Universal Access-Canada List

[Michael Gurstein]

(Please forward as appropriate)

Exactly a year ago the Universal Access-Canada List was launched.  So I
thought it a good time to send the invitation around again to see if
others might be interested in joining our conversation.

The list has been an active and interesting one and among the highlights
was the official launch and discussion of the Canadian
Consumers Communications Charter, a useful discussion on access for the
physically challenged and for those in rural areas and of modest income.
Among the other issues "addressed" have been privacy, copyright
protection, Access in other and particularly countries of the south  

The issues for which the list was formed have not gone away and if
anything they have become more acute as the Internet has surged into more
significant and broader roles in the working and everyday lives of many
people.

UA-C is the forum for Canadians (and those with an interest in
Canadian developments) to discuss the broader policy issues of which we as
users of the these marvellous opportunities must be aware and which we
as consumers and as citizens should be discussing and making our opinions
known.

Those of you who already subscribe, thanks and apologies for the
repetition.

regs

Mike Gurstein  


-- Forwarded message --
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 18:02:59 -0400 (AST)
From: Michael Gurstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: canada-l <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Universal Access-Canada List


There is, as most of you know, on-going discussion about the need for 
ensuring very widespread (universal) access to the emerging Information
Highway/Network.

A series of "expert" panels have been undertaken by the Information Policy 
Research Group of the University of Toronto to discuss these issues in
the Canadian context.  The results of these discussions can be found at 
.

However the Information Highway Advisory Council's Final Report stated:
"Telecommunications policy and regulation have typically addressed the 
issue of access and universality in terms of simple network access. 
Broadcasting policy and regulation have usually viewed access in relation 
to both broadcast signals and programming services.  Neither model seems 
adequate in the new environment.  Markets and technologies are now 
evolving so rapidly and their impacts are so pervasive that new approaches 
may well be needed to meet critical social, economic and cultural needs.

"The fundamental social and economic transformations accompanying Canada's 
transition from an industrial to a knowledge society underscore the need 
to focus on access viewpoints beyond those of the federal government and 
the usual participants in the CRTC regulatory process.  This argument 
becomes even more persuasive when one considers that federal, provincial, 
and territorial governments are turning ever more to the electronic 
delivery of servies.  Access to Information Highway services may well 
become critical to full participation and, indeed the exercise of 
democratic citizenship in a knowledge society." (p.55)

To subscribe to the list Universal Access-Canada send a message

to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

message:

subscribe UA-C 

Science as seen by Technocracy

[Steve Kurtz]

Greetings,

This isn't my view, but it contains elements that Jay(I think), Don
Chisholm, & I agree with. The recent posts about definitions of science
were still in my memory when this arrived. It had been fwd to Gaia
Preservation Coalition list.

Steve
--
   From: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (paul; cordsmeyer)
   Sat 12:44 PM

 Subject:
Re: Irrelevance of posting about the pathology of the Price System
 To: 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  

This is taken directly from the introduction of the Technocracy Study
Course.
Technocracys application of Science to the operation of our social
system is absolutely our only Chance for Survival

***
I CAN'T LET THIS PASS WITHOUT VOICING DISAGREEMENT. CERTAINTY RE FUTURE IS
IMPOSSIBLE. "ONLY" DISQUALIFIES THE STATEMENT FROM SERIOUS CONSIDERATION.
BUT PLEASE CONTINUE.(SK)
***

This is the first of three e-mails.  I begin with this statement...  

Technocracy for 65 years has pointed to the Price System (Which is
Defined as any social system that effects its distribution of goods and
services by means of any system of trade or commerce based on commodity
valuation and employing any form of debt token or money.) is out of sync
with the natural world in which we exist.

"Technocracy is dealing with social phenomena in the widest sense of the
word; this includes not only actions of human beings, but also
everything that directly or indirectly affects their actions. 

Consequently, the studies of Technocracy embrace practically the whole
field of Science and industry. Biology, climate, natural resources and
industrial equipment all enter into the social picture.  

No one can expect to have any understanding of our present social
problems without having at least a panaromic view of the basic relations
of these essential elements of the picture. 

All things on the earth are composed of matter and therefore requiire a
knowledge of chemistry. These things move, and in so doing involve
energy. 

