Knowledge ecology on a global scale

Reading Charlie Brooker’s spot on article about the increasingly unfunny joke that is mainstream media, I was struck yet again by the degree to which we are able to, and have to, take back our individual responsibility for creating and sharing the stories that shape our lives. I am also reading Freedom, the sequal to Demon, Daniel Suarez’s books about a MMOG designer who, anticipating his death from a terminal illness, creates the Daemon, a collection of bots, scripts, volunteers and mythical narratives that builds an alternative civilisation as our present one crumbles under its own weight. The theme of the books is that truth has become so complex and maleable that we have to be very aware of who is telling us what, when and why.

When I wrote my recent Ten ways to create a knowledge ecology post I was thinking in terms of intranets and within the enterprise, but actually I believe that all ten steps are just as practical and necessary on a national and global scale. We are starting to build some of the bits already but I worry that we might not build a new world fast enough in the face of the old one burying itself under its own crap.