From 580480e554bec31a318babe82a302659e58fb759 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: npyati Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2024 00:54:24 -0600 Subject: [PATCH] Updating Conclusion Adding additional material re: success measures --- contents/english/07-01-conclusion.md | 49 +++++++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-) diff --git a/contents/english/07-01-conclusion.md b/contents/english/07-01-conclusion.md index 3a641c3b..557eb98a 100644 --- a/contents/english/07-01-conclusion.md +++ b/contents/english/07-01-conclusion.md @@ -1,48 +1,50 @@ # Conclusion -Throughout this book, we have tried to make the case for a society that honors pluralism, and for technology that promotes and sustains it. If you share that vision, please join us now in the movement for Plurality. +Throughout this book, we have tried to make the case for a society that honors pluralism, and for technology that promotes and sustains it. If you share that vision, join us in the movement for Plurality. + +We have bold aspirations. By 2030, people around the world should see Taiwan as a guiding light for pluralism, and its flourishing as critical to the West as that of Israel or Ukraine. People will expect their democracy to progress as quickly as their smartphones. “Plurality” will be as recognizable to polities around the globe as the green movement, or AI. ### The Stakes -Technology is the most powerful force in our world today. Whether or not we understand its inner workings, deploy it tentatively or voraciously, or agree with the companies and policymakers that have shaped its development to date – it remains our single greatest lever to shape society going forward. +Technology is the most powerful force in our world today. Whether or not we understand its inner workings, deploy it tentatively or voraciously, or agree with the companies and policymakers that have shaped its development to date, it remains our single greatest lever to shape society going forward. -And by “society,” as we have argued throughout this book, we mean not just each of us individually but also the webs of relationships that connect us. Whether you look at it from a scientific, historical, sociological, religious or political point of view, it is increasingly clear that reality is defined not just by who we are, but how we connect. +By “society,” as we have argued throughout this book, we mean not just each of us individually but also the webs of relationships that connect us. Whether you look at it from a scientific, historical, sociological, religious or political point of view, it is increasingly clear that reality is defined not just by who we are, but how we connect. -Technology has had a dramatic effect on those connections. From the railroad to the telegraph to the telephone; to Facebook connecting us to old kindergarten friends and new like-minded allies; to Zoom holding businesses and families together during Covid, we have benefited enormously from technology’s capacity to forge and strengthen human connection. +Technology has had a dramatic effect on those connections. From the railroad to the telegraph to the telephone, to Facebook connecting us to old kindergarten friends and new like-minded allies, to Zoom holding businesses and families together during Covid, we have benefited enormously from technology’s capacity to forge and strengthen human connection. -At the same time, technology has also clearly driven us apart. Business models based on a fight for attention have prioritized outrage over curiosity, echo chambers over shared understanding, and practically unfettered information manipulation. +At the same time, technology has also clearly driven us apart. Business models based on a fight for attention have prioritized outrage over curiosity, echo chambers over shared understanding, and practically unfettered mis- and disinformation. As AI proliferates through our economy and our lives, it promises to radically increase technology’s effects, good and bad. -And given the pace and transformative capacity of AI, we now stand at a crossroads. Whether technology will steer us closer together or further apart will define the next phase of human experience. And for the moment -- but not for much longer – the choice of which way we go is up to us. +We now stand at a crossroads. Whether technology will steer us closer together or further apart will define the next phase of human experience. For the moment—but not for much longer—the choice of which way we go is up to us. -Some have cast the question of technology’s future as a fight between accelerationism and decelerationism. The governance implosion at OpenAI in late 2023 popularized this frame, putting CEO Sam Altman in the first camp and his erstwhile nonprofit board in the second. In our view, however, decelerationism can’t win. +Some have cast the question of technology’s future as a fight between accelerationism and decelerationism. The governance implosion at OpenAI in late 2023 popularized this frame, putting CEO Sam Altman in the first camp and his erstwhile nonprofit board in the second. In our view, however, this distinction is moot: decelerationism can’t win. -Instead, as we argued earlier in this book, there are two looming accelerationist scenarios, each with its own advocates: entrepreneurial sovereignty and abundance technocracy. The first camp, including executives and investors like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinavasan, wants to “liberate” individuals to be wholly atomistic agents – free of constraint, conscience or responsibility. The second, including Reid Hoffman and Sam Altman, believes that