You know about nanotechnology, right? 

Tiny little robots. They have set functions. I had this memory/dream/inspiration about my cloud. It’s a personal nano-swarm. Millions and millions of bots, invisible to all but the best microvision.  Attuned to a specific individual, the swarm is the ultimate in personal care.

Some bots trim my hair, keeping it in the style I like. They epillate the areas I like clear, like my face, my back. Some exfoliate, massage and moisturize my skin, applying sunscreen when needed. There’s a whole crew that works keeping nails clean and tightly trimmed. They amazingly power themselves off the dead cells, turns out that for a microscopic nanovirus, that’s a lot of power.  When a bot reaches the end of it’s life-cylce it launches itself into the air, along with sweet odors, like old time cologne. 

They self replicate. 

There are the cell herders inside my body as well, working to keep blood flowing properly, by cleansing my circulatory system of plaque the same way they clear my teeth. There are even certain troubleshooter teams who patrol my body regularly, searching for disease or irregular growth,  and then handlling most problems before they become problems.  I haven’t been “sick” in as long as I remember. The great thing, too is that they are dialed into the vast store of knowledge of all nanoswarms.  If they don’t know how to fix the problem, they figure it right out. 

Then there are the rebuilders. We call them Dozers. As cells wear out, there are swarms that get right to work reconditioning organs so seamlessly and gradually, nobody ever notices.  My report says that my heart has been optimized and replaced three times over. 

Once, there were great tales told of machines rebelling against man. There were countless stories of robots tearing us limb from limb. 

Yeah, never happened. Number one reason? 

I love my nano swarm and with it I’ll live forever.

Right now, I am nearing the end of The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman.  It’s part of  His Dark Materials a great series, about epic wars between Authority and those who would Rebel. There are angels and demons, antimatter and dimensional portals. The war is really one between wisdom and stupidity.  The Authority wants to keep us cowed and foolish, docile to the whims of those in charge. The wise want to keep us wise, to sow wisdom and greatness, but often must work in secret among the throng. It was just a little paragraph, where the author mentioned that. It was just this little thing. But I have been feeling it. All my life it has seemed that way. That the forces of control just wanted us dumb and following while those who stand for true freedom always want us to think things through.  This is the true war of heaven.  It is both here and there, metaphorical and true. 

Well, energetically I feel there has been a shift (talking real world not fantasy novels here, not that there is that much difference.). Things are changing really fast. It seems as if suddenly, people everywhere are waking up from this crazy dream. It seems that wisdom is emerging everywhere, not just among my friends. 

I am seeing our country in failure. I see people very close to me losing jobs, or working too hard to barely get by. I see people’s saving and retirement evaporating.  I see companies that were once thought bombproof (the entertainment industry) failing all over. in my own life, I am chasing money from deadbeat production companies, and waiting for checks to come in. It’s kind of a scary time. 

And everywhere, wisdom is awakening. It seems to me like it was Obama’s election that had us as a people turn the corner, like he was the rock that diverted the river. But the truth is, it was each and every one of us, single little pebbles of wisdom, well place that diverted the whole thing. It is us. 

I am reminded of how incredible the people in my life are. I keep getting introduced to more and more extraordinary people and the circles of greatness keep expanding.  I had the great privilege this weekend to head down to San Diego and spend some time with Rebecca Sunshine, Yona, and Kyle. Such hospitality and power, everywhere. I think that any time I feel concerned about the future of the world, I need to remind myself of the power of this community. No matter what happens, boom or bust, we are going to be okay. 

We have to remember to carry our wealth with us. We must keep perspective. If we are broke, it probably will not kill us. If our credit hits a bump, it will not ruin our lives. If we lose this job, that is not the end of our career. In the face of adversity, we must remember that we are capable human beings at the very height of our cultural advancement (and in some cases, well ahead of the curve).  We live where it is warm, and we have support.  It’s all going to be okay. 

I keep saying that for my readers as much as for myself. As we come into this Thanksgiving time, I am thankful for this coming Age of Wisdom and Abundance. Can you feel it? 

Proof: 

Solar LA

Electric SF

Beat Speedtraps 

Bush Snubbed

Obama Addresses 

Our 1st Nerd

It has been noted that I seem to update my facebook status often. Yes, I do have a mobile version on my phone. But I also have a mobile version of twitter as well. Twitter is this social networking platform that lets you do micro blogging from anywhere in text message size. What can you say about your exact situation in 140 characters or less?  It’s kind of like facebook or tribe, in that you have followers and you follow people. But hen you get these little “tweets” from people telling you where they are, what they’ve been seeing, and who they just spotted in the four seasons.  And it links up to Facebook and Myspace. I tweet when I update my blog (when I remember) and I tweet from set, when being on the internets is inconvenient.  

