beyond the information society: reconciling people planet and progress 1 the immaterialisation of...

Beyond the Information Society: Reconciling People Planet and Progress 1

The Immaterialisation of Aspirations(consumer led global sustainability)

Towards the Caring Society

David Leevers VERSAssociates

Virtual Environments for Real Societies

London

www.vers.co.uk/dleevers.htm


The Problem • Western lifestyle assumes continually increased consumption

– values and aspirations are linked to material progress

Western/Global middle class of 1,300 million is growing by 30 million per annum

The planet cannot support 10 billion people at a European level of quality of life.

“Fortress Europe” alternative, for 5% of world population, is politically and ethically unsustainable

Ethical and Regulatory Push (exhortation, carbon tax, etc.) is unreliable and reduces quality of life. It might reduce Total Environmental Stress but will increase “Total Social Stress”

- a “Caring Society” perspective is needed


The Immaterialisation Switch 1,IST Pull, not Regulatory Push

The IST community has been hiding the solution for 40 years – Moore’s Law – the most IST-intensive products double in power every 18 months.

Can this “alchemy”, turning base materials into silicon, help achieve global sustainability?

Immaterialisation is the process of replacing a material intensive component of a satisfier of a human needs with an IST intensive alternative.

After the “Immaterialisation Switch”, costs follow a dematerialisation curve greater than the 2% typical of material intensive products and up to the 40% of Moore’s law.


The Immaterialisation Switch 2, Materials

From Material-Intensive Satisfier to IST-Intensive Satisfier

Material Intensity

Time

But – There are no one-for-one replacements for human Desires/Wants PCs do not replace cars, VR headsets do not replace rooms

Dematerialisation records of about 2% per annum

Dematerialisation possibilities of up to 40% per annum

The Switch,Immediate drop in material use


The Immaterialisation Switch 3, Costs

From Material-Intensive Satisfier to IST-Intensive Satisfier

Cost

Time

Dematerialisation 2% per annum

Premium Market Gimmick, prestige, fashion and affluent users

Mass Market, Commodity

The Switch,Immediate rise in cost,

small market, immature technology, unproved service

Dematerialisation possibilities of up to 40% per annum


From Rebound-D to Rebound-I

Rebound-DThe steady cost reductions of dematerialising products and services increases market size e.g. cheaper cars and fuel leads to more travel

Rebound-ICustomers may spend the sudden release of funds from the Immaterial Switch on material-intensive luxuries

Rebound-I can be avoided by attracting the spare cash to new IST intensive immaterial satisfiers.

Windfalls often spent on novelties or on the insurance and pensions that replace having children as protection for old age and disability


Immaterialisation Switch 4, The ASSIST Vision

Total Environmental Stress

Year 2000 2020 2050

Rebound-DDematerialisation

Rebound

Culture Changes, many Immaterialisation Switches

from maturing IST

Fast Moore’e Law Dematerialisation of

IST-intensive satisfiers

Time


Removal of carbon subsidies, develop immaterial alternatives. Global warming fund for early sufferers

Immaterialisation Switch 5, Policy Implications

Total Environmental Stress

Year 2000 2050

Stress increase from Rebound-D,Dematerialisation Rebound

Rapid Moore’e Law Dematerialisation of

IST-intensive Satisfiers

Steady increase in carbon, etc. taxes but only after alternatives have become better

Policy Examples:

Culture Changes, many Immaterialisation Switches

from maturing IST

2020


The Virtual Reality of the Parent is the Reality of the Child

UK Parents dismiss the theme park as an artificial replacement for a seaside holiday town

But UK grandparents saw the seaside town as an artificial replacement for open countryside or spa town!

Thus lifestyle aspirations depend on belief systems developed in infancy and childhood, modified by later learning

– this is the ASSIST Opportunity:

not replacing reality with VR but superseding a material intensive culture with an enhanced IST intensive one


The Caring Process, from Needs to Wants

Fundamental higher level human needs are species-specific (social contact, self respect, etc). Their expression in the wants and desires of a lifestyle within a society and belief system, depend primarily on how the brain grows and mind develops during infancy and childhood

Wants/desires framework acquired from parents/carers/peers - cultureSpecific wants/desires come from peers and media - lifestyle

An increasing fraction of early culture is acquired from global organisations: brands, children's TV cartoons, intelligent toys, computer games, Internet

The later education years are controlled by the state butthe early most formative years are controlled by a mix of local community and global media business.

Is this the best way to achieve a Caring Society!


Can we achieve the Immaterialisation Culture Change?

a, We have changed culture in the past:The garden is an enhancement/replacement for community territory: - less space, less travel, more private, more flowers, easier to defend,

no snakes (after the Eden prototype!)The local leisure centre plus mobile telephone, is an enhancement/replacement for sports ground, theatre and car - less space, less travel, more social contact

b, We have to change culture in the future ASSIST research has indicated that Immaterialisation

without culture change reduces material consumption by only 25%

- not enough to meet even Kyoto requirements!


