Dante’s Blog

PERCEPTION

. . .Something To Think About. .. .

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:

The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition..

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities.

The questions raised:

*In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?

*Do we stop to appreciate it?

*Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.

How many other things are we missing?

How many special persons pass us by and we do not MAKE ANY EFFORT TO get to know them?

http://www.google.be/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Joshua+Bell+playing+incognito+in+the+metro

In English :

In French :

Shots in the Dark,

a documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada, as of yet unreleased.

The delicate subject of vaccinations and its dangers is approached in a very revealing documentary film. Scientists, doctors, patients, and parents from Canada, France and the US all get their say.

Perhaps this film is the reason why the arts in Canada had their budget slashed in the last years by the Conservative government.

It was NEVER released or published.

July 2008 , Dante

http://dante.ecobytes.net/2008/07/16/recurrent-transition-point/

” doing what I am passionnate about ” ?

July 2009 , Dante :

There have been developments since last year …

Its very much about nurturing long term friendships, and friendships between friendships…
which enables a feeling of meaning through sharing,
creates value through non direct reciprocal economics,
yet builds potential within networks of friends and grows new fruits that feed the networks on the long term ,
and enable such synergies on a broad international scale,
but very importantly also “on a local scale” …
building up a sense of belonging… and a potential lager integral view point… understanding what one “can”,
participating by enabling potential… and “empowering oneself by empowering others”…

I feel it is very fulfilling to build up intentional environments with whom there is mutual empowerment.

For a long time, I felt alone, trying to bring together some pieces of the puzzle,
but I feel its accelerating, and various nodes of interconnected friends are emerging… and creating life dynamics… being mirrors to each other… enabling the manifestation of the consciousness we re-membered within ourselves, into prototypes out of our own body, and together with others…

The recurrent transition point I mentioned last year,
can evolve when such mutually inspiring, mutually empowering dynamics of trans-connections enable outlets for further synergies according to our own potential, according to what I can to allow others to develop what they can…

The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin’s character): Hope… I’m sorry but I don’t want to be an Emperor – that’s not my business – I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.

We all want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.

The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls – has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say “Do not despair”.

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish…

Soldiers – don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you – who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers – don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written ” the kingdom of God is within man ” – not one man, nor a group of men – but in all men – in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

Soldiers – in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting – the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.

The soul of man has been given wings – and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow – into the light of hope – into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up.”

http://www.clown-ministry.com/

interesting 5 minute hearing :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0JAfq4esk

“Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn testified before the Financial Services Committee today, along with John Bovenzi of the FDIC. The Fed’s balance sheet has expanded by $1.2 trillion since September 1. Where did the money go? Kohn wouldn’t say.”

and a news report on the same hearing, with better sound quality :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxuqmPyKqcs&feature=related

“So, you know about the Treasury’s $700 billion bailout plan. But you probably don’t know that the Federal Reserve has lent out about $2 trillion since September. Few do. And that is what’s irritating bulldog Congressman Alan Grayson. Will he be able to shed a light on the Fed’s secret spending?”

—

Gift Economy called “Dama” in Malian Culture

I like the complicity and shared passion between prof and pupil(?) in this video on “emergence of open design and manufacturing”

http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/marvellous-interview-with-eric-von-hippel-on-user-centered-innovation/2009/02/08

I look forward to the development of a inter-connected movement of engineers, namely programmers,

supported by all kinds of thinkers, facilitators, …

for the bloom of a new self-empowered  and empowering movement :

Open Source Public Licensed ” Programmable Financial Systems ”

following the development of other open source projects, such as Linux.

I also look forward to the emergence of open distributed data bases using such softwares

converging and sharing information about

offer and demand in the field of

” units representing needs of/offers in the pursuit of certain intentions measured by a certain measurable quantity ( time, energy, processing, data transfer, … ) and issued or asked by individual profiles ”

details:

here are some of the challenges I try to address :

The challenge is to manifest simple tools that enable greater complexity : enabling simplicity at higher levels of abstraction.

- I would like to see an economic measurement system which allows for a variety of units to be transferred ( units which have in common to define 1 ) an intention , 2 ) a unit of measure , and 3 ) profiles of groups or individuals pursuing them which issue them – each of these informations staying connected to the units )

In such a measurement system I imagine, people or groups do not owe to other people, they owe to ” intentions ” , and to serve the intentions, one can support the needs of the groups or individuals who serve certain intentions, by accepting their currency in exchange for what we can do.

By serving such intentions through accepting the units in exchange of our service, we show that we support the intention, and in turn others who want to support the intention can support us.

One could imagine that such economic intentional measurment system could be a complementary currency that could at first be used in the field of the volunteering economy – making it easier for voluntary people to find projects to support, and receive reputation points for it on their profile ( which in turn increases their credibility to issue units if and when they owuld need support ),
and receive intentional units which can be used or given on afterwords.

It could include time banks ( or some units connected to energy production , food production , etc )

but also other information systems which combine

1) defined intention in creation of currency

2 ) defined measurement unit

3 ) contain reputation of issuer, or of supporters of the issuer