John Robb has written a brief but interesting call for the Great Reboot, highlighting the need for a "core process" that will jump-start innovative changes and result in a more robust social system better able to withstand the coming times of turmoil.
So, what does this new, better core process look like? It starts at the community level with a wholesale reinvention that makes networked communities:
* Resilient to rapidly propagating global shocks (an inevitable outcome of a global system that is too large, fast, and complex to control).
* Highly productive in their ability to produce everything from food to products to energy (they produce wealth). Networked innovation.
Extremely efficient and low cost.
* This stems from: shorter distances, less energy, less space, less time, less mass, and less information (as in, less management overhead required).
Fortunately, all the technological trends are leading us towards radical improvements in efficiency and productivity for doing real things at the micro level -- everything from high intensity small plot farming to personal fabrication to DIY synthetic biology to global tinkering networks to high efficiency local energy production. Even better, the ability to connect these communities via networks means that these new local powerhouses can work together synergistically.
There's a lot of great stuff here. Robb is dead-on both in the call for a reboot and in seeing that increasingly self-sufficient local communities will play an important role in such a revival. He points, juicily, to technology that's increasingly making this more achievable.
However, there are some problems as well, ones that aren't uncommon to most futurist prescriptions, but ones that anyone thinking about what viable social structures for tomorrow would do well to consider.
Since Robb did his bullet-point style, I'll do my concerns the same way.
* Emphasizing structures over human behavior: From the word "reboot" on, a lot of futurist thinking these days, including this piece looks at societies in terms of their construction, like a machine or building. Societies, however, are made up of human beings. Viewed one way, yes, it is a structure that can be "rebooted." Viewed another it's a massive web of social cliques and cultural groupings, descending down finally to the individual level. In other words, the ultimate moving target.
This is a major weakness and a big reason a lot of would-be futurism through the decades has ended up falling short of its lofty goals. The available tech or resources to potentially accomplish something doesn't mean it will be even be tried, despite being a really, really good idea.
There's a lesson in the fact that visions of the future that get an actual test-drive, for better or ill, are those with the most effective political movements.
Case in point here is the assumption that "local powerhouses" will network with each other.
Historically, from pre-history to modern times, an abundance of local powerhouses leads to constant infighting. That many angles, personalities and ruling groups without some sort of hierarchy or method to clearly and quickly decide between competing agendas will result in conflict that makes the robust networks Robb foresees nearly impossible.
This is why feudal Europe or Japan had endless low-level warfare and why the Articles of Confederation didn't work, despite the fact that the manors were very self-sufficient and the former American colonies were the very definition of local powerhouses.
Politics and power, more than anything else, will determine if an enviable local model spreads reboot-style or dies on the vine.
It can be argued that new technology would trump human nature enough to solve these problems, but that's getting into magical thinking.
* Trade relies on safety: Robb has expertly observed how the emergence of local militias, narco-states and pirates threatens the globalizing structures everyone had assumed would dominate the 21st century. What the above post has missed, however, is that the trade that would be necessary to create sustainable local powerhouses, let alone provide for a future reboot, would be severely damaged by increased competition (sometimes violent) among local authorities.
One of the key conditions for a Dark Age is that a devolution of political authority leads to massive splintering of much larger societies, ending in collapse of the trade network and broader catastrophe.
* Local isn't always better: Heresy, I know, but while there are many things a well-organized locality can do much, much better than the current bureaucratic nation-state, there are also many that are simply out of its reach.
Health care is a good example. The most efficient, most affordable health care systems on the planet rely on economies of scale (it's cheaper to insure huge numbers of people) and the sheer resources a government (sometimes working with large employers) can bring to bear. That's simply out of a locality's reach, as are large infrastructure projects or answers to environmental problems.
No matter how good the technology gets, there will be plenty of localities that will simply not be able to provide modern services on their own in the foreseeable future.
Lastly, local government can be just as corrupt as state or nation-level government, with less possibility of turnover (more factions fight for national power). Even a large, metropolitan area like Chicago can easily see 30+ years of domination by the same families and political cliques. Also, due to the leaders of said area having, by necessity, a more narrow focus, larger economic and environmental issues would be very difficult to deal with.
The urge for increasingly local society and economy is a natural reaction to the culture of our day and there's a lot of good that can come out of it. However, as a natural reaction, it's also somewhat knee-jerk, and can potentially miss the significant drawbacks of increased local reliance that we've mostly forgotten.
What's missing in this particular diagnosis is a step beyond. Going local won't save us. New, innovative forms of linking and directing masses of people across vast distances as well as, yes, checking local powerhouses will have to be developed or the would-be reboots will just be heralds of the end.
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