Now here’s the thing. If I am following your movements on twitter, I know where and what you are doing and with whom… well as much as you like to share. Likewise, if I am out with someone who is also on twitter, I can say where we are. It has people know what is going on in my life and know what I am doing. So if for example you too were going to the magic castle last night, you would have been able to say hello. 

The more information we are able to share, and the faster we can do it, the more connected we become. One of my favorite quotes is from Arthur C. Clark:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

If you pay attention to my facebook updates, or my twitter feeds, or my blog, think about how much you could know about me that even my closest family doesn’t (if only they would figure out how to read my blog regularly). Perhaps being psychic has as much to do with broadcasting the information as anything else.  Think of what a time traveler from 1985 (Like Marty McFly) would think of our communications in this era.  He would be blown away. Now think of what someone from 1969, the year we put a man on the moon. Or better yet, the last great depression. We would be thought of as heretics!

While I appreciate the encouragement to write, and to keep updating, broadcasting the contents of my head to for others to know in their heads is a one way street. Make this a two way communique, write yourself! Update those statuses and twitter feeds. Subscribe to twitter and follow Spaceman23, Connect and share. Spread out the network. See how much your psychic little brain can carry and broadcast your greatness through every medium. Be known. 

It’s a fun time, lets keep playing big.

As you know, dear reader, I have been thinking a lot about total economic collapse these last few weeks.  It’s dark work, being a harbinger of disaster; I am stuck being the guy who is looking at the outcomes and the signs with no answers. I feel like Chicken Little, a paranoid little naysayer screaming about the sky and it’s impending doom (DOOM!).  I am finding quite a bit of agreement in the world for my particular world-view.  Between the stories I am finding on google reader, watching the incredible Story of Stuff and Zeitgeist: Addendum, and reading Get Back in the Box by the super-genius Douglas Rushkoff, I have been getting a lot of input and have been brewing some thoughts of my own. I have a few minutes in the quiet of the mountains to get them out. 

The problem I have been having with the idea of economic collapse is that I can’t really see a social collapse along with it. As fun as it is to imagine a Fallout/Mad Max/ Burning Man reality becoming the dominant form, with Spaceman running around with a glock, a battleaxe and a camelback, it really would be a nightmare scenario for everyone (but it would look cool, you must admit). I can get that kind of thing from video games (read Fallout 3). While our monetary scarcity based system is like a house of cards ready to tumble down all around us, our social connections and communities are very strong and very interconnected.  Interconnectedness gives strength. 

We are moving into this heavily networked era of Humanity. An era where we are connected instantly and powerfully. Think of things like twitter, tribe and facebook. Hell think about this blog and how quickly I am able to get out information to the world.  Think about how many of our career lives are connected with those that we are interacting with in social circles. I don’t really know the last grip job I worked that wasn’t connected to someone I thought of as a friend, who I would invite over for dinner. My friend KT is a photographer, (maybe you’ve heard of her) and her business is all based on relationships. There’s a recession on, and she’s doing fine because she has strong relationships. My friends Roxy and Chris, they have an acupuncture/chiropractic business, same thing. The needs we have as people are not going to go away if suddenly the almighty dollar isn’t anything more than fancy kindling for our furniture fires. Our relationships aren’t going to go away, either. 

So what I have been wondering, is WHAT are we going to use as a basis for trade?  The Burning Man gift economy seems to work pretty interestingly. It is also a meritocracy, where those who give the most, somehow get a much more rich experience. (Did you know that those DPW people, the ones that build the city before you get there, they get a shower truck, and three hot meals per day?) But, it is also centered on abundance, like we all spend a metric shit ton at Target and Santee Alley before we ever get there so we can gift the hell out of that playa.  And then there’s trade goods? What would we use as currency? Oatmeal packets, silver coins, Clif Bars, bullets, clothing, pints of gasoline or water? All of these things? I read an article about prisoners in the state prison system using packets of mackerel  bought from the prison store as their currency when the system outlawed smoking. What I fear is that it will be force that takes what it wants, as in “I have the uniform and the gun, I will take what I want.”  This is the trouble with placing our well being into the hands of a few, who are armed to the teeth. In honesty, it will probably be some combination of these things. When things go sideways, I just hope we have some serious leadership nationally and locally to keep some semblance of sanity. 

