While we were voting in the US on November 8, national leaders gathered at COP27 to talk about climate change. It is going much too slowly, but it is better than no talks at all, since we do get progress, such as improving loss and damage funding. Now if we can get past all of the stories about how necessary finance is for facing climate change.
Who doesn’t love a good story? Going by his call for better stories in a conversation with Trevor Noah, President Obama certainly values narrative qualities. Obama told Noah that what this country needs are better stories.
Update, 2022 November 20, 9:20 pm Central
Here is link to Barack Obama on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, in case it helps interested readers having trouble viewing on Youtube. Haven’t seen transcript yet.
I totally agree with Obama about the value of on the ground organizing. His take on the rise of authoritarian regimes, on the other hand, was lacking.
Obama noted the rise of gangster tyranny and the associated economic burdens of globalization. Then, he gave an example of successful progress based in reframing of gender equity to terms that older folks can appreciate. He turned from an economic hardship problem to an identity messaging solution. Neoliberalism was faulted only for forcing changes too quickly on those who cling to the past. It wasn’t the changes, just that they were too fast. Maybe we simply need to ease people more gradually into this new age of technofeudalism.
The greatest story every told may be exchange through that special commodity we call money. One of our worst nightmares is how often it gets corrupted and obscures reality, often through overrating to idolization of bankers, financiers, investors, funders, fundraisers, and other tellers of money stories.
Obama does acknowledge that profit is inadequate for deciding social wellbeing, though money still seems to be the supreme measure of value, and finance is how we’re supposed to allocate stuff for getting things done.
As opponents interested in little more than power and owning libs, Republicans are sticking to their story that socialism is evil and government doesn’t help no matter how many die in climate chaos. They long ago sold out to fossil fuel and other money rich agents of power.
In short, it is readily apparent to many across the political spectrum that our priorities are askew.
When money is all important, then everything has a price and all activity is transactional. But money is just a simplistic, one dimensional model of value. Prioritizing monetary value excuses corruption, limits friendship, and inhibits network building by overlooking complexity, discontinuity and stochasticity. See the story below of how I got fired for an example of how resorting to financial and HR transactions stops conversations and inhibits problem solving.
Our lines of communication being one avenue that has been woefully undervalued, each latest technology is polluted in turn by marketers, branders, fundraisers, designers, apologists, trolls and other scammers. Future communication networks will continue to be polluted and factionalized until we defend the spaces and codify that pursuit of money doesn’t justify every intrusion. Advertising companies, such as Google, can be expected to keep trying.
Daily Kos provides a nice moderated forum for Democrats, not an open free for all. Elon Musk made a gesture towards more public moderation on Twitter this past week when he reinstated Trump’s account based on a poll. This polling might alleviate some backlash about censorship, but it opens the forum to tyranny of vocal masses. It is not supportive or protective outside of powerful majorities. Furthermore, it fails to account for misinformation, disinformation and propaganda addled populations swaying collective decisions. Running our public forums based on shallow polls will give us more divisive and angry forums, especially on forums that market anger for engagement.
I will not accept the story that the best way to access communication is through private or corporate owners, with public fates decided on nothing better than short, shallow polls. Many speak of the need for net neutrality and treating the internet as a public utility. I also suggest an alternative of online jury trials in which a small group of peers review evidence and discusses the situation before voting. That is one possible alternative. In any case, we are more than social actors to be monetized and moderated on the whims of a few financial power holders.
Modern capabilities open a widow to rethink exchange, valuation and finance in terms of optimizing sustainable production and distribution in democratically determined equitable systems. That window is only open briefly. Winds of change ensure that it will soon close. Fascist, gangster authoritarians love the money and finance story and will lean on it even more should that window shut without a change in our production and distribution story.
To finish, here is a personal example of how resorting to money, legal and HR stories stifles communication and progress, and got me fired.
In my recent work, one story I believed were those of equity and inclusion cast by the publicly funded Association of Public Health Laboratories when they hired me through their contractor Insight Global to work as a developer on newsteps.org. I believed the stories they used Health Resources and Services Administration funding to tell. The terrible anti-worker contract they had me sign should have been a warning, but I believed them. The poor, antiquated state of the web site, and departures of previous developers might have been another warning, but I believed they were honestly out of their depth and were trusting me to help, which I was. All of it ended within 3½ months when they suddenly switched to legal HR stories, stopped communicating, and attempted to end our relationship with a call from a new Insight Global henchperson to me. It’s a sight to see those who tell the most stories switching at once to speaking as little as possible through paid surrogates and agents.
Perhaps they believe ghastly legal, HR and finance fables. It’s only business and it’s nothing personal are stories told by cowards who are all too quick to generate cheerleader worthy gyrations and contortions about their impact on personal lives when it suits the leader and organization brand. I, on the other hand, contend that hiding behind babies is a poor look and smell for those truly seeking to act nobly.
None of that matters to my career. APHL and newsteps will certainly update their sites, because they have a lot of public money.
Finishing this story in my small world, here are two recent difficult conversations following my recent firing, in full, spread out over a couple of weeks.
Spouse: The contractor insurance was a rip off. We shouldn’t have gotten it.
Me: Yep. Would have been nice as a stop gap to something better.
Later
Me: You wanna talk about health insurance?
Spouse: We’re not buying health insurance.
Me: That’s all I need.
Missing the tears in our eyes might make it seem less difficult. If so, here is some light reading to help you catch up.