THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
POVERTY
CHILDCARE AND DEVELOPMENT
CLIMATE CHANGE
COSTLY WARS OF HEGEMONY
VULNERABILITY – NATURAL CATASTROPHE
ECONOMIC VOLATILITY
HEALTHCARE AND SAFE ENVIRONMENTS
WHO WE ARE – WHO WE BECOME
WHOM DO WE TRUST – WHY
IN THE US, WE ARE A POPULATION OF 350 MILLION
CULTURALLY DIVERSE PEOPLE
Decisions capable of destroying economies—or civilization itself—can proceed without any reliable demonstration that the governed understood and authorized them.
Decisions about the foreign and military policy of the United States have persisted across elections, repeatedly increasing military expenditures as the population has doubled and tripled ss domestic needs and economic costs of war have grown.
Escalation of warfare in the middle east could culminate in nuclear winter, with billions of deaths.
Yet the public that bears responsibility for these decisions doesn’t understandsthe policies nor has it had the opportunity to authorize them.
IF WE DON’T, WHAT EXACTLY DRIVES GOVERNMENT DECISIONS?
PAY TO PLAY
Why are SOME people rewarded?
WHOM do we listen to and why?
For WHOM are we a credit rating?
Is there power in knowledge?
What does success mean?
MEDIA CREATES ILLUSIONS
INSTITUTIONS REFLECT
COLLECTIVE POWER
IMAGES PROMOTE
OTHERWISE UNKNOWN PEOPLE
If we don’t, who wields public power?
Public power arises from collective organization
WHO DETERMINES WHAT FAMILIAR FACES CYCLE IN SCROLLING MEDIA
PROJECTING POWER
POWER IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
IS THE AGGREGATE WEALTH OF THE ENTIRE NATION
OUR VIEWS OF THE WORLD ARE SHAPED BY MEDIA CONTENT
WHO DECIDES WHICH FACES TO INCLUDE?
WHY ELON MUSK?
WHY RICHARD NIXON?
WHY J.D. VANCE, JOE BIDEN, SYLVESTER STALLONE?
MEDIA IS PRODUCED BY ALGORITHMS
WHO DESIGNS THE ALGORITHMS
THAT MANIPULATE OUR EMOTIONS
THAT SHAPE OUR PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORLD
AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
GLOBAL ONLINE PLATFORMS
NO MORAL CODE
NO ETHICAL STANDARDS
NO ACCOUNTABILITY
WHO BENEFITS? HOW? WHY?
OUR PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY ARE SHAPED BY MEDIA
BUT THE MEDIUM ITSELF IS THE MESSAGE
TELLING DIFFERENT STORIES
DOES NOT CHANGE THE MEDIUM
TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON REALITY
WE MUST CHANGE THE MEDIUM
The medium is the structure
Through which the public world is known
THE NATIONAL DEBT EXCEEDS $40 TRILLION
WHAT DOES THAT IMPLY?
WE ARE LED BY THE NOSE
TO TRADE CONSTITUTIONAL CERTAINTY
TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
FOR ILLUSIONS
IF WE DON’T SET THE AGENDA FOR GOVERNMENT
DOES IT MATTER WHO DOES?
FAILURE OF DEMOCRACY IS A GLOBAL RISK
WE REWARD CLIMATE CHANGE
NUCLEAR WARFARE
ASSASSINATION
GENOCIDE, WILD FIRES, HURRICANES AND FAMINE
GLOBAL PROBLEMS
DO NOT RESULT FROM GLOBAL AUTHORITY
THEY RESULT FROM LOCAL ACTION
MEDIA TELLS US, “LOOK AT THIS! THIS IS HAPPENING!”
NOT ASKING, WHAT DO WE WANT TO HAPPEN?
IS THIS DEMOCRACY?
When decisions are made without public input, communities are left to protest.
Public power moves things faster than communities can understand or respond.
THE MEDIUM WE NEED MUST REFLECT OUR AMBITIONS
IT MUST EVOLVE WITH WHAT WE BECOME
POLITICS IS LOCAL
FOR MEDIA TO REFLECT WHAT AND WHOM WE ARE
IT MUST BE INCLUSIVE
Democracy does not mean one authority imposing on another
DEMOCRACY IS ABOUT INCLUSIVE CONSENSUS
Democracy is autonomous communities setting their own priorities
In the context of global objectives
ON THE CUSP OF AN INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED POLITICAL MEDIUM
Not merely creating better content,
Intentionally re-designing the information environment through which people in autonomous communities understand reality, form judgment, establish relationships, and coordinate action.