Our power in times of trouble will be from two sources. It will come from connectedness and social currency.  Being networked to our communities is paramount. This means pay your phone bill and keep your internet access going almost above all else. Being able to twitter that you are hiding in your apartment and roving bands of hungry and angry former bankers and insurance salesmen are ransacking your building looking for tasty bites, could be the difference between getting help and being left to those monsters. Being able to know where people you know are gathering, and building new things: Essential. Knowing what resources there are, and where to get access to them, essential. Of course, I am an internet dude. I am biased. But I think the networked reality offered us by the web is probably the most important innovation to human connectedness and communication, yet.   

But then there is this thing, Social Currency.  What is it? It is an intangible. You have it through interactions with others. It is what you bring to the table in relationships. You may be someone who has a vast music collection and you share it. You may be someone who tells great jokes. You may be a great listener or communicator. You may be that person who can build things, or you may just give great hugs. It is your connection with others, your generosity to others.  It is something that is not easily measured, but something that is easy to get. It is sharing.  Going back to Burning Man, it is that thing that works with a really great theme camp (like mine this year) where everyone keeps giving and the pool of social currency keeps growing.  Everyone is giving and sharing and building it up.  The cool thing about social currency is that it, like love itself, is a perpetual motion machine. The more you give, to the more people you give it to, who then give, extending this abundant model. At it’s very core it is participation. It can only work in a networked reality. 

A networked reality is our current ability to communicate to many and have instant feedback. It is a natural state. You send out communication and broadcast to everyone. Like this writing, for instance. It hits everyone, and those who it resonates with or effects read it and process it. They then have some social currency in the form of conversations, ideas, memes, new ways of thinking.  I also get some social currency for bringing it to the electronic page. It is a zero loss kind of game. Meanwhile thousands of these communications are traveling back and forth through our networks, building up social currency among the community. Social currency can also be lost by being a jerk, or squelching communication, or making really poor choices (Dick Cheney lost some social currency when he shot that guy in the face, even though his friend was okay, for instance).  But for the most part, it is an intangible, expanding aspect of our collective self.  

So I am in just the very beginnings of working this out. Already, this may be my longest blog essay.  But there is much much more. I am just excited that there is a reality I can start seeing that isn’t some survivalist wet dream.  With Social Currency and Networked Reality I can start to see my lifelong dream of abundance and innovation for all coming to pass. It fits in with my commitment to the new Golden Age.  It is emerging faster and faster, just before I posted this, I found this.

It is for us to work out the details, so please contribute by commenting on the blog or on the facebook feed. Comments = Social Currency. 

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. 

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

George Bernard Shaw 

So,  a few months ago, I decided to move my blogging into a more public forum.  Tribe.net was a safe haven for my ideas, but their inherent slowness and unreliability had me seek other things. But to get my blog out to the most friends, I had to use Facebook, which is tied to my real name. Now this is a problem if in your head, you are this underground freedom fighter. Because the evil forces of evilness are always going to want to link back to you and your loved ones. I read Spiderman, you gotta have a secret identity.

And then there is the possibility of really making a difference.  That is going to come from transparency and acceptance of who you are. That kind of power is going to come from taking full responsibility, radical accountability for your actions and your words.  There is standing for something.  I’m not saying that this is the most important blog on the internets or something. I’m just saying that it’s me.

We are living at the end of the industrial age. The internet has given us a voice. It is millions of voices, talking right back to mainstream media. In the last age, communication was a top down, lord to serf kind of relationship.  TV, News, Magazines, Books… they all came to us and we did nothing but listen. It had been that way for as long as these technologies have existed. Media has always been the world of elites. It has also been the most effective way for agents of change and intelligence to get their word to the masses, at various rare points in history. The Internet made it possible for all. Anyone with a internet cafe can now change the world. Now, they joystick and the keyboard have given us a way to have a conversation back. Blogs and videogames, they are our access to taking control of the stories.

But, we must tell the stories to make the networked system work.  By decentralizing the communication sources, by making every man woman and child becomes an editor, newscaster, videographer,  humorist, eroticist, priest, magician, political pundit, distributor… and we become the voice. Honestly, if you have even thought about it, you MUST start putting your stuff on the web. get a wordpress.com blog. Open a facebook account, and link it to your videos on youtube. Twitter your whereabouts.  Post photos of yourself from your phone.  Find me and network yourself to me!

We cannot stop them from watching. The Genie is out of the bottle on surveillance. They can watch and read everything. They can link whatever we write to almost any email or IP address. But by the same token, we can’t stop them from masturbating while watching us either. As we flood the system with chaff, we become more invisible. In an age of reality TV, the only thing more cameras is going to achieve is to make me think I am even more a rockstar than I already know I am.

