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The Stuff that MattersGerry Morgan (6)     Ink Media There Must be 50 Ways to Lose Your BlubberPosted Wednesday, October 03, 2007 (2 years 53 days ago.) Viewed 73 times. Another kara(joke) for your next karaoke T'he problem is size', she handed me the tape No need to eat, Pete Cut out the fat, you Rat Hop on the Tread, Fred No need to eat, Pete To get yourself slim (pause) I said, It sounds to hard, Marge Pass me the food, Jude Round’s the shape I’m in, I ate with a grin… 
Permalink Comments (0) The Power of OnePosted Monday, July 09, 2007 (2 years 139 days ago.) Viewed 151 times. All people start out as equals but through the chance of where we were born or into what circumstance we were born, the playing field quickly becomes unequal. The leveling of the playing field has not so much to do with the intrinsic value of the person as it has to do with the power of the individual to determine what is best. True freedom relies on the power of the individual to act in a resourceful way. One of the mantras of the twentieth century was that ‘knowledge is power’. With the advent of the Internet and personal computer came access to almost all of what human beings collectively know. Access to information in develop countries is taken for granted. It is not available to 4/5 of the people on the planet. Access to the Internet and computer communications is much more than having a giant library accessible. It is also the power to have a voice. It is the power to create. The power to collaborate and the power to make decisions based on real information. At a molecular level, all human being are made of the same DNA. We are all related by this fact. In all countries, parents want the same things for their children. They aspire to a life where we rise above poverty, sickness and oppression. Parents want their children to be afforded the opportunities to improve their lot in life. Freedom from tyranny relies on people to feel powerful, to feel that their voice is important and that they have a say. When people are disempowered, tyranny and oppression become dominant. The surest way to true democracy is to have powerful people capable of acting effectively in the world. There is a deep relationship between the dimensions of power people can develop and the tools that they have access to. We see the world through the tools we have access to. The more powerful the tool, the greater the personal power that we can develop. When we develop insight, we almost always use tools to do so. The tools that we make allow us to see the world in a different way. It allows us the power to build more powerful tools giving us greater insight. A book is a tool. An idea is a tool. A computer is a tool. A book has the limitations of physicality and content. That is to say one book can be read by one person at a time. Propagation of books is resource intensive leaving the people with access to resources ‘rich’ and others poor. The limitations of the media based on physical resources prevent every person in the world access to every book of knowledge. Electronic books are the cross-over from resource based to resourcefulness based. Every person in the world could have access to electronic books…if only they had a computer connected to the Internet. In the area of commerce, every person eventually is affected by economic activity in one way or another. If you make rugs, you can sell your rugs only to those persons that your sphere allows you to. If you meet only one person, you have a market of one. That one buyer can dictate the price. If you have two buyers who want what you make, you have choices. If you have a tool that can put you in touch with millions of potential rug buyers, you will likely do much better. We are bound by a social and economic sphere that we are in. The computer is a tool that can change the size of that sphere. Suddenly you can have buyers of rugs from around the globe. Much has been made of the misery caused by the lack of infrastructure in developing nations. AIDS is rampant in many parts of the world. Water born diseases snuff out the prospects of health, long lived children. Lack of food, prevents children from fully developing the capacities they were born with. Sometimes the problems seem overwhelming. In a physical resource based view of the world, they may well be. The old proverb of teaching a person to fish instead of giving him a fish, takes on new meaning in light of connecting people to the Internet. Teach a person to find out about fishing and you create the possibility of not just learning to fish, but learning to farm fish, learning to make new products out of fish, learning to market fish, learning to provide for his family and his community. Learning the nature of clean water and why it is important to fish….in other words empowerment through access to knowledge. What if we could provide every person in the world, a connection to the information that is available. People would know what causes AIDS and gradually behaviors would change. People would access and exploit markets, seize opportunities and provide for their families. They would have the means to educate their children. Give them access to real schools without compromising social-religious mores that restrict access, particularly for young women. We can dream of a world where every person has opportunities. The progress and ideas of the world are created by people who believe they can. So far, only 1 out of 5 have been given a fair chance. What would the world be like if every person in the world had access. The ideas that would flow…the problems that could be solved…the progress towards understanding and living together that could be made staggers the imagination. Such is the power of the tool. We have within our grasp and within our life time to profoundly change the world. We have made a tool that we believe can make that difference. To make that tool available to every person, to make sure that every person has access…that is the goal. We will have left the world a profoundly different place to the one in which we were born into. To make this dream real will require the hearts, minds and dedication of many people. You have a role. www.ink-media.com
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