Karl Schroeder on "rewilding" -- openness, government, and autonomous nature as an economic actor

Here's writer, futurist and all-round dude Karl Schroeder's talk from this year's O'Reilly Open Source Con: "The Rewilding: A Metaphor." In his inimitable style, Karl first describes a semi-human future in which things as abstract as "nature" and "politics" participate directly in the economy and in online discussions, then connects this to open source and open government. It's a hell of a mind-bender, as only Karl can manage. Bravo!

OSCON 09: Karl Schroeder, "The Rewilding: A Metaphor" (via Futurismic)

[#1 posted by Anonymous, July 29, 2009 10:28 AM]

I do not think the word inimical means what you think it means.

(You probably meant inimitable).

[#2 posted by Kid Geezer, July 29, 2009 11:09 AM]

Karl Schroeder is one of my very favorites in recent years. I hadn't realized that he was such a hostile dude, though. Perhaps you meant inimitable?

[#3 posted by Cory Doctorow, July 29, 2009 12:19 PM]

You're right! I'm vastly underslept!

[#4 posted by shanealeslie, July 29, 2009 12:46 PM]

I look forward to the day that I get an invoice from 'The Trees'; and every time I hear a driver bitch about how high their 'air bill' is I'll smugly tell them to STFU and get a bike.

[#5 posted by Mojave, July 29, 2009 1:35 PM]

Is it just me or do these posts about the very vague and cerebral mental meanderings of the cyberelite tend to elicit less responses than say a catburglar falling off the roof or the latest cop/tazer assualt?

[#6 posted by teleny, July 29, 2009 2:00 PM]

I've had a lump in my throat for two days after seeing again (after more than forty years) the "Red Cat" episode of Astroboy, which in its manga form in 1953, was one of the pieces of environmentalist SF in Japan. Tezuka was a devout Buddhist, and came up with a scenario whereby a scientist trying to rescue a forest near Tokyo finds a way to mobilize animals, especially his cat, Chili, as monkeywrenchers. There's some delicious "The Birds"-like action as every animal in the prefecture turns against humanity, and some of Tezuka's hallmark tragedy-in-comedy...I won't spoil it.

Anyway, this sounds like what he would have liked...Wow. "Hello, this is the flock of geese down the road, we loved your visit! Come again, bring more corn...we're molting and have lots of good quills for you to collect..."

[#7 posted by autark, July 29, 2009 2:00 PM]

Whenever somebody talks so vaguely about the "insight" of the "invisible hand of the market", I am very suspicious about the rest of their conclusions... is he not paying attention?

[#8 posted by jetfx, July 29, 2009 4:56 PM]

Ack! Schroeder has much the same ideas for his novel that I have for mine! Perhaps a different focus though.

[#9 posted by Anonymous, July 30, 2009 3:05 AM]

Is there a transcript available somewhere?

[#10 posted by zzzoltan, July 30, 2009 4:40 AM]

I was a bit annoyed by the whole clip, and increasingly so after 12:46.

There very little consensus on when to use the carrot and when to use the stick in democratic societies. That's why most democratic countries have the right-left scale of political parties.
And, mentioning "the invisible hand of the market" as something "that work[s]" when we're in the deepest economic crisis in modern history just laughable.

Also, I find the idea of putting dollars on stuff like nature disturbing. There are other values, not only monetary ones. (As discussed numerous times on BoingBoing). Sometimes you just have to leave parts of nature alone for the sake of leaving it alone, not based on whether or not it can yield profit.

I have to admit, a lot of his ideas are interesting and thought-provoking. I just don't buy all of it.

[#11 posted by Chris Sullins, August 4, 2009 4:41 PM]

I typed up a transcript. It can be found here:

http://azureabstraction.com/vault/transcripts/rewilding/

[#12 posted by Anonymous, August 6, 2009 2:42 PM]

What is the device he's using? Is that a CrunchPad or something else?