Early status
Who am I?
My name is Jonathan Pfeiffer. I will be starting the graduate program in global and international studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Fall. I blog at Multivoiced.
Why did I reserve this domain name?
Alex’s post yesterday prompted me to check whether outquisition.com, outquisition.org, and outquisition.net were available. Inevitably, I knew, someone would snatch them up and use them for good or evil. Why should that person, I asked myself, not be I? So I stopped at a coffeehouse on Saturday evening (about fourteen hours ago) for iced tea and domain shopping. I had no idea that anyone would discover this site so quickly, or that I would get hit by the esteemed Cory Doctorow himself on Boing Boing early in the morning.
What is the current status of this web site?
I barely had a chance to buy the domain names, install WordPress, find a cool temporary WordPress theme, sleep, and bathe. Meanwhile, quite a few very smart people have left comments. I am still digesting them, but one of my favorites is this one:
No pressure, but I’m expecting great things out of this.
What is my intention?
I want to motivate people who have tools and know how to use them to go out and share with people they might otherwise never have considered even speaking with, let alone working with. For a theoryhead overview of what best outcomes mean to me with respect to sustainability, read my 9 July 2008 editorial column. Obviously, the idea of the Outquisition will require deep probing and refinement by lots of people. This won’t happen without collaboration.
When I say lots of people, I mean it. Dale Carrico:
“The future,” writes science fiction author Bruce Sterling, “isn’t an alien world, it is this very world.” It’s the kind of insight that you never knew you needed to hear, until you actually hear it said. The future will be here, not elsewhere. And it will be shared. “The future is a process,” Sterling goes on to say. That process, whatever our wishes in the matter, will never amount simply to a process of scientific discovery or of engineers solving problems. Progress is not a wave for you to ride on or a Truth for you to die for, but a project that needs many collaborators to succeed.
I need your help.
To start with, we need an awesome WordPress theme — complete with a logo for the Outquisition. If you have any ideas, leave a comment or email me.
And most importantly, let’s keep the programmatic ideas rolling. I will try to figure out the best way to facilitate collaboration, via a wiki or however else.
You know, there are already people doing exactly what you are talking about.
http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/
A logo should be simple and distinct. Something that doesn’t require a skilled artist to reproduce and is iconic. Preferably something that is easily painted or stenciled on Outquisition projects, hqs, and offices.
something such as these:
http://i33.tinypic.com/qxpd01.png
http://i37.tinypic.com/70duee.png
I’m in.
I’ve just finished my Masters in Urban Public Health at CDU, and spent some great time taking extra classes in Disaster Preparedness/ Management at UCLA.
I’ve got some tasty resources I’d be happy to share!
There are quite a few organizations that do somewhat similar things, but they don’t get the kind of press attention of the standard it bleeds, it leads sort.
Perhaps a better thing to do would be to try to put together something like a next generation whole earth catalog - a wikified set of links to organizations and resources for low-cost, world saving/changing projects. Support that with ways to help projects and people collaborate - business plans, microlending, etc.
Look at the Design for the Other 90% projects like this water filtration jar
http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/ceramic-water-filter
Thai Jars (http://www.eng.warwick.ac.uk/dtu/pubs/rn/rwh/rn-rwh03/index.html) for safe water collection
Blogs like inhabitant, world-changing, or treehugger turn up some cool stuff, like the Hippo Roller - anti-personnel mine defeating water transport system:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/02/19/project-h-design-fundraiser-sponsor-a-hippo-roller/
I’ve given up on many of those sorts of blogs because they are 90% consumer products and 10% useful stuff but the 10% can be amazing.
There’s TONS of information at mother earth news.
http://www.motherearthnews.com
I’m interested up here in Toronto, Canada. The future becomes the past so quickly I’d like to see how I can actually help shape it before it is past.
A few random ideas on how to distinguish this site from the so many other “Design Like You Give a Damn” sites.
1. Focus on the United States, or at least in our own backyard ie Central America and the Caribbean. I assume most readers here will be from the US. It’s great to help other countries, but charity begins at home, and we will have our own set of big challenges to deal with in our own country and region. Also, will harness both the altruists and those concerned about our their own lives.
