Build, Baby, Build

I heard it the other day, a summary or echo of what's already going on in the software & wiki & maker culture.

... build things ...

I've:

• grown exactly one green pepper.
• helped with translations and documentation.
• done hexayurt models and shown them to others, which apparently has helped.
• helped get user groups running.
• helped others document stuff.
• connected "people who do stuff" to each other.
• thought a lot and shared that with others, if that counts, which probably doesn't sensu stricto.
• (making music is out, unless it's heard - and it isn't.)

I want to do much more. Ok, a bit more as time allows. Maybe some tiny bit of all this:

• set up my video production chain, and do some, erm, educational videos. People being able to learn to do important stuff quickly is important. Think medieval monasteries, for useful books, and with zero friction.
• keep helping the hexayurt and the opensourceecology folks with what they're doing. Again, know-how.
• set up a wiki in Spanish for various stuff. I'll need geeky help with that.

So, for me, it really looks like it's mostly "document, baby, document" and "explain, baby, explain".

You?

My "The Future We Deserve" entries

Over at TheFWD, I wrote 3 pieces:

• No island is an island.
• My ideal panflu.
• The onion and the satellite.

After that, I wrote a one-pager in Spanish, free to edit and pass on (public domain), which I may translate to bring it here, about how to look at actionable stuff in 20 minutes.

It's many of us, so I guess maybe we can build on that?

Global Justice Movement

http://www.appropedia.org/Global_Justice_Movement:_Meta-Mapping_the_Emergence

4th July 2011. I'll be busy all day, and some 3000 km away from the meeting point.

Other than that, I'd love to be there, and will want to look at the summaries and comments.

We people need a sense of "what to do, what to do, what to do - the outlook was decidedly blue".

It's obvious where to help when pushing a car with a frozen engine. You look at your hands, look for an empty place at the back surface of the car, then push. And if you can't push, you can at least provide information to those who do, which is a fine way to help, thank you very much.

Not at all obvious with this messy world of which each of us is a tiny part.

Hence the extreme need for maps. Preferably, given the messiness, with several "push here" and "pull from here" locations.

Lungu Lungu

http://bombasticelements.blogspot.com/2011/06/ghana-self-invented-bicycle-culture.html

Lungu lungu = "a maze of shortcuts and backways".

That's what I expect the future to be.

\m/an!

Working towards sudden change

Change is accelerating. Not sure about the good change (cheap solar and perfect vaccines) which we'd be happy to welcome. But quite sure about the hurtful kind (disasters) which is already hurting the poor big time.

We, the rich, will remain in denial and/or inaction for as long as we can - i.e., for too long.

That's why I'd try and focus on a few things:

• Reduce the gap between realisation and effective response. Reduce friction for speedy adoption. With simple tools that use local resources, practical documentation, and open licenses.
• Create slack. Or at least recognise existing slack.
• Decouple vital systems from each other. Not everything is equally important. At the very least, do get a crank-charger for the phones of people who repair energy supply.
• Think about "serious worst-case". Not like a sissy, but like Mercedes Benz engineers think about airbags.

I need to be able to blog in English, that's why

I blog in Spanish at http://imagina-canarias.blogspot.com

I twitter, mostly in English, at http://www.twitter.com/lucasgonzalez

But sometimes I'd like to say something that doesn't quite fit in 140 characters, in English.

So this is the place, and we'll see.