Fear is Never the Answer - Hope Is

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/assassinate-obama-if-he-wont-attack-iran-for-israel-jewish-monthly-suggests/article2310783/

A man wracked by anxiety is calling for violence against a threat.  He’s so determined to see the elimination of said threat that he has become a threat himself.

Sadly, I don't find this shocking.  Complacency at the highest levels of society has bred dissatisfaction and resentment among, as one label depicts them, the 99%.  The renewed rise of anger as a political tool is fostering fear and undirected resentment among the general public.  Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to oppression, crime, murder and war.

It doesn't have to be this way.  We don't have to kill or be killed - "obliterate our enemies" is not a precondition for survival.  In fact the opposite is true.

Israel is a great, global symbol of this.  The threat of weapons might have helped keep opponents at bay, but it's the conversation that keeps the relationship between Israel and its neighbours going.

Warren Kinsella puts it well: "There are others like me, who see Israel's continued existence as a precondition to a safer, saner world."

It's the Libyas and Iraqs of the world that demonstrate where force of strength leads you; Israel's story has always been more than that.  Its power lies in diplomacy.

What we need from our leaders is not fear mongering or despair; that comes to us naturally when there is a leadership deficit.  Leaders don’t have the luxury of doubt; to be bold, to be inspiring, to be effective, our leaders must embody courage and embrace the audacity of hope.

Cross-Pollination: Music, PIPA, Policy, Multiculturalism and Why Stephen Harper Gets High with Help from His Friends

“The menacing melody, by Daft Punk, can also be heard in Super 8, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Battlefield Los Angeles, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and a bunch of other movies.”

-       Warren Kinsella

Yes, it’s an attack ad, fear mongering and base politics, but the thing that fascinates me most is the response elicited by the soundtrack. 

We haven’t been told whether the NCC has license to use the background tune.  That’s probably okay, though, as nobody seems sure just where it comes from.  It’s been attributed to Hans Zimmer from either Batman Begins, Dark Knight or Inception; Zimmer protégé Steve Jablonsky’s Transformers films;  Johann Johannsson’s Battlefield: Los Angeles score and several others.  With all the uncertainty regarding origin, those wily NCC folk will probably get away with skipping the accreditation. 

But why the confusion?  Why is the Daft Punk score to Disney’s Tron: Legacy (Track 4, “Recognizer”) being mistaken for so many other pieces of music?  The Tron: Legacy soundtrack is electronica with orchestral thrown in (and is a brilliant soundtrack, making up for a mediocre film).  While there are non-orchestral components in the other scores, there are distinct differences to the ear in terms of general tone, primary instrument usage and thematic quality.

That’s not to say there aren’t similarities; in fact, the commonalities are at the heart of the incorrect accreditation. 

In each of these soundtracks, there are a few notes, or bars, or a general tone that borrows heavily from the musical genius of Hans Zimmer.  This comes as no surprise – Zimmer’s emotional, powerful work sets the soundtrack bar today just as John Williams set the bar over much of the 80s and 90s with themes like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Superman.  Within his own repertoire, Zimmer repeats himself.  There are bits from Gladiator that mirror refrains from The Dark Knight which are equally present in The Last Samurai.

Why the cross-pollination, the repetition within an individual composer’s repertoire and across the medium?  Two key reasons:

One – communicating a specific emotional resonance using music ain’t easy – not for the director trying to communicate the feeling he wants to his composer, not for the composer whose job it is to turn that concept into a piece of music.  It’s fascinating listening to Hans Zimmer talk about what informs his work. 

Two – composing isn’t just about sharing a concept or a feeling – it’s about creation.  Artists of all types, whether their medium is music, the written word or canvass all face that daunting task of filling the blank slate.  They have an advantage, though – nothing comes from nothing.   Nothing ever does.  Artists, then, are like engineers, or policy developers.  They all borrow, reuse and, at their best, build something new based on what came before or what others out there are doing. 

Creation, in society as in biology, involves the recombination of existing materials to make something new that is, ultimately, better adapted to the needs or tastes of the audience of the day.  Kids do it every time the mimic the words or actions of parents or peers, adding their own inflection; that’s how they try on phrases and behaviours to find what works for them.  Paul Simons did it when he adapted the indigenous Andean tune El Condor Pasa into a hit American song.  Sampling has been around a lot longer than hip-hop.