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
A MEDIUM TAILORED FOR EACH COMMUNITY
SO THAT WHEN SOMETHING NEEDS ATTENTION
1. You just have to show up
On your community’s platform
2. Look and listen
Problems, ideas, concerns
Personal experience
3. Interact
Find common interests
Challenge assumptions
4. Question information
Find out what holds up
5. Define actions
Negotiate
Challenge
Propose
6. Build consensus
A collective voice
7. Authorize collective action
Coordinate resources
COMMUNITIES HAVE TALENT AND RESOURCES
What they lack is a MEDIUM that connects their knowledge, interests, relationships, resources, and authority for democratic decision-making and action.
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
IS DESIGNED TO BE THIS MISSING
INFRASTRUCTURE
CAN USES TECHNOLOGY
To give communities a continuing process through which people can:
establish reliable information;
identify assumptions and uncertainties;
examine objectives, alternatives, risks, and consequences;
hear different experiences and points of view;
determine what they agree on;
authorize priorities and limits;
Coordinate resources and action;
preserve commitments and public records; and
hold institutions and representatives accountable
CAN IS LIFE-SAVING COORDINATION FOR EMERGENCIES
Emergency Features on The Platform
maintain communication
coordinate volunteers
communities support others
share vital resources
facilitate government efforts
WHO DECIDES WHAT HELP MEANS?
Much of philanthropy follows a familiar structure:
Funders identify a problem.
Organizations design an intervention.
Institutions allocate resources.
People receive services.
Success is measured in beneficiaries reached.
But relieving suffering does not necessarily change who holds the power to make consequential decisions.
CAN SUPPORTS COLLECTIVE ACTION
CAN is not principally an intervention delivered to underserved people.
CAN is infrastructure through which people cease to occupy the institutional category of “underserved beneficiaries.”
CAN participants define the problem, establish what is true, determine priorities, make consequential choices, coordinate resources, and hold institutions accountable.
PLAYAS DE TIJUANA
DEVELOPERS WANT TO BUILD 9 HIGHRISE TOWERS WITH 1600 UPSCALE APARTMENTS, AND A HOTEL AND SHOPPING MALL
IN A CONSERVATION AREA
Water & energy outages are already frequent
Traffic is already intolerable
RESIDENTS ARE OBJECTING
THE COMMUNITY ISN’T ORGANIZED
The community remains inside the process the development system already knows how to defeat: hearings, objections, petitions, scattered evidence, procedural delay and exhaustion.
A colonial relationship does not require malicious intent.
It exists whenever the authority to define problems, determine priorities, allocate resources and judge success remains outside the community, while the people living with the consequences are treated primarily as recipients of decisions made on their behalf.
Food, housing, healthcare, education and emergency assistance are essential.
But relief is not self-government.
A community should not have to remain powerless in order to qualify for help.
CAN makes collective agency itself the infrastructure
When we have a say in development decisions
Sustainable development
Is what happens when communities sustain themselves
Global Warming
CAN MAKES GLOBAL COOLING ACTIONABLE
Climate change is global, but actions that produce—or reverse—it are local
Communities must therefore be actors, not beneficiaries
Community consensus drives coordinated action
Homes can be affordable
Communities can be livable
Childcare can support parents
Parks can be preserved
Local economies can thrive
Government decisions can serve the governed
What people agree on—right now, moving the world
CAN’s architecture does not assume that today’s human institutions, today’s internet, or today’s electromagnetic communications represent the final form of intelligent relationship.
COMMUNICATION MEDIA WILL CHANGE
Human communication has already moved from speech, writing and print to electronic and global digital networks. Physics may eventually reveal forms of communication we do not presently understand. Artificial intelligence is already creating relationships with forms of intelligence that are not human.
CAN is not designed around a particular communications technology. It is an architecture through which autonomous intelligences can understand one another, establish identity and provenance, determine what can be trusted
negotiate relationships and boundaries, establish consent, coordinate consequential action and preserve autonomy.
HUMAN DEMOCRATIC COMMUNITIES ARE THE FIRST APPLICATION
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
Communications infrastructure through which autonomous intelligences can understand one another, establish legitimate relationships, and coordinate consequential action without surrendering their autonomy.
Today, this begins with geographically bounded human communities–not as a limit, but as a beginning.