2. Keeping the focus on the United States, also focus on people. There are probably many people that have a vague idea that lifestyles need to be changed and solutions need to be come up with, but don’t know where to start or learn, say, the engineering or interpersonal skills needed to make a change.
3. Politics. Taboo, but influencing government policy and actions from local to national levels for the good seems like a necessity to implement changes on a wide enough scale to do any good.
I love this idea, and I also love that there are several similar projects already underway.
@GeeSharp: I disagree with two of your points. First, let’s not assume that everyone reading is in the US. I’d love word of this to spread everywhere, and I’d love to hear guerrilla gardening and alt-energy tips from anywhere and everywhere. Africans, Scandinavians, Chinese, Japanese, Aussies, New Zealanders–let’s hear from everyone!
I think the focus should be on two things: knowledge sharing/cataloguing/dissemination, and direct involvement of the community. Don’t just buy CFL light bulbs and check it off your list–grow food! Bake bread! Make shoes from old tires! Set up Ubuntu-based wifi networks! And tell us all about it.
Second, Christ on a crutch am I tired of politics. I know it’s how society is supposed to handle its problems, but its so tiresome lately. I want to explicitly reject the idea that electing Obama (or whomever) will suddenly make the problems go away. Change has to come from us, from citizens actively creating the civilization they want.
Plus, I think that if we try to pursue a political agenda, people will see us as treehugger, granola liberals and tune out. And I refuse to concede that pursuing a lifestyle that is more integrated with the natural world is a “liberal” thing. Why does it have to be any flavor of politics? Why can’t it be an end in itself?
Finally, we should not see this as preaching to the unconverted. People who buy Hummers and Denalis and Happy Meals may not want to hear about mulching and gardening, and that’s OK. Far better, I think, to just build community among those who are interested already, and create an open, sharing atmosphere.
I just bought The Urban Homestead by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutsen, and I love it and am learning a lot already. But I bought it because it was there and it looked cool; I might not have been as open to the ideas if it seemed like yet another do-gooder college kid project. I love Greenpeace, but I avoid their sidewalk volunteers in the city as if they were Krishnas. Think pull, not push.
I love the name, by the way.
The closest thing that I have seen to what you are doing is here:
http://commodityecology.blogspot.com/
A lot of cool stuff there.
There are many people who have taken a somewhat fatalistic view of where the world is going. I think skills that were once essential for everyone have become almost anachronistic in these modern days of wealth and comfort, particularly in western industrialized society. In a post-apocalyptic future, retention of knowledge and wisdom will become essential to a rebuilt civilization. I’m so glad I’m not the only person to think of this.
article 25 (old name:architecture for aid) are essentially an open architecture network of building professonals who go to to torn up areas to provide free consultation and skills management (architects, engineers, project and construction management etc.) which might have been lost in the strife
they’re really interesting and are implementing some of the ideas outquisition is talking about!
http://www.article-25.org/default.htm
I’m reading this and I’m no where near the US. This is a global issue, you cannot rely on arbitary borders to protect you.
Similarly if you want to achieve change you cannot avoid politics. Party politics on the other hand…
First off, I want to say how great of an idea this is. With the rebirth of the DIY philosophy/movement, I think that this has the potential to do good things.
Secondly, is anyone else reminded of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series? To mitigate the fall of civilization by storing and spreading knowledge…
http://www.appropedia.org Appropedia is the repository of knowledge you’re looking for.
http://www.ewb-international.org/ Engineers without Borders is the people and the organisation.
I got tingles when I read the post over at BoingBoing. I’ll be checking in and doing my homework so I can add to this venture. Thanks.
I could go on about what a silly idea microlending and textbook distribution would be after an apocolypse, especially in rural america where all the true survivors already live. What i see here is a fatalistic viewpoint at root with a naive optimistic flower on top. Why not expend your energies and networking promoting religious, political and social acceptance. Avert the apocolypse by whatever means necessary raher than creating a fictional infrastructure of ideology. Forget dividing yourself off as some over-educated green superheros and use your votes and dollars to tell corporate America that business as usual is no way to do business.
i recognize a dissatisfaction with the status quo and the need to feel you are doing something positive, but lay off the $4 coffees and the $80 sandals made in China and think of small, realistic goals. buy local, grow your own, reduce your waste and teach others to do the same. Enforce checks and balances in all systems, economic, social, judicial and political. Learn to live, dont live to learn.
