Transformative Media & Entertainment

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Comment by Deborah J. Boyd on July 27, 2010 at 6:37am

If I took everything personally I would be living under a rock. Carlos is open, Jim is open, Ron is open, I am open. Then there are people who hide in the shadows of a persona. If the shoe fits.

Comment by Deborah J. Boyd on July 27, 2010 at 6:10am

My comment, an opinion, was not directed at all capitalism, just what seems to be currently distorted. The acquisition of cash by any means. I work with many capitalists and applaud many. Google, Apple, Facebook are all very good examples of companies that have performed with little or no corruption, pay well, provide great benefits, and feel they have a moral mission as well as a financial one. I listen to people each day who have managed to turn the words Liberal, Union, and Labor into the equivalent of four letter words not usually acceptable in civilized communities. As to any comparison between me an Jerry Springer... this just tells me you have nothing better to say or you would. Perhaps you feel shy about making a comment because you want to be loved by everyone. Debates are just that. Opinions are not always agreed to by everyone. Having grown up in the Washington, DC area I get very tired of people who throw stones at Congress and the White House while they and there family benefit from laws, infrastructure, and many other collective investments in America and by doing so, the truth is that the American consumer supports most of the International economy.
I am all in favor of promoting more music, art, and all forms of entertainment and sports in an effort to provide constructive ways to elevate adrenalin without killing, corruption, and exploitation. Our highly divided America is not working well and the reasons for the divisions are more about wealth and who has it than any other single factor.

Comment by Deborah J. Boyd on July 27, 2010 at 5:47am

Mary Rose, now on that we can agree. I am not that confused but I do spend a great deal of time on the Internet in many groups. I admit that at times, depending on what I have been doing, I can "jump the gun" on interpreting the posts.

Comment by Ed Lantz on July 27, 2010 at 12:43am

Hi all. Lots of passion here to be sure. Not a good time to leave the group, waldenthree - just before the breakthrough... Sometimes this list gets way off topic, to be sure, so your patience is appreciated. I hate to be dictatorial as admin, but I do feel the need to ask folks to please stay on topic or at least bring it full circle at some point.

One can argue about governmental systems being the culprit, but personally, it seems that there is a greater picture to be recognized beyond political systems. Any political system can thrive or fail. This depends more on the hearts of the people who make up the political system. Cruel, greedy people create a bad system regardless of political slant. A loving system can only emerge from loving people.

So waldenthree, to address your question about what needs transforming in our world, it is the hearts and minds of people that needs transforming. With the right attitude upwelling from the people, all of the other details for positive transformation will take care of themselves by people who care and are empowered to facilitate change. That's the theory, anyway.

As you suggest, however, the resulting transformation must ripple out into actions. Fortunately, media/art/entertainment can not only inspire a change of heart, it can easily offer the "cognitive framework" for personal change and engagement to facilitate an emergent "stadium wave" of macroscopic change. Change is best seeded by relevant, engaging media and entertainment experiences that propagate positive memes (infectious belief systems) throughout the masses. Providing information is the easy part - shifting hearts and minds, that is the emergent technology that needs to be further developed and the primary focus of this group, at least for me.

Of course, if we seek to provide specific actionable items to the public, we need wise sources for solutions that will really result in positive change.

I'm personally guided by several sources for the cognitive "informational" piece. On the social action side there is the Millennium Project's State of the Future Report. It's a sobering 7,000 page report on solutions to 15 global challenges - anything from water issues to women's rights. The focus is on global challenges that will require globally coordinated solutions. http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/sof-2010.html

Some of these solutions do involve technology. I personally do not believe that returning to the lifestyle of ancient, indigenous peoples will save us at this point. I do believe that adopting the heartsong (and resulting attitude) of our wise, indigenous elders will save us - love and deepest respect for our Earth and all upon it. As we apply this wisdom (or realization) to all we do - our technologies, our political systems, even to our interactions here in this forum - we will change the world.

c3: Center for Conscious Creativity's VisionLAB just held a downtown Los Angeles symposium in to explore how arts, media and entertainment can assist in global change: www.c3so.com. They will post videos from the conference soon, but there's already a lot of content from the event on their website.