When it comes to music, adaptive creation is expected and appreciated – that’s how musical genres progress.  We, as an audience, tend to demand only two things – respect for source material and originality (sorry, James Horner).  The same holds true for cinema; we like the odd reference to the classics – that grounds us in the familiar.  If you’re going to do a note-for-note reprise, though, you won’t hold our interest – we might as well watch the original. 

The same rule holds true for political theatre.

These expectations explain both the introduction and public outburst against PIPA and SOPA.  The raw intent behind anti-piracy law is a good one – help ensure innovators get some credit for their work, both in terms of respect and remuneration.  Creation is hard, but theft is easy; if originators can’t sustain themselves in creating the new, then they can’t create; the result is stagnation. 

Taken too far, though, respect and caution is exacerbated into fear.  Fear, an instinctual emotion, triggers a flight-or-fight response.  It puts up barriers, attacks potential threats and, in the process of doing so, restricts access and the opportunity for recombination (this concept of restriction is more commonly referred to as censorship). 

Reducing access to new material is harmful.  Just as genetic inbreeding is proven to be long-term detrimental (you want to diversify your gene pool to be adapted to changing parasitic threats), censoring new ideas/opinion or stifling access to diverse ideas/opinions leads to social stagnation.  Stagnation is the opposite of progress.  Freedom of speech, the ability to share information, then, is a progressive tool.

Policies fit the same model as music, or genetics – they must adapt to the times to be successful.  For adaptation to occur, musicians and policy makers alike need exposure to new ideas and best practices.  When this does not happen, the end result is predictable – history provides us with multiple examples of how firewalls internalize the burn and ultimately, collapse.

Yes, governments have the need to keep their populations safe.  Yes, there are troubles lapping at distant shores.  Yes, there are economic and social challenges.  Too many of our leaders have lost the thread, though.  The syncopation of our social structures is out of tune with the realities of today; the musicians sound a bit discordant to our ears.

Stagnation doesn’t provide us with an answer – it provides us with inevitable defeat.  The way forward is through progress, adaptation.  Adaptation requires new and varied input, the kind that comes from diversity.  This is Canada’s greatest strength, the reason why we have adapted better than other countries through the present, global economic challenges – Canadian multiculturalism gives us the raw material from which to develop the solutions and opportunities we need to succeed.

The way forward, then, isn’t to hide behind firewalls, but through working together.  Or, as Stephen Harper would probably put it, we get by with a little help from our friends.

UPDATE: It's amazing how universal some themes are, but when you think about why that is, it's not surprising.

It's Ragtime in Politics

"I would argue we are in the phase now where apathy and that disinterest needs to be addressed, so the successful parties of the future will be the one's that figure out how to make their arguments, blunt criticisms, without mirroring the familiar opponent techniques."

A brilliant take on where politics in Canada and elsewhere is headed; those who seize the trend first will be the biggest winners, but if my analysis is correct, that win really is going to translate more broadly into social benefit.

Politics is like music, or products - there are eras of the tune that rise and fall, with only the enduring bits carrying on to inform what comes next.  Ragtime is my favourite example because the rise, fall and transition of Ragtime into Jazz and beyond beautifully mirrors the change of an era:

"It was the music
Of something beginning,
An era exploding,
A century spinning
In riches and rags,
And in rhythm and rhyme.
The people called it Ragtime..."

We're at the beginning of such an era of change now: listen to that Ragtime, indeed.

Alchemy, Wealth and Eternal Life

“I look to heaven and I see
there's a silver dollar
in the sky shining down on me.”

-       Sitting In the Sun, Louis Armstrong

"Was it not because man had a fixed, determined form that he cannot possess eternal life?  Does not true life begin only when tangible form has been lost?"

- Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa


 

Reading “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, many thoughts cross my mind.  Each stems back to the same place – the nature of perception. Or, as we refer to it in more concrete, rational, scientific terms – cognition.

