Recommended Read: The Starfish and the Spider - The unstoppable power of leaderless organizations
I read this book a few years ago and resonated with it immediately. The premise of the book is to describe how we organize ourselves. When using a top / down hierarchical structure like government and corporations we mimic the spider. Cut off the head, we kill the organization. However, with the advent of the internet, we have found ways of organizing ourselves with no hierarchy. Much like some starfish, when you cut off an arm, the starfish will grow a new arm ... and the arm will grow a new starfish. The example the authors used was the music industry attacking Napster. Remember Napster? Napster was one of the most popular websites years ago where people went to share music files with one another on their centralized servers. The industry sued and shut them down. Then a number of new organizations distributed their servers, were attacked and shut down. Now, through open source projects, applications have been written where users can now share files peer-to-peer. Meaning there is no centralized servers any more. It is now a complex web of file sharing that is nearly impossible to shut down. The attack of the music industry created a model that is now impossible to kill! They created their own worst nightmare.
This book is an easy read and I enjoyed it very much. I would encourage those of you who are working towards freedom to read this book. The message is that we don't have to attack the state. What is required is that we setup the infrastructure that is distributed and peer-to-peer. It is impossible to kill the organism at that point!
The same scenario is happening with social media. Facebook is the centralized model for social media and how people share. However, they also have lots of centralized control, filters and censorship as a result. Blockchain technology like Steem is changing that model to a decentralized model with no filters, censorship or control. The shift in social media is now going through the same shift that happened to the music industry years ago.
This shift is also being experienced with currencies and almost every other mode of interaction that we have in this world. We are witnessing a black swan where the technology is allowing us to decentralize and move peer-to-peer for all our interactions. This will have a huge impact on the state as they scramble to remain relevant. The fact that they are going through a crises of morality, ethics and relevancy tells me that they are in big trouble!
With that said, it is prudent for all involved that we be prepared for the eventual event where the spider (government) organization dies. The shift in technology is facilitating a shift in thinking and interacting with one another. I urge caution as we also don't want to move into a situation where we all become bork (Star Trek TNG) either.
But with conscious thought, re-evaluation of our relationships and hard work, we can find ways to be independent, free and prosperous yet still find ways to resolve disputes, share ideas and work on public projects to benefit everyone rather than the few rich control freaks bent on greed, power and conquest.
If you want to explore this transition, then I recommend this book! I hope you enjoy the read like I did.
https://www.amazon.ca/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841836
what signs do you see that we are moving in direction of decentralization? steem users increasing?
Technologies like steemit, blockchains, cryptocurrencies, etc are all technologies that were developed by people, function without a centralized authority to govern or control it and bypass fictional borders too. Governments are dumb struck to figure out how to gain relevance over these concepts and technologies. That is because of the decentralized model that they use. Having distributed peer-to-peer authentication for cryptocurrencies bypasses the central bank cartel and also increases the risk of them being put out of business and made irrelevant. This shift has been slow to start, but I do see it accelerating over the last 6 - 12 months. Especially with the popularity of cryptocurrencies.
Technologies are advancing more rapidly and governments and financial institutions are scrambling to keep control. They are running scared.
Well it seems that the future of organizations is in decentralization, in open systems where we all try to help and contribute to the system, society and the way of doing business is changing so it would be interesting to review this book, thank you very much for your recommendation (another example of a decentralized internet organization is You Tube)
Youtube is only part way there as it is still governed by a central authority (google) and is now being clamped down, advertising revenues being controlled and censorship is taking place. I would suggest youtube is an example of the video media being about half way through the transition. It is not peer-to-peer yet.
Ooh my goodness, my reading list grows and grows, thanks @wwf! HAHAA!! I told you before and I'll say it again, your blog is my Journey to Freedom library!!
:D Lots of reading to do.
“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” ― Harry S. Truman
Sounds like an interesting book by the description and by your review.
Where there any specific examples or "starfish principles" that moved you to write this review, but which you left out?
I wrote about the one example regarding the music industry. If you want to learn about the other examples, you are welcome to read the book. I shared my own examples that I see as well. The music industry example is the one that helped me realize that the decentralized model that we are now witnessing in other areas is impossible for centralized authorities to attack. If they do attack, they will just make matters even worse for themselves. If you want to explore the idea further ... the book does a great job of explaining it. :)