I mention the c3 because they have been invited to be one of 35 futurist "nodes" that feed information into the State of the Future report. See the report recently given to the Millennium Project in Boston, MA in the Discussion Forum above. Basically, c3 has been asked to look at future trends in arts, media and entertainment and how they can impact global change. c3 was also tasked with helping to package and disseminate global solutions for the 15 Global Challenges - compiled by the Millennium Project - into various media and entertainment channels. Basically - c3's job is to help get the word out about the many global solutions via every channel possible: film, television, print, web, mobile, virtual, social network, etc.

Living up to this challenge requires the c3 to build a database of advisers, fellows, and organizational partners such as Producers/Writers/Directors guilds worldwide. A tall order. This past year I joined the Board of c3 to help.

Want to join us? Join www.consciouscreatives.net and the Millennium Project Arts and Media Node group then ping Kate McCallum and her tribe. c3 is seeking help from grant writing to researching future trends to tracking transformational programming to serious crowdsource website design...

And everyone, please tell us more about what specific arts, media or entertainment projects you are doing to make a difference!

Best, e

Comment by mary rose on July 26, 2010 at 8:00pm

waldenthree; Why would we want to return to what you call "the rule of the wise founding fathers." These are those who promote and hang on to capitalism -- the "Republicans among us" those who would caste the worker aside now, even though without the "worker" they could not have become filthy rich as they have today off of the backs of those who helped to get them here.

Thomas Jefferson must be turning over in his grave as he forsaw this day coming and did not want to see the capitalist system come into being. He was the only holdout among these slave holders, formerly wealthy Englishmen who using the East Indies Trading Company to do so, colonialized the world -- colonialization being another word for globalization. And, as it is written in the book "Empire" these men needed a constitution upon which to build it, most of them being "Freemasons."

As you speak with a fast and twisted tongue, sir, i see you as one of THEM. We do not need more technology -- as theologian David Ray Griffen writes in the forward for the Suny Series in Postmodern Thought, contained within Dr. Jay Earley's book: "Transforming Human Culture, Social Evolution and the Planetary Crisis," "Modernity" today rather than being regarded as the norm for human society toward which all history has been aiming and into which all societies should be ushered -- forcibly if necessary --is instead increasingly seen as an aberration. A new respect for the wisdom of indigenous societies is growing as we realize that they have endured for thousands of years and that, by contrast, the existence of modern society for even another 100 years seems doubtful."

In our quest for riches in terms of monetary means, we have, as we followed the "siren's song," lost our soul. Life has become bereft of meaning and we are fast approaching the cliff of no return. We now have no choice but to adapt to the circumstances we have brought upon ourselves or die -- there is no other choice. The motto for my organization is "Living simply so others may simply live."

Comment by Carlo Ami on July 26, 2010 at 7:41pm

On forums like this, a variety of types of people are attracted to it. Some you will relate to, some not so much. Some will come looking for the opportunity to insult. Some will come to get insulted. If I wanted to witness that kind of discussion, maybe I'd turn on the Jerry Springer show.

On a site like this in particular, we might consider sidestepping judgment and being a little kinder to each other. Whadya think?

Comment by waldenthree coordinator on July 26, 2010 at 7:13pm

because of your insulting comments. i will leave your group. Your assumptiosn about 'capitalism' is incorrect.

thank you. i am leaveing this group now.

Comment by mary rose on July 26, 2010 at 7:11pm

OK, let me address Deborah's concerns and as i do will get into some of waldenthree's stuff.

Deborahm it isn't that work is going to end, what is ending is "paying jobs" in corporations due to the fact that as we move into nanotechnology to save on evermore scarce growing resources, human hands are too large for the work being done and more of it has to be accomplished by "advanced technologies" which are rapidly changing to meet new needs. Much of what is invented will be obsolete before it is ever used as competition in the marketplace forces everyone to do "more with less" and to do it quicker. And, since parts in nanotechnology are very small, parts are also much smaller and can be produced much faster.

For instance my dear friend, Dr. Vernon Woolf is getting ready to manufacture "capacitor batteries" and these are about the size of a sheet of paper (8 1/2 x 11) and very thin. So, they can be rolled out in sheets just like is done with aluminum soft drink cans. So, once new things like this are designed, there is very little need for human labor -- it is all done by automation. And, at the present time, while only 30% of the presently available laborforce is needed to produce everything needed by the 6.7 billion of us on the planet, as we move more and more into nanotechnology and biomimicry in order to save on ever-more scarce growing resources, the less human labor will be involved. So, it is estimated that by the time we reach the ultimate in nanotechnology, only about 3 - 4% of the human labor force will be needed to produce everything we need. So, it is not that we will not go into outer space, it is just that human labor will not be needed to get us there.

