicated with
  a click of the mouse.
- In short, the money in this networked economy does not follow the
  path of the copies. Rather it follows the path of attention, and
  attention has its own circuits.
- I think ads are only one of the paths that
  attention takes, and in the long-run, they will only be part of the
  new ways money is made selling the free.
- Maintaining generatives is a lot harder than duplicating copies
  in a factory. There is still a lot to learn. A lot to figure out.
  Write to me if you do.

09 Dec 07

Four Stages in the Internet of Things - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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giant-global-graph kevin-kelly semantic-web technium world-wide-database

What happens here is that after linking and sharing computers, then linking and sharing documents, we are linking and sharing data in those documents. We are sharing and linking the subjects and meaning of what those documents are about.
In fact, you could think of this stage as the World Wide Database.
8 more annotations...
- Another tremendously unappreciated enabling technology is the API. This gateway allows controlled sharing of vast archives of data, unleashing the data's power via the usual network effects -- the more that use it the more valuable it becomes.
- But learning how to share data is what the next web will be about. Those who are able to let go and understand that all the real value in this next stage will be built on the emergent value that comes from deep interlinking, deep interconnecting, and freely (as is reasonable) releasing your precious data, those will be the technologies and organizations who gain the most.
- That fourth stage is the drift towards linking up the things themselves. You want all the data about a thing to be embedded into the thing.
- What we ultimately want is an internet of things.
- An operational Semantic Web, or World Wide Database, or Giant Global Graph, or Web 3.0, will make possible millions of seemingly smarter services. I won't have to re-tell each website who my friends are; once will be enough. If my name shows up in text, it will know it's me.
- The apparent smarter nature of the web will be due to the fact that the web will "know" more. Not in a conscious way, but in a programatic way. Concepts and items represented on the web will point to each other and know about each other -- in a fundamental way they do not right now.
- If the web knows you are always you, who are you? If the price of total personal service is total personal transparency, is that any different than total personal surveillance?
- I'm counting on the fact that kids will love it.

08 Dec 07

A Cloudbook for the Cloud - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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cloud-book cloud-computing internet kevin-kelly network-computer

07 Dec 07

Dimensions of the One Machine - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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kevin-kelly web

The next stage in human technological evolution is a single thinking/web/computer that is planetary in dimensions. This planetary computer will be the largest, most complex and most dependable machine we have ever built. It will also be the platform that most business and culture will run on. The web is the initial OS of this new global machine, and all the many gadgets we possess are the windows into its core. Future gizmos will be future gateways into the same One Machine. Designing products and services for this new machine require a unique mind-set.

How much does one search cost? - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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google kevin-kelly network-economy search technium

No one would have believed 20 years ago there was a $200 billion business in answering peoples questions (for free!).
I believe we are at a cusp where we become increasingly dependent on search. It is possible we will never pay much or anything for search as searchers, except for premiums on superior search.

06 Dec 07

Where Mu sic: Will Be Coming From - New York Times

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file-sharing kevin-kelly music network-economy nytimes

But the moment something becomes free and ubiquitous, its position in the economic equation is suddenly inverted. When nighttime electrical lighting was new, it was the poor who burned common candles. When electricity became easily accessible and practically free, candles at dinner became a sign of luxury.
Free is overrated as a destiny. It is only the second phase of the three stages of copydom. The first phase -- perfection -- is experienced in both analog and digital. Perfect duplication made the modern world and modern music.
The second stage is freeness. Costless duplication made Napster possible and a music revolution thinkable.
Yet it is in the third level of digital copy-ness that the real revolution lies. This third power is liquidity, and it will take music beyond Napster.
4 more annotations...
- It wasn't only that it was free; it was all the things you could do with it.
- The growth of the Web is probably the largest creative spell that civilization has witnessed.
- The arrival of perfect, free and liquid copies of music means that new economic models of making music will be forced upon musicians.
- In the end, the future of music is simple: more choices. As the possibilities of music expand, so do our own.

Technology wants to be free - Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

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free kevin-kelly long-tail network-economy technology

Let me state it more precisely: Over time the cost per fixed technological function will decrease. If that function persists long enough its costs begin to approach (but never reach) zero. In the goodness of time any particular technological function will exist as if it were free.
“there has been a downward trend in real commodity prices of about 1 percent per year over the last 140 years.” For a century and half prices have been headed toward zero.
14 more annotations...
- In other words, any service or product that can be easily defined will become a commodity and drop towards zero.
- Over time, every successful luxury becomes defined by its use and the other goods that piggyback on it. It then becomes a commodity.
- All these options make the consumer king, because you pick and choose where you want your free.
- Almost any product or service can be unbundled into various combos of functions, where one of the strands is priced as free, while the others remain expensive.
- But while we can expect the zero-price option (ZPO) in all industries and all major products and services, the corresponding counter price for the bundled functions will vary all over the place, often expensively.
- I like to think of it as the Zero-Price Uncertainty Principle. If you fix the price of one facet to zero, you can’t fix any of the other facets to zero. Only one function at a time can be fixed at zero.
- The zero-price option, which was once very rare, is now being driven to ubiquity by network effects.
- As members are added to a network linearly the value of the network increases exponentially, which charted looks “as if” it were headed toward infinity. The compounding numbers of members made commoditization possible, fluid, and fast.
- . Further, advanced technologies that encourage cooperation and collaboration permit faster invention and distribution of those inventions, which in turn permit the competitive pressure for lower prices to take effect quicker and deeper.
- These five traits of networked technology – perfect market competition, price transparency, innovation sharing, collaboration, and expanding markets – ceaselessly push technology toward the free.
- The technium conspires to guide manufactured items toward the free, where they can unleash their maximum good. The free, not the costly, is the true home of technology.
- As it became free, it became more indispensable in the ecology of the technium, and more instrumental in unleashing other technologies. It also became a factor in driving other technologies toward the free. In this way it is like health; free technologies tend to enable other technologies toward the free, in a self-sustaining, self-creating loop.
- There is a similar self-reinforcing positive feedback loop in the free-ization of technology. Nearly-free goods permit waste and experimentation, which breed new options for that good, which increase its abundance and lower its price, which generate more new options, which permit further novelty.
- Technology wants to be free, as in free beer, because as it become free it also increases freedom. The inherent talents, capabilities and benefits of a technology cannot be released until it is almost free. The drive toward the free unleashes the constraints on each species in the technium, allowing it to interact with as many other species of technology as is possible, engendering new hybrids and deeper ecologies of tools, and permitting human users more choices and freedoms of use. As a technology grows in abundance and cheapness, it is more likely to find its appropriate niche which it can sustain itself and support other technologies in commodity mode. As technology heads toward the free it unleashes the only lasting thing it can: options and possibilities.

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