I’m an anthropologist by training, a traveler by nature and a linguist by inclination.  I’m also hard-wired to be pro-social, which is why I have always been fascinated in that which connects people and that which cleaves us apart.  The pursuit of this understanding has taken me around the world, from small communities in Ecuador to hot spots in Bosnia to the Pink Palace in Ontario.  A little story cuts to the root of what I have learned so far:

When I was living in Italy, a key Other identified by many of my Italian friends were the Maroccini – the Moroccans. The epithets used against foreign Moroccan workers were the same as has been used against any Other in history, whether it be the Gauls, the Irish, the Chinese or First Nations:

- They don’t think like you and I;
- They are corrupt, immoral, dangerous;
- They are intentionally out to get us;
- They are not to be trusted, therefore:
- We must defend against them, through offense if necessary.

It’s a deep-rooted fear of the unknown which quivers beneath the surface of many a mind to this day.

During a trip from Italy to Morocco with a busload of Moroccans and over weeks spent in various parts of Morocco proper, I heard the exact same prejudice raised.  This time, it was about the Italians on the part of Moroccans. South of the Atlas, I frequently heard the same words spoken by small-towners and Tuareg, but in reference to the big-city folk from Casa.

Of all the wonderful riches of diversity that separate ethnicities, linguistic groups, religious groups and political groups, people fundamentally have one key thing in common – a mistrust of each other. That mistrust is instinctual, limbic-based and fortified by a deficit of understanding.  That lack of awareness helps leave one with the feeling of being unempowered, of not having control.

Why, though? Why does surface or anecdotal knowledge lead us to focus on differences between people, when the similarities are so pronounced?  In my experience, language is the key. We codify everything – nature, people, positions – by giving them names.  Trouble is, the naming of things applies levels of value that are not intrinsic to the subject in question. Codification allows for more complex communication, certainly, but it equally imbues whatever's being defined with significance beyond its internal fabric.  We automatically mistrust what we don't understand, because it is different.  That mistrust wedges itself into our definitions.  That cognition-level stigma restricts us from knowing a subject on its own terms; instead, we know things in terms of what they mean to us.

The Other provides a clear example of this.  When you define a person as different than you, they become foreign, unknowable, threatening. Conversely, if we used the elements we have in common to form the base of understanding, diversity becomes an opportunity for growth, difference becomes a positive, the unknown becomes a teacher.

That variance in perspective leads to the great irony of alchemy, the mystical search for immortality and immediate wealth that played a role in fostering the development of modern science and Western thought in general.  The perspective that developed alchemy has left us with individual-focused definitions of wealth and life - a perspective which leaves us searching for answers to problems that exist in our perceptions alone.

This framework and the quest for the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone is core to Western thought; therefore, it has informed the institutions and infrastructure that form the skeleton and nervous system of Western civilization. Our health care system is designed to help us individually live longer.  We want to live longer to enjoy wealth.  At the same time, we try to get rich as quickly as possible to be able to enjoy our wealth for greater parts of our lifespans (hence the inevitability of get-rich-quick schemes). Or, we tackle the problem from a slightly different angle and seek immortality and wealth through legend. It’s the same choice Achilles grappled with – glory or immortality, only now we define this by saying it’s better to burn out than to fade away.

When you define riches as that which are rare and difficult to obtain, you automatically set yourself on a competitive trajectory. Precious metals are rare, so it’s those at the top of the food chain who get them. Money doesn’t come easy, so it is seen as important. Unless you’ve got access to financial wealth – in that case, it’s some other rare commodity you seek, with your money, that helps define you as rich. This can be an artist’s work (which gains much value once it’s clear that their output is irrevocably limited) or a pet or pelt of a nearly-extinct animal. The pursuit of wealth is a perpetually isolating one, intrinsically twinned with the fear of losing something – something you have already, or perhaps the next opportunity if you don’t move quickly enough.

WEALTH

The big secret of the Philosopher’s Stone is this – you cannot turn common stones into gold, but there’s no particular reason why gold must be exclusively valuable. In fact, you can choose to value that which is all around you, if value is not prescribed as something you can have to the exclusion of others. Hence the Satchmo quote that kicked this article off – the glory of a sunset is a wealth everyone can attain when wealth is seen not as an individual end but as a personal, connective beginning.

