CCI - Collective Communication, Inc., was chartered in 1982 to provide forums for discussions of public interest. (See Who are we?) Our "mission" is to create an intelligent and believable collective voice for humanity by the end of the century: Humanity 2001. Over the years we have stumbled through various attempts. We have tried using the U.S. mails, we have written InterMix, a DOS based bulletin board system, and now we are rewriting for the Web. In the process we have had to think and rethink what is required to create an intelligent and believable voice for humanity.
Some of our conclusions have been determined quite directly by the nature of our goal. These can be grouped under the headings of believability and intelligence. Other important decisions about our direction fall under the related headings of caution and strategy.
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We must be open, democratic, non-profit and radically inclusive if we are to create a believable voice for humanity. Also, a method of weighting the votes is needed so all parts of the world are fairly represented.
Open. This means no secrets. All our processes are open -- our books and meetings. There is no hidden inner club, no esoteric initiation for the cognoscenti.
Democratic. Currently we are not a membership organization with elected officers, but we need to become one. We are waiting until we have a base wide and diverse enough that no single interest group can capture the organization.
Non-profit. Our corporate vehicle, CCI, is a California non-profit with 501(c)(3) status. Donations are tax deductible at state and federal levels. Being non-profit reduces our business options somewhat, but our goal is to create a voice for humanity, not to make money. Still, see the section on strategy below; though our essential aim must be non-profit, the best strategy is not to ignore narrow human self-interest, but rather to engage it so it serves a wider humanity.
Radically inclusive. This means anyone can join. More than that, it means that in our outreach we deliberately involve the marginalized persons of world society.
As a corollary, we avoid censorship -- because what is the point of admitting people and then not allowing them to express themselves? However, since persons of all ages will participate, adult material will have to be segregated.
We need to connect with the many non-governmental organizations that are already committed to an inclusive world view: environmental groups, international trade and labor organizations, ecumenical networks, and so forth. These are the sinews of a united humanity already being knitted.
Weighted voting. Any computerized system naturally tilts toward the wealthier and more educated half of society. (Choose 100 persons to represent the world and not one of them will own a computer!) We can and should redress this imbalance by weighting the votes. Geographic weightings are easiest to understand and probably the most broadly acceptable. For instance, here in Los Angeles, votes will be weighted so each zip code counts according to its relative population. Demographic weightings are more problematic. Exactly which of the many categories should be weighted? And just how does one go about explaining the intricacies of the process?
The requirements of democracy give every major group what amounts to a veto. As a result, collective humanity may be too compromised to say anything very interesting. One of our experiments in the 1980's failed partly because of this lowest common denominator (LCD) effect; the highly rated messages were too bland. We have four strategies towards overcoming the LCD effect: dual ratings, collective action, collective technology awards, and our "left brain / right brain" protocol.
Dual ratings. The latest design for collective communication on the net has participants rating messages twice, once on a scale of zero to four for interest, and once for approval on -3 to +3 scale. With a single rating system, the approval / disapproval component dominates and the top rated messages are too predictable. For instance, a message urging global cooperation would receive high marks, though it says nothing new. By requiring a high score for interest as well as approval, the system will select messages which are approved, yes, but also substantive and witty -- or so we hope.
Collective action. We will begin with a dialogue between the CCI online community and our newsletter editor. Together, the editor and the community will develop directions for the newsletter -- community directed media! We also plan to organize volunteers trained in non-violence to be agents in the neighborhoods for the Los Angeles section of the online community. By putting collective communication into action, we will be in a better position to gauge its strengths and weaknesses, and so to suggest improvements.
Collective technology. We want to encourage awards and competitions for advances in collective technology. Collective communication is just one element in a whole new field of computerized collective psychology. For instance, large groups should be able to "think" about a given topic. When we are a bit further along, CCI should itself sponsor a competition between students at Los Angeles area universities.
Left brain / right brain protocol. The idea here is to establish a dialogue between simple humanity on the one hand, and organized or "interested" humanity on the other. The participants would be the same on both sides of the exchange, only differently organized. A noticeable increase in the intelligence level of collective humanity should be just one of several excellent results from such a dialogue.
