[iDC] An Introduction (was: The emergence of the geospatial web)

[Joe Edelman]

This is a good as any time to introduce myself.

I think both GPS and warfare are symptoms of a much larger, and
positive, deep human desire.  The desire to be synchronized,
coordinated, to have beautiful choreographed teamwork across multiple
scales.  And to feel our power as humans in groups.  Even the large
industrial operations you people are critiquing involved logistics and a
scale of operations that, I'm sure, got somebody excited.

People love reading about special forces operations.  Even radical
artists love the word "tactical."  I think this is why.

The problem is, until now, many of these vast, coordinated operations
have been directed at the wrong aims.  They have been destructive, of
natural resources, of human life, etc, instead of constructive.  This is
why the Amish barn raising is such a powerful metaphor in open source
discussions: because it's an example of a constructive use of this
coordinated, beautifully choreographed, human power, that many of us
crave.

What if we could create an economic system where the barnraising was the
paradigm, rather than the war or the mining operation.  Which featured
GPS and special ops, but directed towards those ends that result in
POSITIVE EXPERIENCE, for ourselves and for future generations?

That's what I'm doing.  Check it out at http://groundcrew.us.  You can
send me fan mail at this address.  We're also looking to hire right now,
UI designers and MBA/seasoned entrepreneur types, so put us in touch.

--Joe

--
J.E. -- http://nxhx.org -- 413.250.8007

>>Not to belabor your point (which is generally right), but even if one 
>>can dismiss the military origins of GPS on an international scale as 
>>history, its conceptual development well predates the satellites 
>>operated by the US Airforce. GPS is only one component of a larger 
>>conceptual and technological infrastructure.
>>
>>Geographer John Cloud has a nice history of GIS here:
>
>Excellent summary -- thanks for pointing that one out...
>
>absolutely, location has always been a necessary component of warfare (at all levels) (as integral to command, control and communications, for example)...  Prior to GPS satellites there was (is) the LORAN and SHORAN systems coming out of WWII (& MIT's Lincoln Laboratory) -- Cloud's history covers some of these
>
>for example:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LORAN
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Mapping_Agency
>
>And one should not miss the linkage between all aspects of mapping/GIS with issues like environmental degradation (for example, oil exploration is intimately connected and reliant on GIS and has been since the advent of geophysical techniques for extractive minerals exploration --  the primary tools that have brought us to this point of our hydrocarbon-saturated consumer capitalist society.)
>
>An earlier history of this concept of mapping/control would be the Hayden Surveys of the US West, where topographic lines of control were established to "know" the territory and thus control it for the colonial expansion west -- driven by the railroads ...
>
>Thanks, Ryan!
>
>John
>_______________________________________________
>iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (distributedcreativity.org)
>iDC at mailman.thing.net
>https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc
>
>List Archive:
>http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
>
>iDC Photo Stream:
>http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/idcnetwork/
>
>RSS feed:
>http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc
>
>iDC Chat on Facebook:
>http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647
>
>Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref