This week’s topic was really interesting to me because it was really applicable to the real world and opens up so many possibilities that could make the world a better place. In this day and age, our greatest problem is creating a sustainable future. “We can’t continue with a system that creates wealth, but that’s also destroying the planet and creating so much social inequality. I think that after 400 years of this, we know it doesn’t work. We need a new system to reclaim all these communal values” (Michel Bauwens).
This system is based on openness and what Bauwens refers to as a peer-to-peer economy with a bottom up society. I believe we have already begun to move into a post-capitalism phase and what Rifkin refers to as the Third Industrial revolution (TIR). Ever since the dawn of the internet, people have become not only consumers but producers themselves. He says that “Internet technology and renewable energies are beginning to merge to create a new infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution that will change the way power is distributed in the 21st century.” The TIR economy will allow people to potentially be their own manufacturer as well as their own internet site and power company as we have already seen with 3D printing. The phenomenon of the ‘zero marginal cost society’ sounds enticing and depicts an image of the ideal world, where we are sustainable in every aspect.
To me, micropolitics opens up a world of possibilities. What struck me the most was the idea of open education. If there could be a system or network online that was accessible by everyone, it would break down the need for hierarchy and institutions. No matter if you had money, lived in a low socio-economic suburb, you could receive the same quality of education because knowledge would be open to everyone.
I also really like the idea of sharing, and believe it would make the world more sustainable. From my own experience, I know we never finish a whole loaf of bread in a week, and about half the loaf goes to waste. Other perishable food like a big bunch of herbs or some other fresh produce that we don’t manage to finish either go bad or un-used. If there could be an app where people from your neighbourhood could communicate with each other about what food they have and organise an exchange that would eliminate the complex processes that already exist with organisations such as Ozharvest, that could potentially save people a lot of money and eliminate waste. The app would work similarly to apps such as FourSquare where you can see where your friends are currently eating at or have eaten at. It would work on a location data service, where you connect to the people in your specific neighbourhood and you could search what you need. Of course this idea would only work however, if there was enough trust within the community to ensure both parties are getting the best end of the deal.
Whilst micropolitics seems extremely appealing, it doesn’t come without its drawbacks as mentioned by Hardin on the ‘tragedy of the commons’. I’ll take the example of 3D printing, if everyone could print whatever they needed what role do businesses play? And indeed how do you regulate what people produce to ensure there is no harm to society? What we need now is a major restructuring of society before we can reach that sustainable ‘post carbon future’.
References
Bauwens, Michel (2014) ’Openness, a necessary revolution into a smarter world’, P2P Foundation, February 4, <http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-is-p2p-an-introduction/2014/02/04>
Rifkin, Jeremy (n.d.) ’The Third Industrial Revolution: How the Internet, Green Electricity, and 3-D Printing are Ushering in a Sustainable Era of Distributed Capitalism’, The World Financial Review, <http://www.worldfinancialreview.com/?p=1547>
ARTS3091 - advancedmediaissuess 