In the middle of June, I started to put together the series that I entitled Global Sustainability, which has been auto-posting over the past couple of weeks. As the series continued to post, I continued to think about the ideas that I put down on paper (and then on screen).
I especially began to consider the parameters of my thesis, particularly the role of the internet and the definition of society. Briefly, I would like to mention that I intentionally left the definition of society open-ended; however, I would like to note that I meant for the survival of society to include the existence of the human species (and/or whatever permutations may evolve therefrom) and also the continued development of a vibrant culture (the stuff that makes life worth living), which is what I occasionally referred to vaguely as 'succeeding' rather than just merely surviving.
In a physical sense, society now covers virtually all of the globe, which I considered an important indication of the need for a new Institution (or at least a re-thinking of our older Institutions). With regard to the Warmest Generation, this means not only stepping outside of the Cold War Era paradigm of our parents and grandparents, but perhaps even stepping outside of the paradigm of the era of recorded history thus far.
In the Global Sustainability series I mentioned, but did not fully explore, the role of the internet in relation to society and Institutionality. While some aspect or function of the internet may very well serve as the basis for a new Institution, as I suggested, I did not consider the internet as a new space in its own right. Rather than looking to the internet in its Institutional capacity, I want to consider it as a new continent.
In much the same way that Europeans (however wrong they were) considered the Americas an open space upon which they could find resources and spread their culture, let us conceptualize the internet as an open space. However, unlike colonial Europeans, we do not need to displace previous inhabitants to utilize the resources of the internet continent. Also, unlike the Americas as a static physical space, the internet is a flexible space, which can be continually stretched and remolded by its inhabitants, overlaying the physical space of the globe - decreasing the relative density of our global society and thereby alleviating the societal pressure on our current Institutions.
Indeed, in this sense internet is more than a metaphorical continent, the internet is more of an artificial dimension. Just like navigating a hedge maze in three dimensions rather than two dimensions (e.g. jumping over a bush when you reach a dead-end), society may be able to use the internet as an extra dimension through which issues may be viewed and addressed.
In a manner of speaking, the internet has opened up a mental dimension coiled within the fabric of the physical dimensions in which we live. Or rather, the mental dimension has always been coiled within the physical world; that is, a person's own consciousness is a single point within the mental dimension. However, now the internet has lifted some of the constraints on our ability to navigate the mental dimension, allowing each of us to share the thoughts of others as we address issues. In a way, books and other means of sharing information are other ways to lift these constraints by allowing us to access past thoughts while attempting to solve current problems. Of course, the internet allows us as a society to utilize this same process in nearly real-time, and it further allows us to provide feedback in the mental dimension rather than just passively digesting information in the way reading a book does.
As I am sure that there are many others have already contemplated the internet as instrument of human murmuration (see the TED talk above), let me expand upon this idea as it relates to Institutionality and the sustainability of our global society.
In particular, it is important to note the implications of the mental dimension being coiled within the physical dimensions. The internet is based in the real world and not the other way around. While the internet may be used to decrease the relative population density of society, it does not affect the absolute population density of our global society. Therefore, escaping into the mental dimension via the internet is not a viable means of promoting societal survival - despite any sci-fi ambitions of downloadable consciousness and the like. At some point, internet or no internet, society will need to confront the limits of the physical world and its resources.
That being said, the expanded access to the mental dimension via the internet may be the key to addressing the Economic Disconnect: taking the Institutional role beyond the Governmental approach of addressing purposeful, direct ways of killing each other and beginning to address the indirect, unintentional ways of killing each other (e.g. pollution, waste, and climate change). While as individuals an important part of living life involves accepting our own mortality at some point, this need not necessarily be the case for society as a whole, and the 'culture' that makes society great. It may very well be that we can allow culture and society to continue to grow and thrive ad infinitum in the mental dimension, so long as we can avoid killing ourselves off unintentionally in the physical dimensions.
Thus, even as the internet infrastructure continues to change and adapt, or is even abandoned in the far off future, I believe that any new Institution needs to make use of - or at least acknowledge the utility of - the mental dimension in real-time. To go back to relying primarily upon uni-directional exchanges of information and problem solving (e.g. top-down (Governmental), bottom-up (Economic), or past-to-present (books)) would severely limit our society's ability to thrive in the face of global challenges.
Sincerely,
Sean Diamond
P.S. If you have been confused by my capitalization of words like Institution (or my lack of capitalization of the word (i)nternet to avoid confusion), I encourage you to review the post Institutionality.
For you convenience, here is the Table of Contents to the full Global Sustainability series:
- Introduction <---Posted 6/25/2012
- Societal Survival <---Posted 6/27/2012
- Institutionality <---Posted 6/29/2012
- Democratic Necessity <---Posted 7/2/2012
- Economic Disconnect <---Posted 7/4/2012
- (In)Conclusion <---Posted 7/6/2012
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