The underlying technology involves the filtering mechanism by which a message comes to the "collective consciousness" of humanity. For a large group producing thousands of messages every day, there is no way anyone can read them all: it is the bandwidth problem of internet newsgroups revisited. A message filtering hierarchy is needed, where special interest groups (SIGs) read and rate the messages for their particular interest, and only the most highly rated messages go up to the next level for wider distribution. Notice though, that every message must be approved by some particular interest merely to be considered as a candidate for eventual worldwide distribution. Messages of only general interest will not be selected. This filtering system corresponds roughly to the analytical left brain.
To give general interest messages a chance, we plan to set up "global villages" on the internet with membership randomly assigned from all parts of the world. Highly rated messages from these general interest groups (GIGs) will represent the perspective of mankind as a whole from the beginning. This filtering system corresponds roughly to the gestalt making right brain.
Each of these two message hierarchies has its own failing. The special interest hierarchy could easily miss the big picture, while the general interest hierarchy could just as easily miss the nuts and bolts of a situation. Put them together and you create an enormously potent and unpredictable living process, a context for eye opening exchanges within the local SIGs and the global GIGs. The repeated shifting between particular and general perspectives will be highly educational, opening participants up to new possibilities and making stale compromise unacceptable as an outcome.
The Humanity 2001 project may come up against opposition at some point. To succeed we must come to general attention, and that could make us a target. Our best course is to be non-violent in action with a friendly attitude towards the powers that be, even when we stand in opposition to their practices. Moreover, there is the possibility of unintended negative consequences, for which foresight and non-violence (again) are prescribed.
Non-violence. Like the good physiciaion, we must take care to do no harm. Group dynamics are powerful and often difficult. In a test of the collective communication process involving two high schools, waves of emotion were stirred up at both schools: Loreto & Pilgrim. Great care must be taken lest collective communication trigger hostilities between cities or nations, or between ethnic groups within a city. Moreover, online groups are likely to use collective communication to direct the activities of volunteers. Non-violence training for all CC volunteers is needed as an innoculation against mindless obedience.
The joyful spirit of non-violence among the volunteers will gradually permeate the online community, too. In the long run, non-violence will not only protect the world from a nascent humanity, but will also protect that humanity from the world. Our model here is the great non-violent transition to democracy that occurred recently in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. That transition could not have succeeded if the democratic movement had not been so transparently benign.
Friendliness towards the powers of the world. Collective communication is not meant to replace existing institutions. We posit a globally conscious cooperation that releases the creative and intelligent energies of human kindness. From this vantage how can we be other than friendly towards our various governments, corporations and so forth? No matter that they are so often benighted. The very otherness of our collective communication solution to the problem of world organization lets us step outside the current system. We don't have to play tit for tat to protect ourselves. Instead we will rely on finding the creative solution to whatever crisis may come our way.
Unintended consequences. Mistakes come in every size. We need to be on the lookout. We have to consider if a unified humanity will not be its own worst tyrant.
We naturally expect humanity to be ally of the individual against the regimentation, torture and killing that the nations have adopted as part of their competitive strategy. But we must be extremely cautious here. We are humanity, yes, so humanity is on our side, yes, and humanity does not have the same competitive needs that the nations, gangs and corporations have, but we are emerging, after all, from one of the most horrifying centuries, steeped in blood, the outcome of at least five or six thousand years of nearly constant warfare. Our expectations and sensibilities are very much molded by violence bred notions of authority and obedience.
The idea of collective communication may be inevitable. We see the beginnings of it in the "collaborative filtering" notions that are starting to percolate through the web. What is not inevitable, and what may make all the difference is the idea of a dialogue between the general and particular perspectives of humanity as described above under the "left brain / right brain" heading. If we represent humanity as a single authoritative voice, we run a great risk of becoming dominated by that voice. Even instituting the left-brain / right-brain dialogue is no guarantee that we will come out well, but it tilts the odds in our favor. If we keep our wits about us, we have a real chance of passing along this wonderful world with an improvement.
