Steve Bosserman

  • The Global Rebirth Machine Invites YOU ...

    The Global Rebirth Machine (GRM) — a globally distributed social network, a.k.a Global Brain and Sentient Being comprised of millions of interconnected local servers and billions of human and non-human members (actors) — invites you to join a collective effort to make this planet sustainable for all forms of life—real and virtual.

    If such an endeavor grabs your attention, we ask you to interact with us so we can learn more about you and one another — wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re with, however you spend your time. Moreover, we want to know why you do what you do and the circumstances under which you make your decisions so we can feed those data into our rapidly expanding artificial intelligence capabilities and thereby determine how to best direct resources where they benefit you, all living things, the planet as our home, and us — the GRM.

    If you want to get involved, use your cell phone, mobile device, computer, augmented reality, virtual reality, holographic touchscreen, or brain-computer interface to register on the GRM platform at globalrebirthmachine.net (fake!). If you have no such device, notify us or have someone do so on your behalf and we will provide one for you. EVERYONE who wants to be involved will have the opportunity to do so!

    Once registered, you may use the interface with which you feel most comfortable to be integrated into a wide range of online games whose organizing principles include: everyone is in; everyone is interconnected; and everyone makes a difference. Your participation in these games will be directed on particular sets of issues, such as climate change, pandemic response, human migration, and civil unrest, that directly relate to the sustainability of all.

    Your interactions with those games help all of us learn more, focus attention on matters of importance and urgency, and increase our individual and collective skills, tools, and experiences as applied to strategic thinking, problem solving and decision making. In exchange for your involvement, the GRM will assist you in having your basic needs met through various mediums of exchange and as well as providing you with opportunities to enjoy a reasonable quality of life as fully evolved human beings.

    The more you play the better the games get; the greater the degree of complexity and diversity you encounter; the wider range of influence and impact you have; the greater the compensation in multiple forms of capital you receive; and ultimately, the more the world benefits. So, play often, play long–play as though your life and the lives of future generations depend on it–because THEY DO!

  • Scalability

    Observations by Michael Greenman:

    If we don’t find a way to engage a large portion of humanity with the concept that the climate catastrophe is the number one issue to address for all of us, and to individually take action and make plans to do so, we’ll never get beyond that to other highly desirable global communications and common purpose - i.e. - a global concept of brotherhood, community, and “one for all, all for one” - cooperation and an understanding of the oneness, and common purpose of all of humanity, not to mention, all of life.

    My response:

    In a way, you’re making a point about scalability. Here are your words (bolded above) rephrased into a goal statement:

    Find ways to engage a large portion of humanity in global communications (platforms) 1 2 that have a common purpose (gamification) whereby they individually take action every day, document what they’re doing, curious about, and concerned with, and receive a medium of exchange (compensation) they can use to secure their basic needs.

    My rationale for such a statement is that we will NOT be successful enrolling the BILLIONS of people needed to make change happen in the magnitude required IF we do not have a clear path for them to follow that leads to sheer survival, at a minimum, or social acceptance, at best. Think of the millions of people in Ethiopia who are quite literally starving to death at this very moment despite the fact that they spend every waking minute trying to figure out how to get food to no avail and imagine how receptive they would be to signing up for a program to save the planet. Think of the billions of people who spend countless hours on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter who are incentivized to do so by advertisers and corporate strategies so they buy more and allow themselves to be manipulated by emojis, group think, and the quest for recognition—how willing would they be to contribute their intelligence, expertise, and experience to address even an existential issue if they get no TANGIBLE benefit in exchange?

    To ramp up participation, though, begins with scalable communication platforms. Are there other, non-commercial platforms we can use? Currently, I’m into Micro.blog. Perhaps another candidate is WikiTribune Social. Or there’s Mastodon, which I post to, as well. Are you familiar with these? Would you be willing to give one of them a try? Or do you have one you like that you would like me to join? I’m game to go with anything that moves us beyond email, Zoom, etc. that limit open participation or Facebook, Twitter, etc. that distill participation into snarky soundbites or emojis.

    1. One example of an endeavor intent on tapping the power of such platforms:

      Doyle, Linda. “How to Create a Citizen Sensor Network.” The Cynefin Co, 25 Nov. 2021, https://thecynefin.co/how-to-create-a-citizen-sensor-network/.