An understanding of these relationships requires a knowledge of physics.
Industrial equipment, as well as the substances of which living
organisms are composed, are derived from the earth. this requires a
knowledge of geology and earth processes.. Man is himself an organism
and derives his food from other organisms. Hense, a knowedge of biology
is necessary.  

Technocracy states: We have Chance not a Choice, it is Science vs Chaos. 

Science is, in a dynmic sense, essentially a method of prediction. It
has been defined as the method of the determination of the most
probable.  

In tossing a coin, how does one know how many times heads will turn up?
How does a demographer (or a life insurance actuary) know how many
people will die next year? How does a geologist know where to drill for
oil? How does the designer of a building determine how many elevators
will be required? How does the weather bureau predict what the weather
will be tomorrow. How can the astronomers predict to within a second an
exlipse of the sun 150 years hence?  

These are all illustrations of scientific predictions. Some of these
predictions, as you well know, are all based on the same fundamental
principles of reasoning from the basic facts. When more facts are known,
more accurate predictions can be made. 

That is what is meant by the most probable; not that by this method one
knows exactly what will happen, but by its use one can determine more
nearly what will happen than by any other method.  

Science is more than a dry catalogue of facts; it is a dynamic and
powerfull tool before which all problems shall some day yield."  

This quoted material is taken from the introduction to The Technocracy
Study Course.  

If you wish to understand the world as it really exists you must have
some understanding of Science, this is why the Study Course begins with
an introduction to Science. 

The political leadership of the USA, claim we are the richest Country of
Earth and yet almost 1/3 of our children are without adequate medical
care, most of that 1/3 go to bed hungry. This and we have more
billionars extant than any other country on earth.   

Take all of the acquired knowledge of so called Great Philosophers of
the past and stick it in the trash pile where it belongs. 

Now like Morley's Ghost I will be sending in sequencial e-mail the first
of 2 Science News articles, the first will follow immediatly.  The
second I must retype, I will explain later.  

These two articles should make it crystal clear what is relevent to our
continued existance as a species on this planet.  

Thank You!  Paul Cordsmeyer, Member-in- good-standing, of
Technocracy, Inc.

Re: Science as seen by Technocracy

[Durant]

Though I approve the realisation that market economy means
chaos, I cannot see how a society trusted to self-chosen scientists
would work. Remember, scientists are also a social constructs, thus 
also the directions science choses to explore. "Brave New World" and 
"1984" are very apt arguments against such autocracies. 
The alternative is to give everyone a decent scientific education
and critical thinking, so we may democratically decide what is the 
best scientific option to solve the problem of that economic 
foundation that is so erratically shaking under our feet.

Eva

> Technocracy for 65 years has pointed to the Price System (Which is
> Defined as any social system that effects its distribution of goods and
> services by means of any system of trade or commerce based on commodity
> valuation and employing any form of debt token or money.) is out of sync
> with the natural world in which we exist.
> 
> "Technocracy is dealing with social phenomena in the widest sense of the
> word; this includes not only actions of human beings, but also
> everything that directly or indirectly affects their actions. 
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

one's fly is unzipped

[Jay Hanson]

The ultimate goal of a mind is to reproduce the genes that created it.
Among social primates, the ability to manipulate others is one of the most
important factors in getting one's genes into the next generation. The human
mind evolved primarily as a tool to manipulate others in complex social
hierarchies. [1]

The sine qua non of politics is: "social manipulation" -- it's taking a fact
out of context and twisting it around to improve one's "inclusive fitness".
It's in our genes -- we all do it.

Obviously, mental attributes that are optimized for politics can not
sustain very long for the simple reason they can't actually solve problems
in the real world.  This is why even the "pseudo democracies" (money-based
democracies, or democracies under capitalism) are historically rare and now
on the way out:

"[ Evolutionary scientists ] Somit and Peterson provide an informative
account of the evolutionary basis for our historical (and current)
opposition to democracy. For many, this will be an unwelcome message - like
being told that one's fly is unzipped. But after a brief bout of anger, we
tend to thank the messenger for sparing us further embarrassment." [2]

As resources are depleted, the ruling classes are less-and-less able to
allow the common herd animals the pretence of self government.  It seems
that democracy was only temporary luxury -- enjoy it while it lasts:

"I submit that the democracy we are encouraging in many poor parts of the
world is an integral part of a transformation toward new forms of
authoritarianism; that democracy in the United States is at greater risk
than ever before, and from obscure sources; and that many future regimes,
ours especially, could resemble the oligarchies of ancient Athens and Sparta
more than they do the current government in Washington." [3]