unfettered technological advance can solve humanity’s problems, and that they have the wisdom to decide how it will do so. +Instead, as we argued earlier in this book, there are two looming accelerationist scenarios, each with its own advocates: entrepreneurial sovereignty and abundance technocracy. The first camp, including executives and investors like Peter Thiel and Balaji Srinavasan, wants to “liberate” individuals to be wholly atomistic agents – free of constraint, conscience, or responsibility. The second, including Reid Hoffman and Sam Altman, believes that unfettered technological advance can solve humanity’s problems, and that they have the wisdom to decide how it will do so. -Given a choice between these alternatives, the urgent, passionate answer of this book is: neither. We pluralists believe that most human beings are neither atomized individuals without shared responsibilities nor subjects without a claim to agency. On the whole, human beings are both individuals and social beings, desirous of full lives and capable of sustained peace. But to achieve those goals we need our surrounding systems – the political _and_ the technological ones – to give us both agency and responsibility. And we certainly need the most powerful tools at our disposal to help us find ways to get along, even if not to agree. That is the aspiration and the imperative of Plurality. +Given a choice between these alternatives, the urgent, passionate answer of this book is: neither. We pluralists believe that most human beings are neither atomized individuals without shared responsibilities nor subjects without a claim to agency. On the whole, human beings are both individuals and social beings, desirous of full lives and capable of sustained peace. But to achieve those goals we need our surrounding systems—the political _and_ the technological ones—to give us both agency and responsibility. And we certainly need the most powerful tools at our disposal to help us find ways to get along, even if not to agree. That is the aspiration and the imperative of Plurality. -Plurality is the third way beyond libertarianism and technocracy, a movement we have perhaps three to five years to set in motion. Within that time frame, a critical mass of the technology that people and companies use every day will have become deeply dependent on large language models. At that point, we won’t be able to reverse the “reality” that libertarianism or technocracy have generated for us. But between now and then, we can mobilize to re-chart the course: toward a human-centered, relationship-embracing, digital democracy in which diverse groups of people, despite not agreeing, are able to cooperate and collaborate in sustained and thriving societies. +Plurality is the third way beyond libertarianism and technocracy. It is a movement we have perhaps three to five years to set in motion. Within that time frame, a critical mass of the technology that people and companies use every day will have become deeply dependent on AI models. At that point, we won’t be able to reverse the “reality” that entrepreneurial sovereignty and abundance technocracy have generated for us. But between now and then, we can mobilize to re-chart the course: toward a human-centered, relationship-embracing, digital democracy in which diverse groups of people, despite not agreeing, are able to cooperate and collaborate in sustained and thriving societies. -Such a pivot will take an urgent, whole-of-society mobilization. Businesses, governments, universities, and civil society organizations must demand that our technology deepen our connections across our many forms of social diversity. That is the key, and the only path, to strengthening human stability, prosperity, and flourishing into the future. +Such a pivot will take a whole-of-society mobilization. Businesses, governments, universities, and civil society organizations must demand that our technology deepen our connections across our many forms of social diversity. That is the key, and the only path, to strengthening human stability, prosperity, and flourishing into the future. -As we described in “The Lost Dao,” this vision could have been the dominant ethos of the Internet. Founders and pioneers like JCR Licklider at ARPA and Robert W. Taylor at Xerox imagined replacing the world’s centralized, linear, and atomized structures with more federated, networked relationships and governance. Thanks to a series of adverse political developments in the US, including a turn away from government involvement in technology, the role of the public and social sectors in the development of technology shrank. Instead, private sector players, including the tech giants we know today along with players like Cisco, AOL, PayPal, and others, defined the emerging building blocks of the Internet completely. From networking to storage and computation to identity to user interface to payments and more, the form of the Internet reflects private incentives rather public values. +As we described in “The Lost Dao,” this vision could have been the dominant ethos of the Internet. Founders and pioneers like JCR Licklider at ARPA and Robert W. Taylor at Xerox imagined replacing the world’s centralized, linear, and atomized structures with more federated, networked relationships and governance. Instead, the tech giants we know today, along with players like Cisco, AOL, PayPal, and others, defined the emerging building blocks of the Internet completely. From networking to storage and computation to identity to user interface to payments and more, the form of the Internet reflects private incentives rather public values. -This isn’t to say that the public