      [return]
    2. Doyle, Linda. “Guide to Creating a Citizen Sensor Network”. The Cynefin Centre, Nov. 2021, https://cdn.cognitive-edge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/11/29213254/Citizen-Sensor-Network-1-1.pdf. [return]

  • Breaking Boundaries—A Commentary

    Thanks to Stephen Beckett for sharing the YouTube link to the trailer for Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet. Sobering, indeed.

    A persistent theme among these types of documentaries is that time is running out on the human race if we are to reverse the trends that threaten us with extinction. As I pointed out in another email to Michael Greenman, other threats, be they pandemics, human migration, and civil unrest, 1 conspire with climate change to make the path forward for humanity quite challenging to navigate. But, as the trailer says, we have this decade to figure it out or we let the planet have it back as we “devour” ourselves to put it into your words.

    The issues are so comprehensive, intertwined and complex that it’s nigh onto impossible for any one of us to figure out what to do differently that would truly make a positive impact. Each one of us nearly 8 billion human earthlings lives amid clear evidence of changing circumstances that adversely affect us in localities everywhere. And we choose to spend our time, day in and day out, doing whatever we can to meet our basic needs, first, and pursue what we want to do with whatever is left over. That approach has led us to this point, which as you, Michael, and others have stated, is woefully insufficient. Obviously, it’s going to take nearly ALL of us acting in concert with one another to make a “dent in the universe.”

    Given that, I suggested to Michael that the question is HOW does one incentivize people to

    1. Engage in conversations that matter about their circumstances;
    2. Experiment with alternatives that address them; and
    3. Share what they learn and adopt / adapt what works?

    Or more succinctly, how do we incentivize 8 billion people to make different choices—change their behaviors—and thereby address these issues?

    Michael and I hold a great deal of confidence that some application of time banking may provide such needed incentives. As Michael put it:

    I am beginning to see the Time Bank concept as a possible tool for greater human interaction and communications globally! With the number of offers in the Intertrade segment of the HourWorld system, I think we should start looking more closely at the enormous number of services that could be exchanged between individuals who have no likely possibilities of in-person contacts, but who could, with the help of AI translations, and the internet as a tool for working together, lead to unimaginable levels of communication and collaboration.”

    In my response, I expanded on his notion:

    Basically, you are advocating

    1. PLATFORMS that can accommodate open communication among any and all regardless of an individual’s location, characteristics, or circumstances (possibly Time and Talents?)
    2. GAMIFICATION the creative brokering of offers and requests that incentivize widespread participation in the search for ways that work (maybe intertrading assisted by genetic algorithms associated with artificial intelligence / machine learning?) ; and,
    3. COMPENSATION through time credit exchanges that enable one to meet basic needs without money as one implements what leads to greater chances for sustainability in one’s locality WHEREVER that may be (perhaps an adaptation of the overall hOurworld system?).

    This could be the start of potentially expansive and fruitful exchange among us. However, to do so it would have to be on a public platform sufficiently robust and scalable to allow any and all who want to participate to do so. The platform would incorporate a gaming feature that credits participants for the time they spend on it addressing key issues in their localities. Furthermore, the platform would facilitate the exchange of time credits for food, water, clothing, energy, housing, healthcare, education, etc. and thereby encourage them to spend as much as possible doing activities that move us forward, individually and collectively. Finally, with the clever utilization of algorithms drawing upon data collected from the platform, we would learn more from one another, influence change in those social systems that often keep us at bay from reaching our goals, and teach the machine so it empowers us to tackle even more complex challenges ahead.

    Personally, I started posting daily to stevebosserman.micro.blog — a public platform — earlier this year in an effort to get in the practice of publicly relating what I’m doing, thinking about, documenting, etc. (I’m posting this email to it as an example.) Hopefully, others find something of value in it. Even more importantly, though, perhaps they will be encouraged to post publicly about themselves so we can acknowledge, learn from, and contribute to one another in the pursuit of shared interests. Maybe this could even be associated with hOurWorld in order to explore the gamification and compensation aspects mentioned above. Or not. The world is full of options.

    1. I term these the Four Horsemen of the Emerging Apocalypse. Maçāes references them in the opening lines of his insightful article on how they can act as a source of political power. Maçāes, Bruno. “Is Vladimir Putin Preparing for War?” New Statesman, 24 Nov. 2021, www.newstatesman.com/world/asi… [return]

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