What of the other quest of alchemy, the Elixir of Life, which is essentially the same conceit as the Fountain of Youth? The same principle of codification applies here. When you identify things in terms of possession, you either have something or someone else does.  If there's something someone else has and you don’t, you must’re probably missing out. There’s a reason why anxiety and depression are connected to consumption. Equally, when you view life on the individual level, it is short, your time is limited, the stress is on to get what you can with the time that you have.

This is what we do – we start inward, then expand slowly outward. We worry about our own lives, then the lives of our families, our self-identified groups, our communities and somewhere way down the line, our species and the general ecosystem. Yes, we in the West understand the circle of life, ashes to ashes, etc, but we don’t really believe it. Life is a trajectory, not a cycle; when we’re done, we’re done. This is all there is.

Of course, we could dig deeper, if we wanted to - cells within our body die and are replaced all the time. The fabric of who we are changes over the course of our lives - we're literally not the same people at our deaths as we were at our births. That same perspective can be applied to society; the death of an individual does not mean the end of society, just as the end of a society doesn't imply the end of the species.  Individual deaths actually facilitate the adaptability of the whole – as true for cells as it is for political parties or business ventures.  These days, in social contexts, we refer to this adaptive process by a new name – creative destruction.

It is widely recognized that the business which proves itself incapable of innovation is destined to fail, just as the body or society that does not adapt cannot last.  Of course, that which is successful will invariably incorporate elements of that which came before, as is the nature of evolution.  Existence IS a cycle of regeneration, not a trajectory; death is a starting place, as much as an end.

Yet our society is built of individuals seeking their own survival and benefit; that is the perspective that informs everything from the way we plan cities or conduct ourselves in traffic to the way we fund health care programs (again, designed to keep us ticking for as long as possible). Going inwards, we don't see the loss of a limb as the loss of self; so long as the self is intact, the limb can be compensated for (when it comes to impacts on our cognitive abilities, however, there is a sense that with neurological challenges, a measure of the man is lost).  At the outer (governance, corporate) level, individuals are often viewed the same way, though the emergence of the knowledge-based economy is changing this.

Systems are built with focus on how to support the individual, then expanded to groups and models. Institutions - public, Not-For-Profit, Private - worry about achieving their own interests and mandates first, frequently at the expense of others in their field. This is why we are being weighed down by the burdens of duplication, gaps and overlaps; repetition and inefficiency results when you look from the ground-up, rather than from the crowd inwards.

It is no surprise that the more densely integrated global society becomes, that trend is starting to change.  It’s also no coincidence that this change is being accompanied by a deeper understanding of cognitive function and how individual perception informs crowd behaviour.

LIFE

Have we strayed from the quest for the Elixir of Life?  No – we’ve just given it some background.  The nature of existence is cyclical, but the nature of cognition is linear.  The major religions touch on the circle of life – ashes to ashes, dust to dust, etc – but they do so from a linear fashion.

Consider: Hindus believe in reincarnation. There’s comfort in knowing that, in some way, your individual existence will go on. Buddhists, on the other hand, are focused on Nirvana – the ending of one’s individual existence. Samurai in feudal Japan looked at life from a completely different perspective – they focused on death. In the Hagakure, Yamamoto Tsunetomo tell us "The way of the warrior is death." This doesn’t mean Samurai were suicidal; what it meant was, the individual acceptance of death took away the fear of ending.  By accepting an end was inevitable, they had no resistance to living life fully.  Lao-tzu put it thusly:

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

When you perceive wealth as personal, it is fleeting.  When you view life as individual, it, too, is fleeting.

Alchemy is the pursuit of the eternal through the lens of the individual.  The eternal, though, is beyond the grasp of the individual – it is not achieved through chemistry or industry, but by shifting one’s perspective beyond the self.  Don Tapscott calls this “networked intelligence.”  That expansion of self is a proven generator of wealth.

The real magic, then, happens when we sublimate the self and allow ourselves to connect with the matrix of the eternal.  Wealth is not isolating, but shared.  Life is not personal, it is systematic.  We move forward, as they say, together.

 “We’re going to change this system by structural reforms and by raising people’s awareness and consciousness.”

http://www.thestar.com/mobile/news/canada/article/1119005--capital-punishment-is-the-free-market-on-its-last-legs

I just so happen to have a few projects along those lines...

