(( Updated on December 18, 2017 ))
(1) “Freedom tm” by Daniel Suarez, 2010, Quercus, London
(2) “iGod” a science fiction novel by Willemijn Dicke inspired and introduced by Dirk Helbing, 2017, printed in Great Britain by Amazon
These books are more than just Science Fiction novels. They are shocking and awesome in the sense that what they forecasted and describe is happening right now…….
Even worse in my case. Several important patterns I had recently perceived unfolding in our network society, but had not communicated to anyone, where already written down in these two books. Prescient the writers must be. Just like “1984” which is being implemented now in 2017 as if that book was a manual for authoritarian dicktatorship.
I sincerely hope that our emerging worldwide “collective intelligence with distributed authority” can bend these frightening trends in a more constructive direction, without killing billions of people. I guess you know what to do: connect and cooperate trans-tribal boundaries.
jaap van till, TheConnectivist
Update: PS. These books describe scenario’s. The main objective of scenario’s is not, as most people incorrectly think, to describe what is likely or what the authors and most of us would like. No, the objective is to just imagine that the scenario would unfold however unexpected it may be, and together prepare actions and decisions to cope with such situations. “What must we do when this happens”. That is also the way pilots are trained, not by learning them to fly in wonderful weather with perfect planes, but by preparing them in the cockpit together for sudden alarms. In these uncertain and transitionary times we should react fast and appropriate together, instead of close our minds and dream of returning to the past.
My personal SF scenario is as follows:
[ Let us work together on this planet to create a “global brain” consisting of > 10^10 (10 billion) CONNECTED PEOPLE, living part of NATURE, that cooperate to solve problems and construct value from diversity for local communities, that exhibit ‘collective intelligence with distributed authority’. ICT, AI IoT, blockchains and robots are TOOLS to reach that objective ] ~ jaap van till, december 2017
The “global brain metaphor” describes the leaps of evolution every time a certain threshold of 10 billion components is exceeded: https://theconnectivist.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/the-1planet-project-1-the-global-brain-metaphor/
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