“As technology advances, the challenge of job creation grows more pressing”
Category: governance – Page 20
“In May, GM spent $1 billion to buy Cruise Automation, a small startup with promising self-driving software.”
In the hopes of rising above the laws and regulations of terrestrial nations, a group of Silicon Valley millionaires has bold plans to build a floating city in Tahiti, French Polynesia. It sounds like the start of a sci-fi dystopia (in fact, this is the basic premise behind the video game Bioshock), but the brains behind the project say their techno-libertarian community could become a paradise for technological entrepreneurship and scientific innovation.
The Seasteading Institute was set up in 2008 by billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel and software engineer, poker player, and political economic theorist Patri Friedman. Both ardent libertarians, their wide-eyed mission is to “establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems.”
“Seasteading will create unique opportunities for aquaculture, vertical farming, and scientific and engineering research into ecology, wave energy, medicine, nanotechnology, computer science, marine structures, biofuels, etc,” their website reads.
Read more
“[T]he idea is hardly new: In fact, it has resurfaced repeatedly over the centuries at times of economic transformation, winning allies across the ideological spectrum.”
There is a radio edit (about one half hour) and an unabridged version (about one hour long).
“A report outlining how blockchain technology will usher in a new era of the internet has been published by the World Economic Forum at its 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, taking place on 27–29 June in Dalian, People’s Republic of China.”
As part of of ESA’s 268th council on 13 June, Urve Palo, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology of the Republic of Estonia, and Jan Woerner, ESA Director General, digitally signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Information and Communications Technology collaboration. It is the first digital signature performed at ESA.
“I am happy to see that the digital signature has found its way to the European Space Agency,” noted Ms Palo. “I and every other Estonian use it on a daily basis, saving up to five working days per year by this solution.”
“Estonia is proud to share its experience in digital management and e-governance with ESA and to contribute with this strength to the evolution of the European Space 4.0 endeavour. The next step would be to take e-state solutions to space and be part of the development of the Moon Village.”
Read more
Lifeboat Foundation readers are aware that the world has become progressively more chaotic. Part of the danger comes from centralized points of failure. While large institutions can bear great stress, they also cause more harm when they fail. Because there are so few pillars, if one collapses, the whole system is destroyed.
For instance, prior to the federal reserve system, bank runs we extremely common. However, since the financial system consisted of small, competing institutions, failure was confined to deficient banks. So while failure was frequent, it was less impactful and systemic. In contrast, after the establishment of the federal reserve, banks became fewer and larger. Failures, while more infrequent, were large scale catastrophes when they occurred. They affected the whole economy and had longer impact.
This is even more important in political systems, which are the foundation of how a society operates. In order to have a more robust, antifragile social order, systems must be decentralized. Rather than a monopolistic, static political order, there must be a series of decentralized experiments. While failures are inevitable, it can be localized to these small experiments rather than the whole structure.
We call these small, experimental governments “startup societies”. Examples include smart cities, seasteading, eco-villages, special economic zones, intentional communities, microstates, private cities, Ect. The Startup Societies Foundation studies these experiments, promotes them to the public, and hold conferences.
The Startup Societies Foundation is partnering with D10e to host our biggest conference yet. The Startup Societies Summit is a trade show that unites 300–500 engineers, policy experts, technologists, urban planners, economists, entrepreneurs, and investors interested in building new societies. Attendees with startups related to new societies can engage with investors to push their ideas to fruition. By networking together and sharing valuable information, our guests will be at the forefront starting new societies. The Summit will take place in City College San Francisco on August 11th-12th. If you are interested in buying tickets or becoming a sponsor, here is a link to our crowdfunding campaign.
Like a startup, a startup society begins small and scales when it produces a better service through technology. 65% of the earth’s population will live in cities by 2040. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurs. They can become innovators of the greatest wealth creation tool: cities. Join us and gain an edge in the growing, exciting field of innovative governance.
BITNATION: Governance 2.0
Posted in governance, security
Living systems on every scale have governance — methods of self-regulation to manage the coherence and continuity of the system. Also, for steering toward goals or away from dangers.
This governance is not the same as a government. Government as we know it is a blunt instrument designed to enforce the will of the many over the few (although at this point it enforces the will of few on the many) It is a monolithic bureaucracy. And frankly, it isn’t very good at governance, at least not as defined in the first paragraph.
Notice that governance includes both conserving continuity and making progress. All living systems have this tension between being conservative and progressive.
Read more