resources, ample know-how, etc...
• Scarcity that is artificially maintained and accentuated by Paretian laws still accentuates the
desertification process and still critically augments dependency. As children and guardians
of a society based on pyramidal collective intelligence, banks have a strong interest to
maintain the status quo.
A collective intelligence will be unable to thrive as long as its participants are obliged to
compete with one another in attaining this scarce resource called money. This impasse
demands a new type of currency, one that is: free, open, collective, democratic,
decentralized, sufficient, distributed, has ample volume and is based on a real-time, self-
regulated repartition in keeping with true needs of supply and demand. Such currencies are
in a gestation period in the forges of free software. Soon they will expand into cyberspace as well
as within business extranets and intranets. The transition might be as unexpected as brutal, and it
might seriously impact national currencies.
The question of consensus, vote and action
The same pragmatic question always reappears: how can we make decisions and act when we are
somewhat disjointed individuals, especially when we are very numerous?
Do we need a boss who lays down the law? Should we vote? How can we then avoid falling into
the trap of the notorious dictatorship of the majority? Is the consensus preferable? Is the majority
necessarily right? What principle(s) can help weigh our decision between 'popular' choice and that
of the expert?
To make matters even more complex, the theory of social choice charged with studying and
modeling the building of collective choices from individual values clearly summons up the mirage
of the vox populi. It is demonstrated, with the support of mathematical models and theorems, that
collective choices that are established by aggregation of individual choices are far from being in
conformity with the democratic ideal of the 'will of the people as one', as political philosophy
aspires.
What new light can Collective Intelligence, in its theoretical as well as practical dimensions, shed
on this debate, one that arises in many arenas from corporate life to the universal and timeless life
of the city? Whatever number of upstream ideas, we ultimately must converge downstream toward
an action. The chaotic cloud of ideas must converge into a uniquely directed stream of action.
Collective intelligence, multiple and undetermined, converges to a collegial action, that is singular
and well determined.
Let us again use our sports team example in its original collective intelligence context. Here the
question of who decides what is solved by itself. It is a space in which ambivalences raised by the
theories of social choice are resolved. Why? It is because of the presence of holopticism, i.e. the
permanent relationship between the individual and the emerging level of the group.
What are the details about how the path from idea to action gets organized, in the light of action by
Collective Intelligence.
A simple sequence can be used of the basis of this analysis:
1. Reflection
2. Options formulation
3. Final option selection
4. Action
In very authoritarian structures, steps 1-2-3 are lead by a small group of decision makers and step
Copyleft 2004 - Jean-François Noubel – jf TheTransitioner.org page 26
Collective_Intelligence_Invisible_Revolution_JFNoubel.odt
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