Homi and the NeXT One
Homi & the NeXT One is a story I wrote in 1989 (on my Masters at City University) to explain my NSU model of technology change. This was derived from synthesising a number of sources into a model I called NSU; Networks, Services, Users. I was especially influenced by a BBC TV series called Will Tomorrow Work made in 1984 to complement the Year of IT & the launch of the BBC Micro and the thinkers it quoted. People such as Hazel Henderson (who inspired the ecologically-balanced Energy Fund Transfer model of money in the story) Jonathan Gershuny of SPRU (who inspired the idea that optical fibre digital networks would make the home a centre of production & consumption) and Piotr Kondratieff who talked about how long-term technology change affected economic cycles over 50 years and so predicted, back in 1921, that Gordon Brown would be wrong when he said we have ended boom and bust. Kondratieff inspired the date in which the story is set 2021; 100 years after his predictions and 50 years after the silicon chip was invented in Mountain View. Alvin Toffler (Future Shock) and Yoneji Masuda, who, in 1981, predicted the Global Information Utility that Zuckerburg wants to own, were influences. In the NSU interpretation technology change develops new networks of distribution which turn products (cars, say) into services (transport, say), so that, as a digital network develops and deepens, we need to rethink every institutionally-based activity as a series of network services (such as the Polyversity). In the end so much changes about everyday life that we need to rethink what is society. I think we need a completely *new* people-centric constitution to render a digitally-netwrorked world meaningful (see the Britonode idea). And, as Bridget McKenzie says, it has to be designed by people who respect the planet and are a real part of it, not kept apart from it by their intellect; hence the redesign of money, transactions and value in the story; enjoy!
Homi and the NeXT One
Hi Homi,
Hi, NeXT, anything on the stack?
Not much, there is an IPR challenge against Jonah,
Really, nothing serious I guess?
No, not really, just a query that the designs on his last T-shirt run were copied.
How many did he manufacture?
Five
Personal club wear?
I guess
Was the design free-hand or cut and paste?
Free-hand
Sounds accidental, is that entered on the defence?
Of course?
OK, when’s the judgement?
10.15
Show me the file, oh it’s up!
Of course…
Cute design, no problem there. Accept the decision and any subsequent micro-transfers.
OK Homi.
What’s next?
A request for a visit.
From a family?
No a group of twenty
A group? Better pull up the constitution!
Full articles or the abstract?
Come on NeXT, you know I always work with the abstract!
Legal req Homi!
Constitutional Abstract of the OK* hub of the Britonode network
Abstract;
All members of the hub are equally responsible for enacting it’s requirements.
All members will be fed and housed according to need
All members will partake of a full working week of 4 days of 4 hours each
All members will engage in Polyversity programmes
All members are capable of varying the details of the constitution, in accordance with the details enumerated in amendment 3.
The hub will at all times entertain a population of visitors of at least 10% (current status 9.2%)
Dynamic Planning maps…
Thought so NeXT, we are under quota; food stocks will be good and we will need to rebalance. Agree that! Any more group visits on the calendar?
None at all Homi, near the end of the cycle…
OK NeXT?
A transfer request for cucumbers,
What’s the offer?
Caraway seeds.
That’ll spice up the diet! The energy transfer request OK?
Spot on
Agree that!
Is that it?
Yep, looks like your working day is over
Great! Pull up my Polyversity files I’ve been thinking about that mapping problem,
The pre-historic Russian shell?
Yep, got an idea it might relate to a new relic from Pakistan, oh and pull up some caraway seed recipes.
They’re only for flavouring
Yeah, but I only know potato salad and that’ll get boring pretty quick.
Full list on screen.
And run off two of Jonah’s T-shirts when the judgement is in, I like what he was trying to do with that design. In blue?
For the kids?
Yep,
They’ll love em…
*(OK is Orwell Kondratieff)
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