Immaterialisation Culture Change From Car and Home Care to People and Body Care

Readership of top five magazines, UK

Car and DIY magazines

Immaterial satisfiers

1980

21%

6%(Mayfair magazine)

2000

0%

47%(FHM, Loaded,Cable Guide, Sky customer, Sky view)

Material-intensive satisfiers such as cars and DIY are already being replaced by more direct, more immaterial experiences: travelling to remote football stadium replaced by short walk to local bar with big screen television, peer-to-peer sensuality and media experiences

Perhaps the body is an immaterial car? Perhaps the bar is an immaterial football stadium?

Are the young and the media ahead of the policy makers and the professional middle classes?


What is Missing in Current Media Experiences?

• Sense of sharing room with the physical presence of others

• Freedom to look around and walk around

• Kinaesthetic social skills including minimal visual cues that permit conspiracy

• Touch and Smell, Coffee and Lunch

• The rituals and pleasures of travel, socialising, joining and leaving the meeting

• The affordances of location – particular places imply particular behaviours

If Mature IST can deliver all the above then a sequence of self-contained multimedia events will be superseded by the persistent multimodal reality of the Ambient Intelligence Environment


Towards the Network/Caring Society

The self-contained leisure-gadgets and work-facilitators of the 20th century Information Society are being superseded by an Ambient Intelligence Environment that will support the Network/Caring Society of the 21st century.

The self-contained gadgets and facilitators of the 20th century information/consumer society must have contributed to the enormous social and cultural changes of the last 30 years.

Have all these changes been for the better?

The Ambient Intelligence Environment will have an increasing impact in the next 30 years, particularly during infancy and childhood.

Can we predict the social consequences?


Increasing Inequity, Disappearing Frontiers

Income range within countries and between nations has doubled in the last 30 years

Globalisation has blurred national boundaries and encouraged the (slow) growth of the integrated mixed culture society of western/global liberal democracy(NB not the polarised multicultural society of multiple ghettos)

1, Quality of life / happiness has not increased in the West - income has little effect on happiness above about $10,000 level - widening the income range appears to decrease happiness

- is caring becoming trapped within the “rationality” of the money economy?

2, Conflict is no longer between developed nations but between the global hegemony and envious, educated outsiders, excluded by alien

values - e-war, criminals, terrorists


Social Change in the Information Society of the last 30 Years (UK)

One-Person Households People living alone increased from 6% to 10% of the

population from 1970 to 2000 (UK)

Enablers- Mature Industrial Technology (washing machines, microwaves and TV dinners),- Early Information Technology (telephone, television the web)

Liberation of the individual or escape from traditional caring obligations?


Social Change in the Information Society of the last 30 Years (UK)

1, Births outside marriage: 8% in 1971, 40% in 1999 (perhaps a good sign, spread of mixed culture society?)

2, Children brought up by lone parent: increase from 7% in 1972 to 21% in 2000

(what replaces the caring and attachment processes of the extended family?)

3, Suicides per 100,000, Decrease for 65 and over, 25 in 1971, 15 in 1998

(The most IST resistant group?)

Increases females 15-24, 3 in 1971, 4.5 in 1998 males 15-24, 7 in 1971, 17 in 1998

( NB 50-75% of male suicides were brought up by lone parent)


We have to do better than this!- from Information Society to Caring Society

We are migrating

- from the centralised databases of the Information Society to the peer-to-peer conversations of the Network Society.

- from the one-way delivery of Information to the two-way sharing of two complementary components of the Network/Caring Society

- Knowledge and Experience.

- from Social Control to Social Exchange?

Is the digital divide diluting as expensive PCs are replaced by low cost wearables?

Is equity increasing as service workers are empowered by IST?


The Good News

Fraction of life spent disabled has already decreases with GDP:

from 30% in Sub-Saharan Africa to 10% in the West.

This leads to a very high value being palced on life and on avoiding disability

Disability and lifetime lines converge at 100 Years, the

“design lifetime” of the human species!


Caring Society Scenario 1: AdultsThe Virtual Extended Family

Immaterialisation of support for disability- Physical – physical or genetic damage to body- Mental – usually physical damage to brain- Emotional – usually result of inadequate caring

Privacy intrusion is integral to care (working outwards from Intensive Care)

Loss of privacy must proceed in step with opening and democratising society, permitting increased IST support for those with disability while preventing abuse of information.

