CAB - Communication Agents Blog

Category of Problems No.7 - Economic Imbalances

Robin Good's Collection of Solutions

Solution title: Micropayments Potential For Social And Economic Change
Author: Robin Good
Date selected: Sept. 29, 2003
Excerpt:

"1) Micropayments do not have to be a pre-payment to access information.

2) Micropayments are best set to provide economic support to individual content creators and small organizations whose readers wish to encourage, support and patronize in a voluntary approach.

Micropayments appear to offer the ability to voluntarily reward "ethical" content creators such as independent reporters, free-lance writers, musicians, illustrators, poets and other types of artists without the need for a middleman or "publisher" to sit in between the content creator and the final users and without the need to charge for high prices. (see also Shirky, 2000)

In all cases micropayments should not be a logical obstacle or a barrier to access content."

Read on at Link

Natalie d'Arbeloff Interviewed by Robin Good

I have the honour and joy of introducing to you a wonderful, witty and highly creative female heart, infused with much of the curiosity, seeking spirit and openness toward new ideas that we like so much to see in people around us.

Her name is Natalie and she is a great illustrator, artist, writer and thinker. She talks multiple languages and her chronological itinerary reads like the complete tour around the world. If I had to conceive by design a daughter and pre-select the type of cultural wealth she would have, I would not hesitate a second in asking Natalie to give me a copy of her cultural DNA.

But Natalie d'Arbeloff is not only a great artist. She is the heart and mind behind a brilliant, simple and humble initiative called Bloggers Parliament.

Bloggers Parliament is "A flexible assembly of bloggers who are interested in finding and selecting from the blogosphere or from any other source - including their own thoughts - feasible solutions to current problems in the world.".

Anyone can join and the requirements to make it past Natalie x-ray controls are:

a) no self promotion

b) create a Bloggers Parliament category on your site/blog and post there the solution/problem you are submitting to the Parliament.

c) display the Bloggers Parliament logo on your site and link back to BP.

For more details please the home page of Bloggers Parliament where everything is clarified in simple terms.

Launched less than a week ago the Bloggers Parliament initiative is attempting to collect grass-roots solutions to world problems and issues and to allow voting by Internet readers on the most valuable solutions to carry forward. Natalie's final intention is in fact to develop a number of solutions packages to eventually submit to the media, world leaders, experts, or anybody likely to give them serious consideration.

So, as I have decided to give my full support to Natalie's initiative I have gently asked her if I could have explored a bit deeper her true feelings and insights on a number of hot topics through a short interview.

Here is the result of our interaction:

1. Natalie, can you describe to us what you would consider an end product, or outcome, of education?

Human beings - of whatever age, gender, background, race, religion or social status - whose childhood sensitivity, curiosity and inventiveness has been nurtured and encouraged to blossom, rather than dulled and atrophied by the battery-farms that are most educational institutions, that's what would be and rarely is) the ideal product of education, in the best sense of the word.

2. How would schools and universities have to change to achieve such a product?

They'd have to change radically and fundamentally. I go along with most of what that great radical Ivan Illich wrote about education in his 'De-Schooling Society'. It's impossible to fit his concepts into the existing educational system. I'm not going to attempt to quote or summarise his views, it's best to refer to his own writings, even if his language is usually far too convoluted.

What I feel is that nearly all schools, universities and educational establishments are too big, too crowded, too bureaucratic, too stuck in a factory-like system that sacrifices the individual to a mass formula. The
'product' - a frightening but accurate term - those small, separate, different-from-each-other humans who are fed into one end of the education-factory come out the other end homogenized. Looking and sounding
alike but generally unaware of what they've lost. The stubborn or lucky ones manage to emerge unscathed but that's not because of the educational system - it's because they've managed to remain themselves in spite of it. Of course there are some wonderful, extraordinary, dedicated, life-enhancing teachers. But they are often as drained by the system as their pupils are.

How should it be then?

First of all: small. Human-sized. Village-sized.

The apprentice-system, the partnership system. Study in places where the people you want to learn from
actually work. Small groups. Adult learners and child-learners mixed. Art, science, philosophy, religions, maths, crafts, technology, music, dance, engineering, architecture etc. etc. - no barriers between any of the
branches of knowledge, culture and the experiences of everyday life. Moving smoothly between all the disciplines. Everyone an expert and a polymath. The old learning from the young and vice versa. Children as teachers. Old people as teachers. Non-teachers as teachers. Oh, I could go on!

3. Do you think that evolving means of communication will give rise to new art forms - if so, could you describe what you see coming?

I'm not the right person to ask this question of. The art I relate to most intimately is pre-renaissance: Africa, ancient Egypt, Etruscan, Arab, Moorish, Byzantine, the Italian 'primitives like Duccio, Giotto etc. .
All of this art grew out of cultures that were long established, rooted in deeply felt and shared beliefs which didn't stultify their creativity but on the contrary, gave them freedom to discover it within a structure. Apart
from a handful of 20th century artists I admire, I have yet to be impressed or moved by any art forms that have emerged from new technology or communications. Maybe it will come, but my own small crystal ball doesn't show any signs of it.

4. Natalie, What Are We Doing Here?

That's a rhetorical question.
What are YOU doing here?
How can I speak for the whole human race when I'm not even sure of what I'm doing here? At this moment, I'm answering your questions.

In my life. in general, I'm trying to find out what I should be, or could be doing here.

5. What Do You Think Is Today's Greatest Threat To A Harmonious, Peaceful And Intelligent Human Race?

Non-harmonious, non-peaceful, non-intelligent humans are the greatest threat to the human race, and that includes all of us, because we all have some corners of our beings that are dissonant, unharmonious, agressive, vindictive, envious, greedy, arrogant, and stupid. So the 'threat' is not always from The Others, but from within ourselves: we ARE the Others.

6. If Man Is To Survive The Present Energy Crises How Should He Go About It?

I have absolutely no idea.
But I'm sure that there are some people out there with very good answers to this problem and maybe they'll join the Bloggers Parliament and tell us what the solutions are.

7. What Do You Think Is The Most Effective Strategy To Change (Save) The World Today?

To change one's self first of all. If I can conquer the enemy within myself, overcome the obstacles within myself, answer the questions that I put to myself, then I become an effective tool for change, an example. All we need to be is examples. We don't need to preach or convert or hammer out our theories ad infinitum. If you can build a house, you can bring people to it and say: look, here's my house, here's how I built it, here's how I made the foundation, here are the kinds of nails I used, etc. Then those people will go away and say: hey, I could do that!

8. If You Could Paint A New World Today Could You Outline To Us What It Would Be Like And What Would Be Different From What We Have Today?

Another rhetorical question!
I'm a painter, so I take it literally.
Until I get the canvas ready and decide what size it's going to be, and what materials I'll use....and then sit and stare at the blank canvas for maybe hours, or days..... and then I won't know what the picture will be about until I start....and then I won't know how it will end because I'll probably change it innumerable times along the way.... and....and....and.

Does that answer your question?

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Natalie d'Arbeloff, assisted with uncharacteristic restraint by her alter ego Augustine, who has decided to remain in the background for a change. She wishes to add however, that she can be found, as usual, at her own personal blog and fountain of wisdom:
http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugustine.html