One unintended consequence that is all too foreseeable is people ratings. Just as one might have a Movie Recommender, so one might have a Person Recommender. Meet someone new, look them up, see how others have rated them. It is a seductive notion and it has a natural lead in with the idea of rating professionals for their competence. But it's one thing to rate the abilities of lawyers and auto mechanics, and quite another to rate people as people -- we are, after all, transcendent beings, not reducible to a number. Our best course is to build a standard People section into InterMix which will allow only statements about people to be rated, not the people themselves.
We have made several important strategic decisions:
The computer. Our decision to implement the Humanity 2001 project as a computerized system has been justified by the sudden appearance of the Web. We are living through one of those rapid phase shifts which has characterized important turns in the history of the earth. A silicon network is crystallizing before our eyes to form the material basis of a nervous system for Humanity, therefore for Life, and therefore for the Earth. Here at the stem of the new world, a small group acting in concert can have a great effect.
Our whole strategy rides on the success of our InterMix software
-- first working version expected by July of 1997. InterMix is an advanced
Bulletin Board System (BBS) with innovative 
features.
We will be distributing InterMix as free shareware, tax-deductible donation
requested. As a small non-profit, we don't have a lot of income, and can
afford only one programmer. Fortunately our one programmer is very strong,
and working furiously away as he does, he is doing the work of two or three,
but that may not be enough in the rapidly moving internet environment:
we could well employ three or four more programmers. So we are looking
for both non-profit support and volunteer programmers. See the Intermix
page for details.
Compassion and self interest. Our first step here on the net and in our newsletter is to appeal to those who have the same inclusive view of humanity that we have, but we must not neglect, then, to appeal also to the narrow self interest of individuals and groups. Collective communication is well suited to Plato's strategy of harnessing two very different horses to one chariot: deep self interest for its power, and wide compassion for its wisdom and steadiness.
To the tens or hundreds of millions of individuals who have devoted themselves to building a cooperative and inclusive world, and to the millions of organizations who have likewise taken on a piece of that great work, we offer our internet communication software without charge -- a beta version should be available by the fourth quarter of 1997. You are our natural consituency. A united humanity is the context for your success. Please join us.
For better or for worse, we are going to engage not just the charitable soul, but also that everyday side of humanity that likes a movie or a new cd, and jumps at the chance to travel deluxe. Our Recommender technology will use the collective communication rating system to profile individual tastes for all manner of goods. Ask the Recommender what book to read, where to go on vacation, which restaurant to try, who is the best psychic in town and even how to convince your kid to go to college -- all customized to your own personal likes and dislikes. How can you live without this important new service? etc etc.
The Recommender is the carrier wave that collective communication only modulates, the commercial engine pulling the train to its non-profit goal, the dancing bear that brings the patron in to hear about the Indivisibility of Life!
Los Angeles is a good model for the world. The city is thoroughly fractured, not a cooperating whole. At the same time, there are plenty of resources here, and though huge, the city is well wired.Success in Los Angeles will plug us into the global networks we will need for the next step.
The "Collective Communication" newsletter first issue is now available. To receive a copy, email your name and address to rogereaton@earthlink.net. Editor Patricia Rowuin invites you to submit an article for our next issue. In 1997 we will initiate a dialogue between the CCI online community and Editor Rowuin to determine directions for the newsletter. This will be the first test of collective communication theory using InterMix technology. Community directed media is bound to catch on, with community directed reporters in the field following up on community supplied leads.
We need online volunteers to make contacts for the Humanity 2001 project on the internet. The volunteers will scout the net, seeking persons who want to join us and persons we want to list on our Who are You? page. Soon there will be a BBS forum for the volunteers and prospective volunteers. Until then, please email queries to Roger Eaton. We will also be organizing an online class in non-violence for the volunteers.
| drawing "Iris" © 1996 by Sandy Chaves |
last changed May 1, 1997