Re. USA vs. international: Do both.
Jonathan, I’d like to suggest the following: If this site gets to the point where there’s a lot of discussion about specifics: technologies, educational strategies, etc., then find a way for it to self-organize by region. For example each person posting would start off with their country, state/province, and city/town/region, and readers could search by those keywords. Or set up differnt topic headers by country and region, and encourage people to post accordingly.
Reason I say this is, regionalism, or more specifically bioregionalism, is an essential consideration given the different climate situations and legal/political situations in different parts of the world. Something that works in one place may not work in another place; or it may work in unexpected places. In any case, sorting by region provides a higher degree of resolution to the data.
Speaking of which, anyone here from the San Francisco Bay Area, California USA?
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Interesting observation: While reading David’s posting, I dyslexed Denalis into Denials. Interesting coincidence, that. As if whoever named that vehicle had made a Freudian slip. So now we have, “Hummer, the car named after the act that got a Presidenti impeached,” and “Denali: If you’re into denial, get into a Denali.” It’s also a national park in Alaska, with Mt. McKinley.
The supreme irony is, if global temperatures rise +5 Celsius, Alaska might be the only habitable part of the USA. Thanks in part to all those idiots who were driving around in Denials, er, uh, Denalis. See also James Lovelock re. what happens at various degrees of temperature increase.
As for the Denial itself, no wonder GM is teetering on the edge. Whoever decided they produce that ugly monstrosity ought to be not only fired but sued by the shareholders.
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Also re. David re. sick of politics: At least it would be good to avoid overt partisanship here since that could generate enormous digressions particularly in a presidential election year. There are plenty of partisan sites such as Daily Kos (Democrats) and Free Republic (Republicans) for that purpose.
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Meg, what’s with the stereotypes about $4 coffees and $80 sandals made in China, etc. etc…? “silly… fatalistic… naive…” and “don’t live to learn”…?! You’re not making sense, and your language is counterproductive.
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It might be useful to have a listing of links for all those other sites folks have found. Each of us no doubt has a bunch to add to the list. And some of the stuff on those sites could make good starting points for discussion here.
RE: GG
Its not counterproductive to be realistic. Prevent the apocalypse, don’t pretend you can fix a situation you can’t conceive.
If people are hell bent on being prepared for survival, get out of the cities now, they’ll go first.
If you can see the silly, fatalistic naivete in developing a microlending and textbook distribution network when people will need to learn how to grow and prepare raw materials into goods then I don’t expect I can help you. And with my proximity to NYC I don’t suppose I’ll be around to see how it all pans out anyways.
[...] I agree with Gerbal, who stated some basic requirements. A logo should be simple and distinct. Something that doesn’t [...]
Meg, the fact that you’re resorting to emotional attack language (”silly fatalistic naivete”) demonstrates that your point bears more than a slight resemblance to Swiss cheese.
Of course it’s all about prevention. OTOH the climate data and resource data demonstrate that unless we can reduce population levels globally by 60% and consumption levels in the wealthy nations by 60%, in at most 10 - 15 years, we are headed for a dieoff to the tune of about three billion humans. That’s realistic for you. Can’t get more realistic than that.
Anything we can do along the lines of prevention will only soften but not cancel the consequences.
Then you condemn textbook distribution and in the same sentence say “people will need to learn how to grow and prepare raw materials into goods…” Learning minus textbooks equals an oral tradition culture. I need hardly say more about that. Textbooks or their equivalent are a necessity for spreading and preserving the knowledge needed to deal with the likely future. And there will be plenty more textbooks written on the relevant topics before we’re halfway done.
And as for microlending, it’s a way to maintain relocalized economies while the global economy is going down the drain. That along with local currency systems. Both of these are also critical for maintaining regional trading relationships that in turn are also critical to preventing an increase in violence in a given area. I’ve studied these subjects in excruciating detail, and rather than write another 3-page posting, I’ll just say that you’re mistaken and no amount of ad-homina (plural of ad-hominems : - ) can disguise that.