"West Africa is becoming the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental,
and societal stress, in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real
'strategic' danger. Disease, overpopulation, unprovoked crime, scarcity of
resources, refugee migrations, the increasing erosion of nation-states and
international borders, and the empowerment of private armies, security
firms, and international drug cartels are now most tellingly demonstrated
through a West African prism. West Africa provides an appropriate
introduction to the issues, often extremely unpleasant to discuss, that will
soon confront our civilization." [4]

Jay

[1]"In fact, telling primates (human or otherwise) that their reasoning
architectures evolved in large part to solve problems of dominance is a
little like telling fish that their gills evolved in large part to solve the
problem of oxygen intake from water. The struggle for survival through
competition and cooperation with members of one's own species is as old as
life itself. If the data on social norm and theory of mind reasoning show us
anything, it is that the winners are most likely to be those with the
capacity to exploit or route the constraints of the dominance hierarchy. If
one were to guess at which problems cognition evolved to solve, one would be
hard pressed to come up with a better candidate than dominance." [pp. 45-46,
THE EVOLUTION OF MIND, Denise Dellarosa Cummings & Collin Allen; Oxford
University Press, 1998 ]

[2] Robert E. Lane, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Yale
University, and Past President, American Political Science Association,
commenting on DARWINISM, DOMINANCE, AND DEMOCRACY: The Biological Bases of
Authoritarianism, by Albert Somit and Steven A. Peterson; Review at
http://info.greenwood.com/books/0275958/0275958175.html

[3] WAS DEMOCRACY JUST A MOMENT? by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly,
December, 1997 http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.htm

[4] THE COMING ANARCHY, by Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly, February
1994
http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/election/connection/foreign/anarcf.htm

Re: Samuelson lump-of-labor fallacy, 1998

[Tom Walker]

Mike,

Lovely! I'm doing the lump-of-labour history as a chapter for a book being
edited by an economist at Pennsylania State University. Routledge has shown
some interest in it and hopefully it will be published in the fall. What I'm
hoping to do is to line up a magazine expose of this "economic" hoax to
coincide with publication of the book. Besides Samuelson, the Economist is
the worst perpetrator -- nine times in the last five years they've run
articles "explaining" why work-sharing can't work because of the
lump-of-labour fallacy. 

My archive of sources who refer to the so-called fallacy runs well over 50,
spread over 107 years, only one gives a specific reference to the original
expositor of the alleged "fallacy" -- to John Stuart Mill -- and that is
clearly wrong because Mill doesn't use the LoL terminology and argues
precisely the opposite (with regard to work time), to wit:

"The desirable medium is one which mankind have not often known how to hit:
when they labour, to do it with all their might, and especially with all
their mind; but to devote to labour, for mere pecuniary gain, fewer hours in
the day, fewer days in the year, and fewer years of life."

One key text that I haven't been able to get a hold of yet is William
Thornton's "On Labour, it's wrongful claims and rightful dues". Thornton's
book was the catalyst for John Stuart Mill to recant his wages-fund
doctrine. But it also contained, according to George Howell, the most
extensive catalogue of allegations about the regulations of trade unions and
their supposed purpose of limiting effort.