IST can be an “Impedance Matching Device” for communication between the disabled and the abled

– the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf and a “reality transformer” for the phobic


Caring Society Scenario 2: ChildrenThe Enhanced Fragmented Family

The new understanding of attachment, enculturalisation and learning processes through infancy and childhood (from large scale longitudinal studies) can be used to enhance the fragmented family of today (perhaps only mother and child) with tele-present and virtually present alternatives for the many child-care roles played by members of traditional extended families:

• Multimodal awareness of remote members of family• Avatar substitutes for missing members of the family• Many television cartoons as well as a few bedtime stories• Computer games help in acquiring social values• Caring instincts developed via virtual as well as real pets• Monitoring and historical record of childhood

Ideally enhancements, not replacements


Caring Society Scenario 3: SocietyThe Western Liberal Democratic Ideal

Secular Rational Caring Social Framework

Containment of aggression through rituals of democracy – transparency – open society

Amplification of family morality to include the whole world (as expressed in UN & EU Aspirations)

IST infrastructure behind the Ambient Intelligence Environment will support rapport and trust, caring and commitment across geographical, social, cultural and religious differences. (the early Internet and the emerging consensus global academic and business cultures are limited realisations of this ideal)


“C-Work and C-Commerce”! - the “New Ways of Working” Opportunity

Immaterialisation Switches free up income for spending on new IST supported luxuries.

Many of these will be investments in new ways of caring and new ways of avoiding disability.

The emerging “claim culture” is a clumsy first step in this direction. It is based on the premise that everyone has the right to a high quality of life

Caring will be the biggest growth industry of the next 20 years if European levels of health care do no more than rise to US levels,

from 8% to 15%- 8 million new jobs over 20 years!


Immaterialisation must precede Dematerialisation

- Economic Considerations

The dramatically increased rate of dematerialisation of IST based products and services is needed to achieve both

• A high quality of life for all• Long term global sustainability

Implies the most cost-effective way of achieving long term global sustainability is:

• Early investment should be in researching and developing a culturally and socially acceptable Network/Caring Society. • Later efforts should be devoted to the dematerialisation that will make it sustainable

NB a fraction of early funds will be needed for sufferers of particular “hot spots” of global warming (Alaska, Sahara, Asian deserts)


Immaterialisation must precede Dematerialisation

- Culture Considerations

Discourage the Third World from adopting the unsustainable travel and accommodation aspects of Western society.

Avoids the potential threat of social instability from:

• Global Warming• Widening gulf between rich and poor

(amplified by increased awareness from easy global travel)

This approach avoids issues related to preserving cultural heritage, issues which may implicitly trap much of the Third World in cultures that presuppose a brutal life for most of the population, particularly women


But: Credibility of Immature IST is Poor

• The reliable PC in the Paperless Office - but paper is part of the solution!

• Video Conferencing replaces face to face – missing affordances!

• Virtual Venice replaces Being There – confused objectives!

Mature IST Infrastructure

The unreliable and self-contained IST gadgets of the past superceded by the pervasive and reliable IST infrastructure of the future Network/Caring Society - the GRID.

Mature IST User Interface

The “Ambient Intelligence Environment” of the future will use IST to seamlessly enhance reality, not to replace it, e.g.

a small amount of physical travel is enhanced by virtual travel

a small amount of physical space is enhanced by virtual space


Towards the Sustainable Global Caring Society?

Care of Others,Social Actualisation

Care of Self,Self Actualisation

Closed Societies Open Societies

Traditional SocietyTribal

Industrial SocietyNational

Information Society

Multinational

Network/Caring SocietyGlobal

3rd World, 2001

1st World, 2001


Venice Audience Discussion on the Network/Caring Society Quadrant

1, Enthusiasm for 3rd World leapfrogging Industrial and Multinational stages

2, Shock at the plausibility of future convergence of 1st and 3rd worlds

3, Combining an increasing quality of life with stronger community networking is alien for many of the European high-achievement individuals who are implementing it (high achieving parents often resent the security and contentment this brings to their children!)

4, Europe is seen as the guardian of heritage values rather than a promoter of global values of equity and sustainability

Actions: 1, A clearer description of “Network/Caring Society” is needed2, How to convey the dynamic nature of cultural heritage?


Towards SGCS - Sustainable Global Caring Society?

Did 20th Century Information Society damage the peer-to-peer relationships that ensured an adequate level of informal carers in traditional communities?

Is the peer-to-peer architecture of the web already starting to turn the tide? – a culture shift already seen in children who are above the digital divide – more immaterial, more equitable, more global and more sustainable?

When today's children mature will the unreliable web, only suitable for play today, have become reliable enough to be the primary social infrastructure?

Are we investing too much in Ambient Intelligent Adult Environment, leaving the Ambient Intelligent Nursery to business?

Are we missing an opportunity for IST R&D to encourage future generations towards the Sustainable Global Network Society?

beyond the information society: reconciling people planet and progress 1 the immaterialisation of...

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