ETHICS: MORALITY, SOCIETY, URBAN ADAPTATION AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS FOR ETHICAL OIL

"Levant’s thesis is simple enough: compared to most of the world’s oil sources, northern Alberta is a veritable bastion of stability, political enlightenment and environmental responsibility."

 “If it weren’t for Alberta’s energy sector, I wouldn’t enjoy the quality of life I do today.”

There are two things the hubbub around “ethical oil” have to tell us about society:

ONE – ETHICS MATTER

Despite what Conservatives pundits have tried to tell me (and PM Steven Harper tried to tell the world when he said Canadians “don’t care” about morality in procedure) – ethics matter.  The Defenders of the Crude would never use the term otherwise.

The importance of ethics makes sense not out of some perceived notion of the better angels of human nature, but out of simple social evolutionary adaption.  Do Unto Others as You’d Have Them Do Unto You only gains in meaning when the Other is beside you every day on the subway, or can access your whole life – and your social networks – online.  The give-a-penny, share-a-penny mentality also makes sense because it proactively builds good will, collaboration and mutual benefit.  Call it the busker model of business.  It’s not unique to humans – even chimpanzees do altruism, because it pays. 

The users of oil might just be using “ethical” to soften the appeal of their cause, but the fact that they feel it necessary to use the word at all is telling in and of itself.  Just like “clean coal”, there is recognition on the part of old-tier energy resource advocates that people ARE concerned about environmental degradation and the impact of resource-use on local communities.  It’s the same trend we saw with the advent of “humane” capital punishment, moving from public hangings to private, less painful injections.  Eventually, you get to a point where you can’t simply can’t sugar-coat the unpalatable enough and choose a third way.

The third way is renewable energy, clean/green energy.  The broad, long-term appeal here is that “renewable” will translate into “ever-lasting” and “clean” will end up meaning less degradation in one’s backyard.  In ancient Rome or even Victorian England, personal waste got dumped on the street.  That kind of self-centred, short-term focused thinking led to plagues and epidemics that impacted everyone equally.  It took a while, but we eventually learned how to collaborate on a more effective model; we have a public sewage system now, and are all a lot healthier for it.

Fossil fuel is today’s equivalent to dumping crap on our streets; yes, it’s handy, yes, it’s there, but you mess up the lawn and risk health (individual and environmental) and access to green space to get it.  If your personal gains outweigh the costs, you don’t care – which is why Albertans are more pro-oil than they are willing to adopt new technologies, but we’ll get to that in point two.

The clean/green movement is the advocate for  tomorrow, but that tomorrow comes at the expense of oil-beneficiaries’ present.  Yes, it is telling that the majority of them aren’t dependent on oil-or-coal generated income.  That just means that the short-term carrot of fossil fuel is smaller for them than the long-term carrot of consequence, while the long-term carrot of better access with less consequence is perhaps bigger than the short-term stick for “Ethical Oil” folk in adapting to a new system.  The great minds behind the Oil Industry could be redirecting their energy on building the next thing – creative destruction as the only option for perpetual success.  It’s far easier, though, to keep promoting and expandinge horse-and-buggy market rather than invest in developing cars.  Though we know how that turns out.

The weighing of long-and-short term carrots and sticks is the history of cognitive development and civilization.  As we live in increasingly dense urban environments, the long-term sticks that result from snatching short-term carrots grow in significance, as does the possibility of big carrots down the road if you perhaps skip the small carrot available at the present.  The societal whole is increasingly less tolerant of individual gain at social cost.

Hence, ethics.  And that’s why even the use of the term “ethical oil” is a great indicator of the slow demise of fossil fuel dependence.  

TWO – YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK TO BEFORE

There comes a time when any model outlives its practical usefulness.  There is never a clean cut line between models, however – there is always a period of friction.  In that way, social upheaval is the same as the shifting of tectonic plates – and equally inevitable.

As an example: Feudal Japan went out fighting – the samurai battled against the adoption of the Western model and the country against the West itself.  In the end, the result was inevitable.  You can’t stop progress.