Networks communicate from every node. The radical thing I am suggesting is to tell everything. Be wholly yourself without reservation. Of course, that is easy for me, I work in Hollywood, and don’t have to answer to corporate masters. But ultimately, your corporate masters or the various tentacles of the American Law Enforcement Community will be able to find anything about you anyway. Wait until the tagging facial recognition software comes out for the public. Be smart out there, but express yourself fully and don’t hold back.

The system is in a state of upheaval right now, and everything is changing. It’s painful for the system too. Change is coming, and we are on the fast first wave.  Be free.

edit: this just in: naked pics of yourself can be trouble.

Everywhere I go, there is this intensity of apprehension. It’s like this buzzing of fear in the background. Peoples’ portfolios are tanking. The bailout, and the prospect of the american taxpayers footing even more of the bill for corporate and government corruption. The bald face lying, the naked short selling, the outraged finger pointing. You hear things… Like when the IndyMac Bank failed, the regular depositors, people like you and me, got on $.50 on the dollar. How the hell would you deal with that? If your bank lost half of your money and the FDIC insurance just was for 50%? Wow. You talk to people who’s homes have lost 50% of their value and they are now stuck owing 3x what the home is worth (I know. it doesn’t make sense to me either). The one thing I really remember about high school history’s simplified causes of the Great Depression is that it was buying on margin that caused the Crash. That is exactly what all of Wall Street has been doing. And the experts are just as afraid that it’s too late. Hell in times before rapid inflation, it’s better to spend that credit while prices are low, because you will pay off that same money with the new inflated $100 bill you use like $20s. But then that’s more buying on margin, isn’t it.  As a friend coined in a song, the fit is about to hit the shan! 

It is times like these that my short sighted, slap-shot financial style may just work out for me. I have no assets beyond what gear I can pack in my element, a low car payment, low rent from a friend in a depression proof industy (gaming) and my family is nearby.  I’ve been thinking a lot about support systems. 

Back in 2001 when 9/11 hit the world with the last big fear wave, we all talked about if a serious terror attack happened, going to and gathering at Abundant Sugar over at the Brewery. There were people there who made things happen, and we were all just kids. But now, I feel like it is us who must stand and make the difference.  We need to look at the hard choices and make some real plans. I’m scared. It really could be another Great Depression. 

I’m not ready to make the plans yet. But I want to open up the conversation. 

The good news is, it probably won’t all fail at once. The internet is designed to take a nuclear disaster, but tribe is definitely a victim of not having enough money to keep the doors open. So look to decentralized networks and have backup for your communication. Civic wifi will be up for a while hopefully. Starbucks won’t fail for a while, hopefully. (a hack at starbucks: buy a giftcard, register it at starbucks with a lappy, you now get a login with free wifi). If massive foreclosures happen, look at squatters rights. If enough people are losing their homes, there will be no way for them all to be evicted. Stand your ground. Keep your car hidden from the repo man (have you seen that movie lately? too close to home, its about a post economic collapse america).  But ultimately, surviving an economic collapse is going to come down to community, only together will we be able to weather this storm. 

Some say invest in gold.  I say invest in you. 

Look at your skill set. Survival is a technology. Can you survive?  Do you even know your neighbors? What do you bring to the table as a member of the community. Do you have tools and can you fix things?  Can you make clothing, or mend clothing? do you have technical knowledge that can help your community. Are you the kind of people that get along with people?  Can you love your neighbor? Are you the kind of people that can repel bad people who want to take your survival from you?  Can you fight?  Are you the kind of extraordinary human being that will come out of all this to usher in that golden age?

Like I said, hard questions.  And I really hope it doesn’t come to any of this. Except the golden age part, that would be pretty sweet. 

image source: Fallout 3. Consider it training. 

also check out Mother Eagle LLC www. for preparedness tips, he’s far more knowledgeable than I. Also look at what our friends at Homeland Security have to say about it  they have specific tips for staying in business.

I woke up at the crack of dawn, ready to download my new iphone 2.0 OS. I have been really excited about it. The new App Store means that the iphone becomes infinitely more useful.

Theoretically.

Unfortunately, installing the software crashed my computer and my phone. We had to leave so I spent the drive back to LA in a bit of anxiety. I have a serious case of Nomophobia, a fear of being without cell service. I have previously said it was about being a freelancer and needing to know where my next job is coming from. But, to be really honest, I am completely addicted to my phone and my phone based internet.

I feel real fear and discomfort when I can’t check my email or get calls. If I am on set, and bars are small, I wander around, looking for better signal. I am constantly sniffing wifi for a faster option. I feel dangerously out of touch when I can’t get my messages.

Around 1pm, I was able to get my phone working when I got home. I got my twittetrs, my texts and one message. Big deal.

It’s kind of embarrassing.