and social sectors could have built the Internet without the private sector. But the dominance of private capital means that the tool that is now transforming all our lives is not only suffused with private sector resources and ingenuity, but serves private sector priorities. Much of the Internet’s potential for transformative progress has never materialized. +For all that it offers, the Internet’s potential for truly transformative progress has never materialized. If we want to realize that potential, we have a brief window of opportunity to act. -If we want to realize that potential, we have a brief window of opportunity. +### The Promise of Plural Technology -### The Promise of Plural Technology +In the last twenty or so years, societies have developed a sort of learned helplessness when it comes to technology. We’re intrigued by it and we’re alternately delighted and frustrated by it, but we tend to assume that it emerges inexorably, like modernity itself, instead of as the sum of the choices small of groups of engineers. We don’t think “we the people” have any ability, much less any right, to influence the direction of the platforms that are the operating system of our lives. -In the last 20 or so years, societies have developed a sort of learned helplessness when it comes to technology. We’re intrigued by it; we’re alternatively delighted by it and frustrated by it; but we tend to assume that it emerges rather inexorably, rather like modernity itself. We don’t think about the choices small groups of engineers made such that Facebook and Google and TikTok came out the way they did. We don’t think “we the people” have any ability, much less any right, to influence the direction of the platforms that are the operating system of our lives. +But we do have the right, and even the duty, to demand better. Some technology pulls us apart, and some pulls us together. Some fuels our resentment, and some helps us find common cause. If we mobilize to demand the latter, the _plural technologies_ that are designed to help us collaborate across difference, we can re-engineer that operating system. -But we do have the right, and even the duty, to demand better. Some technology pulls us apart, and some pulls us together. Some tech fuels our resentment, and some helps us find consensus. If we mobilize to demand the latter, the _plural technologies_ that are designed to help us collaborate across difference, we can re-engineer that operating system. +We see our opportunity to act across three horizons: the immediate, the intermediate, and the transformative. -*The immediate horizon.* Some of this change is ripe for activism right now. People in every sector – that means you, your friends, your colleagues, right now – can advance initiatives to increase trust, understanding and shared purpose. If you work in the tech industry, you can build on the very-promising-but-not-yet-perfected tools like Pol.is, Remesh, and All Our Ideas which, in a manner exactly opposite of most forms of social media, foster dialogue rather than discord. People working in government can write regulations and incentives to encourage the development of such plural technologies. Academics can study plural technologies and their impact, and devise rigorous measures to help us know what truly works. Cultural leaders, including activists of every sort, can bring pluralism and plural technologies to life in narratives for a wide range of audiences. +_The immediate horizon._ Some of this change is ripe for activism right now. People in every sector—you, your friends, your colleagues, right now—can advance initiatives to increase trust, understanding and shared purpose. If you work in the tech industry, you can build on very-promising-but-not-yet-perfected tools like Pol.is, Remesh, and All Our Ideas which, in a manner exactly opposite of most forms of social media, foster dialogue rather than discord. People working in government can write regulations and incentives to encourage the development of such plural technologies. Academics can study plural technologies and their impact and devise rigorous measures to help us know what truly works. Cultural leaders, including activists of every sort, can bring pluralism and plural technologies to life in narratives for a wide range of audiences. -*The intermediate horizon.* For those with more systematic imagination and ambition, there are opportunities to pursue Plurality across a more intermediate horizon, reinventing institutions to include more voice and invite more participation. Here, too, people in corporations can advance plurality in internal operations and corporate governance – from designing workplaces from the bottom up; to exploring “hard conversations” at work with plural collaboration technologies; to strengthening remote teams so employees’ shared creativity despite distance. Government employees can do the same. Plural technologies have helped find pathways through divisive policy issues regarding rideshare policy in Taiwan, visual arts in Canada, and urban mobility in Chile; the space for experimentation and learning here is huge. +_The intermediate horizon._ _With more systematic imagination and ambition, there are opportunities to pursue Plurality across a more intermediate horizon, reinventing institutions to include more voice and invite more participation. Here, too, people in corporations can advance plurality in internal operations and corporate governance—from designing workplaces from the bottom up,_ to exploring “hard conversations” at work with plural collaboration technologies_,_ to strengthening remote teams so employees’ shared creativity despite distance. Government