>For an answer to what I now name "The Lump of Samuelson Fallacy", please
>see my previous post about Krugman and the Austrians (below).  Samuelson
>has been one of the greatest disasters to befall economics.  It is devoutly
>to be wished that he had stuck to electrical engineering and left economics
>alone.  He has said he made the transition because he thought economics
>looked easier.  Just apply engineering math to economics and hey presto ! a
>successful career in economics without ever having to really learn any -
>see his Foundations of Economic Analysis and The Collected Papers of Paul
>A. Samuleson).  He is still doing it.
>
>A side note on his hide bound habit of clinging to what he learned at
>engineering school in the 1920s.  He has dismissed the evidence for long
>waves on the grounds that (at the time he made the comments) that there had
>only been three of them and that this number of cycles was insufficient for
>statistical testing fo the null hypothesis.  This is obtuse because there
>are other mathematical techniques for testing the theory than conventional
>statistics based on the Normal, Chi-squared or F distributions, as
>Marchetti has shown (using Fisher-Prey Equations) and because there are
>other forms of statistics/time series analysis that can be used.
>Ironically,in view of Samuleson's educational background, one of them
>(Spectral Analysis using transformations of Fourier Series) was developed
>in electrical engineering and has been applied to energy and invention data
>with results that confirm Marchetti - see Bodger, Moutter and Gough,
>Tehnological Forecasting and Social Change 19, 367 - 386 (1986).  Moreover,
>Jay Forrester and his team at MIT were also able to replicate these results
>using a systems dynamic model for the US economy (there are many papers but
>see An Alternative Approach to Economic Policy: Macrobehaviour from
>Microstructure in Economic Issues of the Eighties, Kamrany and Day eds,
>John Hopkins U Press) with the effect coming out of adjustments of the
>economy to investments in long lived capital and their interactions with
>consumption and lending.  Finally, price series exist for grain prices in
>Cologne for over 300 years, which clearly show the cycle even with simple
>smoothing - more than enough cycles to satisfy even Dr. Samuelson, I would
>hope.  If one can independently arrive at the same result using four
>totally different forms of analysis of the data covering altogether a
>period of 500 years, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee.
>
>Finally, from his comments re: labour market adjustments via migration and
>downward adjustment of real wage rates (a simple restatement of Classical
>Theory which must have Ricardo, Mill and Marshall chortling in their
>graves), one would have thought that Keynes had never written the General
>Theory.  It is inadequate aggregate demand Dr. Samuleson, which explains
>what you make disappear with a wave of your Neo-classical theoretic wand.
>And it is caused by the factors I have explained - the long term nature of
>long-lived capital and output adjustments between industries due to waves
>of technological innovation, rigidities in labour markets which prevent
>quick, complete adjustment to them, and the sea change in social psychology
>which accompanies all this.
>
>Mike H
>
>Krugman dismisses the Austrians too soon.
>
>His error is to rely on Von Hay

FW: A PRAYER TO THE CORPORATE GODS

[Cordell, Arthur: DPP]

 --
From: Sid Shniad
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: A PRAYER TO THE CORPORATE GODS
Date: Friday, January 22, 1999 7:21PM

A PRAYER TO THE CORPORATE GODS

O mighty global corporations, we are helpless without you. Please bring
your menial jobs here to our nation and town. Though we have little
control over these tedious and arbitrary jobs that create wealth for
stockholders rather than us, they are all that we lowly workers deserve.

Grant us your X dollars per hour so that we might have hope of
purchasing your fine plastic products that bestow lasting contentment.
Forgive us when we question your authority or do not work fast enough,
for we are but wretched servants.

Thank you for blessing us with the security of predictable name brand
products, and for the intelligent chemicals in our food that protect us
from the sinister micro-organisms and insects. Prepare our food and
serve it to us, that we may have more time to serve you. We will gladly
consume whatever you hand us, for you are all knowing.

Pacify us with a plethora of prefabricated entertainment, as we have
forgotten how to entertain each other. Reveal to us through your media
what we are to believe, for we cannot trust our own feeble judgement.

Guide your politicians as they strive to make this region of the planet
more cost-effective for you by abolishing the evil workers' rights laws,
corporate taxation, and environmental protections that offend you deeply
and drive you away from us. And thank you for undercutting the pitifully
small local businesses that would dare challenge your divine dominance
and threaten the sacred homogenous culture in which you have safely
wrapped us.

Truly all resources belong to you, and we are but humble stewards of
them. For thine is the empire, the power, and the planet, until you
destroy it.

Amen.

Blumblebee Story

[TUN MYINT]

While I am quiet reader of this list,  I wish to share a story.

I was in a local store and found the following story written on a wooden
block for decoration... It says: 

THE BUMBLEBEE CANNOT FLY...

"According to recognized aerotechnical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly
because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing
area.  But [italic original] the bumblebee doesn't know this, so he goes
ahead and flies anyway."

[A sketch of body of blumblebee accompany this].

Tun Myint

Re: re:Sustainable Work

[Edward Weick]

Deborah Middleton:
>My thoughts are that the concepts of sustainability may also be able to be
>applied to the individual in relation to the organization/social
>environment. Etc.

I believe I know what you are getting at, though I would echo Eva's request
that you put things in plain English or Hungarian. My question to you is
what you would propose to do with a definition, or conceptualization, of
sustainable work if you were able to come up with one. To what could it be
applied? Perhaps, as you suggest, mainly the knowledge based industries,
which already are largely "environmentally clean". Many other types of
industries are not only polluters, but are not sustainable as they now exist
because they are based on the use of finite resources. Work performed in
those industries is only as sustainable as the industries themselves.