The use of the horse and buggy was familiar and comfortable.  Just as important, it was routine.  The advent of the car brought great benefits, but new challenges.  The introduction of the train, though, was terrifying for once-isolated communities.  The train brought disruption, diversity, quantity.  It changed everything.  It is no coincidence that the concerns being raised around mass transit through a railway grid used the exact same arguments being leveled against wind turbines today.  There were concerns about the health impacts of trains on people and livestock.  Some said that the noise and commotion of locomotion lead to two-headed calves being born.  While many of the arguments presented might seem ridiculous, but they were based in a very real place – the discomfort of change.

Change, unfortunately, is the order of the day.  Just look at the impact of the Internet on print journalism, the pulp and paper industry and the communities that depended on it.  The ripple-effects of the 21^st Century are shattering the conventions that have sustained us, in some cases, since the dawn of the industrial revolution.  Is it any surprise that stress-related mental illness diagnoses are on the rise, economies are contracting, national and domestic tensions increasing, and decision-makers are waffling?

I think there would be a lot of agreement with that concept.  The Tea Party and Occupy Movement would surely be on board.  But what does this have to do with oil?

Here are the pro-ethical oil and anti-oil arguments, as I understand them:

Anti-oil

Depending on your point of view, oil is all kinds of wrong – its extraction hurts the environment, it’s a limited resource so can’t be relied on forever and the sheer amount of energy, resources and innovative potential put into obtaining it are long-term wasted as again, it won’t last forever.  When there is even the remote potential of something cleaner and more sustainable, why on earth would you focus on building the better buggy when cars are the thing people are after?  When that opportunity equates to economic opportunity, isn’t it detrimental not to pursue green energy?

Pro-oil

Or, it is absolutely right.  Fossil fuels have been the source of social growth since the industrial age – you can’t expect that to change.  There’s still enough out there to last all of mankind for, well, a while; we’ll have time to figure out what next way down the road, (ie: not our problem).  Given that reality, isn’t it better that we use our own oil and make money doing so?  Fossil fuel generated income plays a huge role in our economy and besides, the way Canada does oil is far better than other countries.  We successfully and proudly advertise “ethical” Canadian diamonds to a desiring world market; “ethical oil” is the same thing.  Besides, this is a Western thing.  The elites in Central Canada have called the shots, ignoring the West, for far too long – it’s our term to lead now and if it’s at their expense, so be it.

The first argument is a proactive one; the minimal size of the carrot to be had from oil extraction and use stands in contrast to the broader implications of the long-term stick of environmental degradation and the lack of preparedness for what a world without oil would mean.  The short-term discomfort to be had from developing and building a clean/green energy infrastructure is nothing compared to the long-term benefits of stability, sustainability and a back-yard that doesn’t reek of bitumen and muddy up your carpet. 

The emerging clean/green energy industry is all about building new partnerships, information sharing, building on innovation – horizontal integration, building new energy networks, etc.  Proactive is adaptive. 

The second argument is a reactive one; we’ve got it, we’re using it, the payoff is great.  If you don’t get the payoff, too bad, but don’t try to take it away from me.  I don’t want less of what works, I want more of it – shouldn’t everyone?  Those trying to take away my carrot are themselves the stick, so I have to swat them with a club.  Hence, the whole ethical oil movement. 

Notice the focus of Ethical Oil is on the unethical nature of their opponents?  It’s less about why fossil fuel use is good, it’s why the alternative is bad.  Green energy is unproven.  Foreign oil is blood-fuel.  Those who are against us are either soft-hearted lefties or the powerful, foreign interest groups conspiring against us.  It’s not about who the partners are or could be – China, for instance – it’s about who the enemy is and how the enemy is not us.  It is no irony that the Harper Conservatives used the same “trouble lapping at our shores”/”socialists and separatists” threats to push for a majority government as they’re using to back ethical oil.  The whole ethical oil argument fits in with selectionist thinking; it’s reactive.  Reactive is combative.

When it looks like their opponent’s arguments are gaining traction, the anti-oil factions become equally reactive.  When reactive meets reactive, you inevitably end up with conflict.  Just ask Rob Ford.

This is as true in national politics as it is in personal politics.  Politics, really, is the social equivalent to fighting – the whole point of politics is to plan your success at the expense of someone else, or mitigate harm to yourself by deflecting it with criticism pointed elsewhere.

