The Connectivist

I can recommend that you attend this conference October 23 – 25, organized by the famous ‘University of Indonesia’ in Depok, near Djakarta, Republic of Indonesia. The venue of the conference is in Bali. See: https://qir.eng.ui.ac.id/ The subjects of this conference are important, relevant and urgent.

I am an invited speaker there. The Abstract of my lecture, which will be presented by me with a Zoom link is as follows:

===========================================

The Impact of ICT on Economy and Society, Towards Synthecracy.

Ir. Jaap van Till, visiting professor Digital Infrastructures, The Netherlands.

ICT, and more specific Digital Infrastructures, can be noticed to have huge impacts on society. Young professionals and children live on Internet & WWW, glued all day to their mobile phones or laptops with WiFi. Below that are the meshes of glass optic fiber cables carrying light pulses and wireless electromagnetic links. I define that layer as the “WorldWide Net”, which is growing fast, with ever increasing bandwidths.

To navigate in the direction of ‘NetZero Emission through Green Technologies and Policies’ it is essential to identify the obstacles and recognize what lies at the core of the present multiple crises that politicians are wrestling with: (1) The malfunctioning of hierarchies, where loyalty has priority over competence; (2) the inability of central governing elites all over the world to cope with Complexity. This demotivates young professionals and young politicians. Examples how to cope with (1, 2) are given:

I Both are shown to be overcome by the development, since 2014, of a battlefield information management system in the Ukraine war. It has ‘collective intelligence with decentral authority’, informing all the military men and women who are fighting and observing, peer-to-peer cooperation, self-organizing and invention based on what works or not in the field. These are the keys to success and survival. They turned the war into an online gathering and correlation of information war with network links including low orbit satellite links (Starlink).

II Another important new development to cope with these turbulent times is the organizational physics recommended by “the BetaCodex Network” people in Germany. It urgently recommends to change the functions of people into an IT connected web of small teams, with very competent, diverse skilled, innovative, learning and creative specialists; that together focusses on value creation. Not top/down or bottom/up but effective inside/external co-creating.

Building on such new ICT networking and cooperation we see societies where the “Trias Internetica” division of tasks appears: Civilians, Companies and State authorities; understanding and supporting eachother. If this Trias functions well we will move in the direction of an ecology I call a Synthecracy. Value is then no longer extracted, at the expense of people and Nature; but created: by synthesis and synergy. With special new functions for STEM professionals (Science& Biology, Technology, Engineering and Mathematicians), the now unhappy nerds & techies & pirates & hackers I mentioned above. Their emphasis is on innovation, problem solving and critical thinking without permissions. A growth industry.

For all of these transitions we can learn a lot from Nature and how we are part of it. Indonesians understand this better than we in the “West” (Europe and USA). And flocks of birds, schools of fish and ants in their hills already know how to cooperate and with their collective intelligence produce emergent behaviour. We can also learn from:

• How jungles and forests are connected subsoil with roots and fungi wires for food and information.
• How the human brain and nervous system links grows and adapts with neuroplasticity, also at older ages!

Humans are part of Nature and therefore we should be aware how the flow of energy and information though the networks and ecologies work, with or without support of computer chips and routers. This is about the Forces of Life we are discovering.

===================