But, the question is if there is so little paid work to be done by humans as this takes place, how do we earn enough money to pay for our food and other necessities of life? And, in the current type of economy that we have, it is impossible to do. Food production is the cornerstone of freedom and if you are employed and then layed off and there is no way to grow your own food -- do a little "subsistence" farming -- as use to be the case, then one is sh-- out of luck and must hit the road, Jack, in order to attempt to find work and a way to keep roof over head and food in mouth as many Mexicans and others around the world are having to do today. While it use to be that work in the service industry could take up the slack and employ people (who had to also work three jobs in order to make what they formerly made) this is no longer possible as the service industry is also becoming more and more automated as we come to the end of the Industrial Age and move into the Age of Knowledge.

And, what is happening as automation takes over and leaves fewer and fewer people in paying positions, is that the capitalist manufacturers are making more and more money as they can write off the equipment used in production as a capital expense, plus they no longer have to pay the high fees associated with human labor, e.g., payroll, benefits, lunch rooms, parking lots, personnel department and the infastructure needed to support it, e.g., phones, computers, building space, lighting, heating and cooling, etc. So, now the capitalist is now making a lot more money off of his investment while human labor is left out in the cold.

But this has its drawbacks as well, as the producer must have a consumer and without human labor that is paid, there can be no consumer except for the elite who are making money hand over fist without the laborer.

So, now the capitalist must turn to involvement in war and in the manufacture of luxury goods so that they will have profit centers to keep them going. And they turn to genocide in order to eliminate the former employees that are no longer needed to produce goods and services.

So while they are making out like bandits, we-the-people are really suffering since the elite do not want to share the incredible profit they are making as they use automation at a lower cost to them than is human labor.

Comment by Deborah J. Boyd on July 26, 2010 at 7:05pm

You are a very condescending character aren't you. #1 you do not have to make it easy for me. #2 founding fathers were born of founding mothers.
Education does need transformed because the purpose of education is not to produce labor for capitalists but to assist learners in developing their assets while working on their weaknesses. People do not need to conform to some mold that makes them mediocre.
As for small business. Some is good some is a rip off. Just because a business is medium or big does not make it bad. If business doesn't grow eventually competition puts them out of business.

Comment by waldenthree coordinator on July 26, 2010 at 4:28pm

Your comment: Transformation is an interesting world. Reform assumes part or all of someting is worth saving. Transform is the opposite.

Discussion: Ok, I like your word, 'Transformation". say i want to use this word to something 'actionable' here in America, a land build by a 'ideal' and 'vision' of wise founding fathers, and not by history as is the case of Europe, for example.

I want to go back to the ideals and vision of the founding fathers.

Questiion 01:
What are the top 5 "Transformation' you think needs execution ?

Discussion: I want to make this easy for you, and make this question a multiple choice question. I request you to comment based on 'Transformation' requirments of American society, and list them i order of piriity (1), (2), (3), (4) & (5). keep in mind that our current near term needs of the people in America. Unemployment is one of the hightest in recent time. Econoomy is still very slow, people are suffering all over the nation, some places more than others.

Here are your multiple choices for 'transformation' topics, listed randomly.

(a) Education system transformation
to motivate young people to make commiment for science and engineering degrees and careers.

(b) knowledge economy (near term)
by empowering small tech biz, a knowledge economy to transform 'knowledge', technolgy available for license from from govie labs and research universities to create new "earth friendly" products and services & reduce (1) cost of health and (2) cost of energy to communities and reigons.

(c) Knowledge Economy (Long term)

Transform eduction system and link between research universities, government labs, and industry to enable more Nobel class research to enable such new industrues as has been the case of such Nobel class research during the period after World War II, as (1) Biotech Industry (creatted mostly in the 80's and 90's to today) and (2) Laser Industry (created mostly in the 90's and today still growing strong world wide.

(d) tranform quality of life

Build 'ethics' back into our culture in industry and government particularly as a prime plank in society of the furture , by strengheing the sources of ethics in soiety such as spiritualtiy for example, and learning from from Nature's Temple as is the inheritance of Natieve American cultures in America, for example .

(e) Did i leave out a topic for transformatoin in America that's important but not mentioned here ?

avi dey

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.
H. G. Wells

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