Some of my journalist friends’ would tell me segueing into why reactive vs proactive is a distraction that takes away from the main point, but I think it’s fundamental to understanding what’s really happening here.  Plus, this is a blog, not a lecture – you can read whichever pieces you like.  The industrial revolution, the horse and buggy, the collapse of print media and the rise of online social networks, the ethical oil argument and even the rise of urban living are all tied into the same paradigm. Understanding the causal factors behind social, behavioural patterns is key to making the best decisions that balance long-term interests against short-term needs.  They all tie in to the rise of the city.

URBAN, ADAPTIVE LIVING

Urban living forces people to be ever-adaptive as every facet of their daily routine is subject to countless external influencers.  In Toronto, a domestic fight can lead to a distracted driver who runs a light, hits a streetcar and grinds the whole metro system to a halt.  Even a photo in a newspaper can throw one of the most powerful politicians in the country off their routine (Rob Ford = great metaphorical fodder).  Urbanites are intensely inter-dependent in ways most people never even consider, yet there it is. 

At the same time, the diversity of intense urban living provides untold benefits – mass transit, ethnic cuisine, theatre, new business opportunities.  We are willing to take the risks, the lack of individual control over our lives, because in the cost/benefit analysis, the opportunity pros outweigh the adaptive cons, and even the adaptive needs offer room for innovation, which potentially creates new benefits.

That doesn’t mean that there are those who are adverse to change or who see the costs of change as outweighing the benefits – hence, NIMBYism.  Across the board, though, the benefits of dense urban living are enticing; this is why urban growth continues to escalate, globally.

RURAL, ESTABLISHED LIVING

By contrast, small-town anywhere tends to be less diverse and, therefore, more homogeneous – not just in terms of demographics, cuisine or social activities, but even down to routine.  This is a lifestyle that works – the benefits are there, the risks of change are minimal, life is good.  Until, that is, external change forces internal change.

I grew up in Cornwall, Ontario when it was a mill town.  Kids didn’t think it an exciting place to be, though there was some theatre, bowling, the odd festival.  Parents could be relatively assured that their jobs at plants like Domtar were secure and that positions would be there for their kids when the time came.  Routines were pretty established, from family dinners to summer bonfires.  Not much changed, because not much needed to change – until the realities of the global economy came home to roost.  Cornwall is still in the process of adapting to the forced reality of closed plants and unemployment, but it IS adapting.  Part of the process has involved, not surprisingly, diversification – there are new industries popping up and, at the same time, diverse consumption opportunities, too.  Who’d have thought Cornwall would ever have two sushi joints?

Cornwall’s change was met with resistance, yet it undeniably is happening.  The rebirth of Japan was met with fierce, ultimately futile, resistance.  Apartheid didn’t go down quietly, nor did slavery in the United States, although the Civil War was about more than just that.

What we’re witnessing with Ethical Oil is the last forceful gasps of an industry that is losing its hold over the present.  As soon as they started applying the “ethical” descriptor and started pouring vast amounts of resources into mounting an offense, they were done.  This isn’t politics, this isn’t the four-year cycle;  this is a fundamental change in the nature of the fuel that drives our economic engine. 

I don’t expect those behind ethical oil to switch horses mid-stream, no matter how tired their current horse is.  I don’t expect Albertans or Steven Harper to back away from their staunch defence of bitumen.  For their sake, for our collective sake, I hope they spare a few thoughts and a few dollars to what is coming next.  Adaptation, after all, is the key to survival.

THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC SERVICES: Built on an Open-Source Public Service Platform

“Why don’t we create a collaborative model of healthcare?” – Don Tapscott

 January 12, 2010 – a 7.0 magnitude earthquake shakes Haiti to the bone, reducing weak infrastructure to rubble, wiping out 220,000+ lives and putting the fate of a nation in question.  Worse earthquakes had hit other populated areas in recent memory, without the same degree of impact.  What led to Haiti's particular tragedy combined a lack of planning with selfish interests that saw sub-standard buildings erected in the first place.  The absence of proper maps and census data only made a potential response plan ever harder to develop.

Ironically, it was an altruistic, coordinated effort by the international community that stepped in to address the crisis.  The resources of UN agencies, USAID, individual donors from Japan, school groups in Europe and countless other sources in Canada and around the world was largely coordinated through open-source, online maps and crowdsourcing. 

