{"id":3309,"date":"2010-01-17T17:37:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-17T17:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2010-01-17T17:37:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-17T17:37:52","slug":"robb-throws-down-the-gauntlet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3309","title":{"rendered":"Robb Throws Down the Gauntlet"},"content":{"rendered":"

To the legacy society of the\u00a0nation-state and the hierarchical transnational corporation:<\/p>\n

MILESTONE<\/a><\/p>\n

….It’s time to up the ante and move onto the next phase: \u00a0the birth and rapid growth of new societal\u00a0<\/em>networks<\/em>.* \u00a0<\/em>This is going to be a fun ride!<\/strong><\/p>\n

* As in, new societal networks that can\u00a0outcompete\u00a0(trounce evolutionarily)\u00a0all existing status quo organizational forms \u00a0(this should not be confused with the diminutive form of ‘social networking,’ as in Facebook and Twitter).<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Long term, I think this is correct and that Robb is, as usual,\u00a0 ahead of the curve\u00a0on what will become the zeitgeist in the next few decades ( I will add that this evolutionary path\u00a0appears to be happening much faster<\/em> than I had considered, by at least 15-20 years). The movement in the 21st century will be toward networked civilizations on one end of the spectrum that will be pretty nice places to be\u00a0and on the other,\u00a0a kind of emergent, hypermobile, barbarism where life is hell on Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proper response for existing institutions is to swing their resources, their\u00a0mass and their remaining legitimacy\u00a0behind the triumph of the\u00a0former and gracefully adapt and acclimate rather than be disintegrated by the latter. I considered this in the essay ” A Grand Strategy for a Networked Civilization<\/em>” that I wrote for Threats in the Age of Obama<\/strong> <\/a>(p.208):<\/p>\n

….Nation-states in the 21st<\/sup> century will face a complex international ecosystem of players rather than just the society of states envisioned by traditional Realpolitik. If the predictions offered by serious thinkers such as Ray Kurzweill, Fred Ikle or John Robb prove true, then \u00a0technological breakthroughs will ensure the emergence of “Superempowered Individuals”<\/strong>[1]<\/strong><\/a> on a sizable scale in the near future.\u00a0 At that moment, the reliance of the State on its’ punitive powers as a weapon of first resort comes to an end.\u00a0 Superemepowered individuals, separatist groups, insurgents and an “opting-out” citizenry will nibble recalcitrant and unpopular states to death, hollowing them out and transferring their allegiance elsewhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While successful states will retain punitive powers, their primary focus will become attracting <\/em>followers and clients in whom they can generate intense or at least dependable, loyalty and leverage as a networked system to pursue national interests.\u00a0 This represents a\u00a0 shift from worldview of enforcement\u00a0 to one of empowerment, coordination and collaboration. States will be forced to narrow their scope of activity from trying to supervise everything\u00a0 to \u00a0flexibly providing or facilitating core services, platforms, rule-sets and opportunities – critical public goods – that the private sector or social groups cannot easily replicate or replace.\u00a0 Outside of a vital core of activity, the state becomes an arbiter among the lesser, interdependent, quasi-autonomous, powers to which it is connected.”<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words,\u00a0America and our “leaders” need a Boydian strategy and a ruthless commitment to honest clarity and sacrifice in order to weather the transition and retain some relevance. This is what makes the current\u00a0cultural trend toward\u00a0a political economy\u00a0of\u00a0oligarchy among the elite so worrisome. Their careerist self-interest and class values will push them to make all the wrong choices at critical junctures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the legacy society of the\u00a0nation-state and the hierarchical transnational corporation: MILESTONE ….It’s time to up the ante and move onto the next phase: \u00a0the birth and rapid growth of new societal\u00a0networks.* \u00a0This is going to be a fun ride! * As in, new societal networks that can\u00a0outcompete\u00a0(trounce evolutionarily)\u00a0all existing status quo organizational forms \u00a0(this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[360,46,215,524,574,37,17,456,425,78,388,336,338,303,492,465,283,270,376,14,372,588,380,187,66,104,155,7,131,268,381,127,282,13,572],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-analytic","category-culture","category-evolution","category-failed-state","category-futurism","category-global-guerillas","category-globalization","category-government","category-ideas","category-innovation","category-intellectuals","category-john-boyd","category-john-robb","category-leadership","category-legitimacy","category-market-states","category-national-security","category-network-theory","category-networks","category-non-state-actors","category-oligarchy","category-organizations","category-politics","category-primary-loyalties","category-reform","category-resilience","category-robb","category-security","category-social-networks","category-society","category-strategy","category-superempowered-individuals","category-theory","category-threats-in-the-age-of-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}