employees can do the same. Plural technologies have just begun helping find pathways through policy issues regarding rideshare policy in Taiwan, visual arts in Canada, and urban mobility in Chile; these are the kind of early “trial balloons” that suggest that the space for deeper and broader policy experimentation is huge. -Also in the intermediate term, academics can advance the restructuring of academic research and debate using plural technologies. They can more critically examine their own journey of pluralistic thought. Cultural leaders, too, can bring plural technologies into cultural creation. If we can crowd-source a book, can they crowd-source a movie? +Also in the intermediate term, academics can advance the restructuring of academic research and debate using plural technologies. They can more critically examine their own journey of pluralistic thought. Cultural leaders, too, can bring plural technologies into cultural creation. If we can open a book for public comment and edits, can they innovate with public input in other forms of media and entertainment? -*The transformative horizon.* For those of you with even more expansive vision, we have spent a good deal of this book articulating the kinds of truly transformative plural technology that could ultimately rewire the way humans communicate and collaborate. This ambition goes to the root of the Plurality movement’s insight -- that personhood, the core unit of democracy, is not merely atomistic or “monistic,” but is also defined by social relationships – and it therefore gives rise to a broader conception of rights, going beyond individual rights to recognize _plural_ concepts of affiliation, commerce, property, and other building blocks of our society. +_The transformative horizon._ For those of you with even more expansive vision, we have spent a good deal of this book articulating the kinds of truly transformative plural technology that could ultimately rewire the way humans communicate and collaborate. This ambition goes to the root of the Plurality movement’s insight—that personhood, the core unit of democracy, is not merely atomistic or “monistic,” but is also defined by social relationships – and it therefore gives rise to a broader conception of rights, going beyond individual rights to recognize _plural_ concepts of affiliation, commerce, property, and other building blocks of our society. We catalogued an early view of these aspirations. For example, in the most transformative plural technology: @@ -64,7 +66,7 @@ For those with a taste for this kind of ambitious transformation, the time to be It would be funny if, after writing a book about pluralistic sources of wisdom -- and indeed _drawing_ on plural contributors to construct the book itself – we announced a top-down, centralized, command-and-control plan to achieve Plurality. -Of course, there won’t be any one-size-fits-all path to Plurality for every company, community, or country. What there will be, however – and soon, if this book has its intended effect -- is a network of people, lightly connected in groups and loosely federated across the globe, who are committed to Plurality over its dual, looming alternatives: libertarianism and technocracy. Charting a third course, pluralists believe that tech must serve people, not the other way around; and that people’s greatest aspirations are to have full lives, rich with relationships and chances to experience love and loss, adversity and achievement. Tech should help us do _that_ – not turn us into Lord of the Flies, or undifferentiated data points. +Of course, there won’t be any one-size-fits-all path to Plurality for every company, community, or country. What there will be, however – and soon, if this book has its intended effect -- is a network of people, lightly connected in groups and loosely federated across the globe, who are committed to Plurality over its dual, looming alternatives: libertarianism and technocracy. Charting a third course, pluralists believe that tech must serve people, not the other way around, and that people’s greatest aspirations are to have full lives, rich with relationships and chances to experience love and loss, adversity and achievement. Tech should help us do _that_ – not turn us into Lord of the Flies or undifferentiated data points. If you believe that the central condition of a thriving, progressing, and righteous society is social diversity, and collaboration across such rich diversity – then come on board. @@ -72,5 +74,6 @@ If you believe that technology, the most powerful tool in today’s society, can If you want to contribute to Plurality’s immediate horizon, intermediate horizon, or truly transformative horizon —or across all of them—you have multiple points of entry. If you work in tech, business, government, academia, civil society, cultural institutions, education, and/or on the home-front, you have multiple ways to make a difference. -We pluralists are in every country in the world and every sector of the economy. Connect, affiliate, rally, mobilize … and join us, in the deliberate and committed movement to build a more dynamic and plural world. +Come on board via this book, via the collateral materials around it, and in collaboration with friends and colleagues. If 100 million people see the film, 10 million get acquainted with plurality, 1 million read the book, 100,000 deeply digest it, and 10,000 work actively in plurality – we will reach our 2030 goals. +We pluralists are in every country in the world and every sector of the economy. Connect, affiliate, rally, mobilize … and join us, in the deliberate and committed movement to build a more dynamic and harmonious world.