An Ushahidi-based open source platform became the hub around which government and Not-For-Profit agencies were able to interact in a planned, coordinated way to connect the people of Haiti with the services and resources they needed.  A person stuck in a collapsed building could send a text to a friend, who could pass it on to an appropriate official, which would then be coordinated through a central point in the States to get the right people and resources on the ground in Port-au-Prince to go where they were needed.  Someone moved to make a donation after watching footage of the devastation on the evening news could access the system in the same way, learning the best opportunities to contribute and putting their offering into the mix.

The Haiti experience gives a great example of how an online, Open-Source Public Service Platform can provide an opportunity to transform the existing social service model into something adapted to the realities of the 21^st Century.

Think about it – there is broad concern that social services cost too much and that much of that cost is lost to inefficiencies.  It’s like using an old light bulb – little of the energy used actually gets translated into illumination.  Services aren’t always provided where they are needed, or aren’t as accessible as they should be, or people simply don’t know the right entry point to reach those services.  Countless paid hours are spent by government employees trying to help frustrated clients find the specific service they need – and that’s before you add barriers like transportation access, language/cultural barriers, wheelchair/stroller accessibility, etc.

Inefficiencies, cost, access challenges.  You can add to this increased wait times as people struggle to find appropriate services, or end up needing advanced services because they were unable or un-empowered to connect with the right front-end services before an issue emerged.  Also worth mentioning is the recent federal contraction on census data collected and the broad social concerns around accountability and customer service within the public sector.

All these can be problems of the past, thanks to crowdsourcing – and the solution can be realized in a way that doesn’t add to the tax burden.  Again, that solution is an Open-Source Public Service Platform.

A quick example of what the benefit of an integrated, open-source online social service platform would look like: a First Generation Canadian living wherever, trying to find out how to diagnose and treat an ailment in her non-English speaking, wheelchair-bound mother -- could use an App on her phone to narrow down her search and tailor results to include the language and transportation need components.  The search results would include phone numbers for the service providers and a broader coordinating entity, for example a LHIN.  The lady would be able to find and connect her mom with the specific help she needs and how to get to it with a few clicks on a blackberry.

How would you begin to build something of such complexity and magnitude?  Wouldn’t the cost be preventative?  Nope – that’s the advantage of crowdsourcing.  If one central entity – ideally, government – were to provide the basic digital infrastructure (the Ushahidi model is already established and is freely available, and RIM is probably looking for work that could include adapting it for this purpose), the various players involved would organically populate the rest.  A detailed map would be a great, free tool for gaining statistical data, developing broad understandings of service distribution and need (facilitating planning and reducing duplication, gaps and overlaps) and provide opportunities for oversight that would find the right balance through sheer volume.

Service providers inputting their data into the map could use a template form to know which pieces to populate their corner with.  This would include things like address, broad service category, specific service category, accessibility, languages spoken, contact information, etc.  Each entry would have a comments section with an aggregated customer service satisfaction indicator.  When public transit, doctor’s offices, social service offices, etc. plug their information into the map, it would be an easy matter of using an App on a phone or a computer to connect with the right search terms and cross-reference them for proximity, availability and so on.  A secured level of use could record all the data that helps government plan funding allocation and public need in a way only dreamed of now.

We’re already starting to do this by recording wait times in hospitals or results in schools; a public service platform is simply the next logical step.  The Government of Ontario has taken a huge leap forward through a Social Innovation Summit hosted by SiG@MaRS and by launching a wiki allowing Ontarians to participate in the world’s first crowd-sourced policy paper.  The Ontario Liberal Party learned from Facebook and created FRed, creating an online community for members and those interested in learning more.

This same principle can take advantage of the growing connectivity in our society in countless other ways; you could use an open source map to plan your next vacation, if tourist-service providers sign up, or to find new employees/help transition ones that don’t fit without needing to fire them.

Here’s an example of what such a map could look like, using fair trade as an example.

The challenges of today are steering us in one clear direction – collaboration.  The only way to face our current economic, health and quality-of-life woes is to find efficiencies in service – not by cutting the offerings themselves, but by ensuring they are properly coordinated.  An Open-Source Public Service Platform is the perfect tool to make this happen.