But, I repeat, if one were able to meaning to a term such as "sustainable
work", what would one do with it? Perhaps much the same as has been done
with Brundtland's concept of "sustainable development". As you are probably
aware, we, as a global society, have used the latter concept to pull the
wool over our own eyes in an astounding number of ways. Recall the great
strides toward sustainability that were to have been made following the Rio
Conference, and then remind yourself of what little has actually happened
(or how far we have really come backwards). Walk into many a government
office and find that much that is being permitted and condoned -- the
depletion of  forests and fish resources, the paucity of sound research and
regulation, the encouragement of unsustainable mining or oil and gas
production -- is being done under the cover of "sustainable development". If
you were able to define "sustainable work", might it not lead to a similar
use of the concept -- that is, lead to its use by national and international
bureaucrats and justifiers as a mantra or cover for the destructive stuff
that really goes on. Might workfare, for example, be referred to as a form
of sustainable work? Might Stalin have pointed with pride to the sustainable
work underway in the gulag?  The gulag was, after all, created for the good
of society, just as workfare has been established for the good of the poor.

Bear in mind, too, that only a very small part of the world operates in a
"post-fordist" economy. For most of the world's population, work is mostly
difficult and uncertain, if it available at all. "Sustainability" would not
be a concept that the poor of Brazil, Russia or the Philippines would find
very meaningful or applicable to work.

Ed Weick

Re: Science as seen by Technocracy

[Ray E. Harrell]

Durant wrote:

> The alternative is to give everyone a decent scientific education
> and critical thinking, so we may democratically decide what is the
> best scientific option to solve the problem of that economic
> foundation that is so erratically shaking under our feet.
>
> Eva

Eva,

I've enjoyed your post of late and this one as well.  My observation has been,

however, a little different than yours.

After listening to Newt Gingrich the fundamentalist politician lecture on
Dinosaurs (who are not supposed to exist according to his stated religious
beliefs about science and the age of the Universe, 10,000 years or less).
After listening to the spectacularly successful (according to his press)
economist host of "Wall Street Week" on our Public Broadcasting Station
the economist Louis Rukeyser analyze President Clinton's "State of the
Union" as a disaster for Wall Street while admitting that two more years of
good speculation for stocks and bonds meant two more years of poverty
for farmers and laborers, and that was OK in his mind.

How is it that people who understand linkage of information on the internet
become stupid when it is the linkage between all of the various elements of
society.  There is no sustain ability in such a poker game.   They accuse
the government of a Ponzi Scheme on Social Security but are addicted to
various forms of gambling themselves.  The biggest joke was to hear on of
them complain about Indian running Casinos.

So, here is my proposal.  Along with better scientific critical judgment, how
about a required two years of cultural studies to help them get some
perspective?
Right now, their common sense is to a serious society as black velvet
paintings
of tigers (do they have those things in Europe?)  are to art.Over here
that is
the cultural level of most of the lawyers in Congress.   They think its just
fine for
their group to say the other side is filled with "heathens" sending their
children to
hell and murderers of babies, but if you pull the scabs off of their wounds
you
are a bigot and an "anti-whatever."

REH

NEWS FROM THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE

[Steve Kurtz]

FYI. Sorry for dupes

NEW CENTURY TO BE MARKED BY GROWING
THREATS, OPPORTUNITIES


The bright promise of a new century is clouded by unprecedented threats to
the
stability of the natural world, according to a special millennial edition
of the
State of the World report, released by the Worldwatch Institute today.

"In a globally interconnected economy, rapid deforestation, falling water
tables, and accelerating climate change could undermine economies around
the
world in the decades ahead," said Lester Brown and Christopher Flavin, lead
authors of the new report.

During the past century, world population grew by more than 4 billion-three
times the number of people when the century began.  At the same time, the
use of
energy and raw materials grew more than ten times.

"These trends cannot continue for many more years," said the authors.  "As
the
21st century approaches, the big question is whether we can muster the
ingenuity
to change-and do so rapidly enough to stave off environmentally-based
economic
decline.  The one thing we can say for sure is that the 21st century will
be as
different from the 20th as that one was from the 19th."


The 20th century began with extraordinary optimism.  Major advances such as
widespread electric lighting and the emancipation of women were widely
predicted, but many other developments, such as air travel and the
birth-control
pill, were not.  The darkest developments of the 20th century, including
two
world wars and more than a billion people living in poverty, were
completely
unexpected.

Today, at the dawn of a new century, faith in technology and human progress
are
as common as they were a century ago.  In their fascination with
information
technologies, many of today's economic thinkers seem to have forgotten that
our
modern civilization, like its forerunners, is entirely dependent on its
ecological foundations-foundations that the economy is now eroding.

Since our emergence as a species, human societies have continually run up
against local environmental limits that have caused them to collapse, as
local
forests and cropland were overstressed.   But the advances in technology
that
have allowed us to surmount these local limits have transferred the problem
of
environmental limits to the global level, where human activities now
threaten
planetary systems.  Among the problems we now face:

* World energy needs are projected to double in the next several decades,
but no
credible geologist foresees a doubling of world oil production, which is
projected to peak within the next few decades.  

* While protein demands are projected to also double in the century ahead,
no
respected marine biologist expects the oceanic fish catch, which has
plateaued
over the last decade, to double. The world's oceans are being pushed beyond
the
breaking point, due to a lethal combination of pollution and
over-exploitation. 
Eleven of the 15 most important oceanic fisheries and 70 percent of the
major
fish species are now fully or over-exploited, according to experts.  And
more
than half the world's coral reefs are now sick or dying.

* Growing stress can also be seen in the world's woodlands, where the
clearing
of tropical forests has contributed recently to unprecedented fires across
large
areas of Southeast Asia, the Amazon, and Central America.  In Indonesia
alone,
1,100 airline flights were canceled, and billions of dollars of income were
lost.

* Environmental deterioration is taking a growing toll on a wide range of
living
organisms.  Of the 242,000 plant species surveyed by the World Conservation
Union in 1997, some 33,000, or 14 percent, are threatened with
extinction-mainly
as a result of massive land clearing for housing, roads, and industries. 
This
mass extinction is projected to disrupt nature's ability to provide
essential
ecosystem services, ranging from pollination to flood control.

* The atmosphere is also under assault.  The billions of tons of carbon
that
have been released since the Industrial Revolution have pushed atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide to their highest level in 160,000 years-a
level
that continues to rise each year.  As scientists predicted, temperatures
are
rising along with the concentration of carbon dioxide.  The latest jump in
1998
left the global temperature at its highest level since record-keeping began
in
the mid-19th century.  Higher temperatures are projected to threaten food
supplies in the next century, while more severe storms cause economic
damage,
and rising seas inundate coastal cities.

* The early costs of climate change may already be evident: weather-related
economic damages of $89 billion in 1998 exceeded losses for the decade of
the
1980s.  In Central America, 11,000 people were killed by Hurricane Mitch,
and
Honduras suffered losses equivalent to one-third of its annual GDP.

* Human societies may also face growing stress in the new century.  In
Africa,
for example, where populations have doubled in the last three de

Re: FW: A PRAYER TO THE CORPORATE GODS

[Rob Robinson]

Arthur,

Thank you so much for forwarding on that marvelously funny and sad
"Prayer to the Corporate Gods".  It was one of the most brilliant 
pieces of writing I've seen in these fora.  If you have the time, 
please send on to me the email address of Sid Shniad?  I would like 
to write him and thank him personally.  

Thank you.

rob robinson
mark twain democratic club
whittier/la mirada, california

Defining Sustainable

[deborah middleton]

First thanks to everyone for the comments that are worthy of more thought
and research.
___
An Introduction:  My name is Deborah Middleton currently I am a graduate
sudent at York Univeristy in the Faculty of Environmental Studies.

In my previous life I have been an Interior Architect constructing
alternative work environments for corporations such as The Bank of
Montreal, Nortel (I was responsible for the alternative work environments 
at the new HQ in Brampton).  Over the past five years I have been mapping
the emergence of collaborative work and the role of the physical work
environment in enabling knowledge sharing, creativity and learning.
I am currently a member of a research  groun working to understand the
emergence of these informal work practices that we are defining as
softwork.


Perhaps sustainability is not the right word and perhaps another would be
better suited to the exercise of constructing a definition of the
individuals context in knowledge based industries.  But sustainability 
is where some of my ideas are at in this point of my work (word
smithing).  Other suggestions are most welcome.

The application is to answer the following question in my research
proposal.


"What is the capacity for the individual within the knowledge based
corporation, to redirect and influence organizational change towards
sustainable business practices (social and environmental)?"


The demand for knowledge workers far out runs the supply, this I believe
has resulted in a shift in business focus on recruitment and retention of
employees. And thus a possible shift in power between the corporation and
the individual (freeagent), where the individual for the first time is in
a more powerful position to choose who to work for and under what
conditions and to what ends. 

This is one of the driving reasons that workplaces are transforming to
become more comfortable and creative places (recruitment appeal).  They
are also seen as providing comfort for the obsesive work that goes on in
places such as Microsoft.  There is an interesting demographic and
cultural component at play also that is reconstructing acceptable norms of
social behavior. 

The role of the values of the individual is also shaping their view on
work.  I am finding that a backlash against the traditional corporation,
heirarchy, status and the conditions of white collar work is happening.
And not only within startup young entrepreneurial companies but in places
such as the Royal Bank of Canada (ie. The Royal Bank Growth Co.) Is this a
possible opportunity for the emergence of a movement to change how we
work.  I believe that it is just this.

One just has to browse through FastCompany to find examples of the shifts
taking place.

Deborah





  

Conference on the Environment (Interdisciplinary)

[Demetri Kantarelis]

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS. The 5th International Interdisciplinary Conference
on the Environment will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, June 23-26, 1999. You
may participate as session organizer, presenter of one or two papers,
chair, moderator, discussant, or observer. The early deadline for abstract
submission and participation is February 15, 1999. All papers will pass a
peer review process for publication consideration in the Conference
Proceedings.For more information, please contact Demetri Kantarelis or
Kevin L. Hickey through

Regular Mail: IEA/Kantarelis-Hickey
  Assumption College
  500 Salisbury Street
  Worcester, MA 01615, USA

Tel: (508) 767-7557 (Kantarelis), (508) 767-7296 (Hickey),

Fax: (508) 767-7382

E-mail:
  (Kantarelis) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  (Hickey) [EMAIL PROTECTED]

or the World Wide Web at:
http://champion.iupui.edu/~mreiter/iea.htm

Re: Sustainable work

[Cordell, Arthur: DPP]

I guess I would like to add that sustainable work is that which is something
that the doer finds interesting and/or creative and/or a reflection of
him/her self.  Something that seems to provide meaning for the doer.
Something that even in the absence of payment, the doer might continue to
have some interest in.

arthur cordell
 --
From: Neva Goodwin
To: deborah middleton
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Sustainable work
Date: Saturday, January 23, 1999 8:21PM

Shouldn't an important part of sustainable work be that it produces
something that people want -- that, indeed, enhances the lives
of those using the output?  I'd be inclined to put this very high
on the list.  (See my essay on "Human Values in Work" in _The
Changing Nature of Work_, ed. Ackerman et al, Island Press '98)

Neva Goodwin, Co-director
Global Development And Enviroment Institute
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 web address: http://www.tufts.edu/gdae
street address:
G-DAE, Cabot Center
Tufts University
Medford, MA 02155

Re: Defining Sustainable

[Tom Walker]

deborah middleton wrote,

>The demand for knowledge workers far out runs the supply, this I believe
>has resulted in a shift in business focus on recruitment and retention of
>employees.

Unless things have changed drastically since the last time I talked to the
front line people at HRDC or to my neighbour who just completed the
technological skills curriculum review for the province, the excess of
demand over supply is only true to the extent that the demand is for very
narrow, specific and immediate qualifications. The demand for people who can
"land running" with exactly the skills the employer needs at that moment is
always going to out run the supply because that kind of talent skimming is a
way of disqualifying most of the potential supply.

When there's a shift in business focus on recruitment and retention, I'll
know about because I'll have to get an extra phone line. I'll tell you
what's not sustainable "lifelong learning", in its current usage as a
perpetual process of disqualification and compulsory requalification. Hey,
you don't have to take my word for it. That's what my neighbour, the tech.
ed. guy, says. 

What is sustainable is WORKING LESS -- significantly less. 

"The desirable medium is one which mankind have not often known how to hit:
when they labour, to do it with all their might, and especially with all
their mind; but to devote to labour, for mere pecuniary gain, fewer hours in
the day, fewer days in the year, and fewer years of life."
   -- John Stuart Mill


Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/