Draft, 2018/06/03. Comments welcome DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16269.64480
Sufficiency, Sustainability, and Innovation Media Moonshot Peter T. Knight1 Abstract: This article introduces the role of innovation to eliminate shortfalls in access to basic needs while staying within the safe and just space for humanity – that is within ecological planetary boundaries on a planet moving toward a population of 11 billion people this century. The article then reviews the literature on the role of films and TV programs on influencing public opinion and producing changes in economic, social, and political outcomes. Then a “media moonshot” is proposed to help develop support for public policies to accelerate progress toward sufficiency and sustainability through innovation. This would be achieved by helping finance a tenfold increase in production of films and TV programs in this field. Various fiction and non-fiction formats would be used. This moonshot would seek to reach an audience of at least one billion people with measurable impacts on public opinion and government policies. Several examples of possible films and TV programs are presented.
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Coordinator of the Sufficiency4 Sustainability Network (https://www.sufficiency4sustainability.org/) and Member of the Board, Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics (http://en.braudel.org.br/). Email:
[email protected].
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Introduction Singularity University (SU)2 was founded in 2008 in Silicon Valley, California. SU is “a global community using exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges. SU’s learning and innovation platform empowers individuals and organizations with the mindset, skillset, and network to build breakthrough solutions that leverage emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and digital biology.”3 Figure 1 shows why projections based on linear extrapolations of past development will understate their impact. Figure 1: Projections based on past or present vs exponential growth rates
Source: Urban [2015] Based in NASA Research Park at the heart of Silicon Valley, SU is a global community or over 120,000 members spanning 115 countries. This community includes entrepreneurs, corporations, development organizations, governments, investors, and academic institutions. SU had 100 chapters in 55 countries around the world as of December 2017.4 SU addresses 12 grand global challenges that include resource needs (energy, environment, food, space, shelter, water) and societal needs (disaster resilience, governance, health, learning, prosperity, security). For example, the environment challenge is summarized as “sustainable and equitable stewardship of Earth's ecosystems for optimal functioning both globally and locally” and the prosperity challenge as “equitable access to economic and other opportunities for self-fulfillment where all people are free from poverty and able to thrive.”5 SU encourages a “moonshot” approach to attacking global challenges. The essence of this approach is to seek a ten-fold (10 x) improvement over current state-of-the art technology to deliver goods and/or services. “Moonshot thinking involves taking aim at a global challenge, ideating radical solutions that can otherwise seem like the stuff of 2
https://su.org/ (accessed 30/01/2018). https://su.org/about/faq/ (accessed 16/01/2018). 4 https://su.org/about/press-room/press-releases/singularity-university-announces-seventeennew-chapters-and-one-renewal-in-belgium-china-egypt-estonia-france-germany-india-japanmexico-norway-pakistan-spain-thailand-venezuela-and-us/ (accessed 16/01/2018) 5 https://su.org/about/global-grand-challenges/ (accessed 16/01/2018). 3
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science fiction, and then leveraging some initial validation or tangible breakthrough that could make the solution achievable in the not-too-distant future.”6 A much smaller network of global thought leaders, the Sufficiency4Sustainability (S4S) Network7 advocates encouraging innovation to move toward a world where there is enough for all while achieving economic, social, political, and ecological sustainability.8 Figure 2 depicts this challenge: how eliminate shortfalls in access to basic needs while staying within the safe and just space for humanity – that is within ecological planetary boundaries. These objectives overlap with SU’s grand global challenges. Figure 2: Kate Raworth’s doughnut of social and planetary boundaries
Source: https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/ (accessed 16/01/2018)
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https://su.org/concepts/#moonshot See also https://singularityhub.com/2016/11/15/this-ishow-to-invent-radical-solutions-to-huge-problems/#sm.000000ay22gkwtdoawoc25ghp6qoh (both accessed 26/01/2016. 7 https://www.sufficiency4sustainability.org/ (accessed 09/04/2018) 8 For good analyses of this objective, critiques of conventional economic theory and alternative approaches see [Raworth, 2017] and [Daly, 2015].
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The S4S network was founded in 2017 and seeks to enlist its Associates9 in pursuing the above objectives. A growing number of analysts argue that some of the planetary boundaries are already being breached (Figure 3)10 and an estimated 766 million people, or 10.7 percent of the world’s population, lived in extreme poverty in 2013.11 Figure 3: Planetary boundaries
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries (accessed 16/01/2018) In Figure 2, the green areas represent human activities that are within safe margins, the yellow areas represent human activities that may or may not have exceeded safe margins, the red areas represent human activities that have exceeded safe margins, and the gray areas with red question marks represent human activities for which safe margins have not yet been determined. 9
www.sufficiency4sustainability.org/our-members (accessed 09/04/2018). https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/earth-has-crossed-several-planetary-boundaries-thresholdshuman-induced-environmental-changes (accessed 16/01/2018). 11 See http://datatopics.worldbank.org/sdgatlas/SDG-01-no-poverty.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries (accessed 16/01/2018). 10
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What, then, in Lenin’s famous words, is to be done? Many specialists have helped define the problem and are working – through their individual efforts, networks, and organizations – to address the challenge. This article proposes supporting a tenfold increase in the production of films and TV programs to develop support for public policies to accelerate progress toward sufficiency and sustainability. Particular attention would be devoted to the application of powerful exponential technologies driven by Moore’s and related laws as promoted by Singularity University. SU and the media SU makes extensive use of print and electronic media in recruitment to courses and seminars, promoting its ideas, and disseminating its achievements. The SU website provides many examples: mostly web pages, short videos, and press releases. But other than the website and the Singularity Hub,12 SU itself does not produce content for the traditional visual mass media: television and cinema. These mass media still have a tremendous impact worldwide. Disseminating SU thinking via films and television could accelerate meeting SU’s 12 global grand challenges. Films, TV, public awareness of social issues, and consensus formation There is an extensive literature on the impact of films and TV on public opinion. In this section some important examples are reviewed. The China Syndrome (1979) is a film starring Jane Fonda as a California TV reporter filming an upbeat series about the state’s energy future. While the reporter was visiting a nuclear power plant, a near meltdown occurred that the plant’s owners tried to cover up. Twelve days after the film opened, a real nuclear accident occurred at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear plant in south-central Pennsylvania. While the TMI accident didn’t produce any deaths, injuries, or significant damage except to the plant itself, it did produce a widespread panic, stoked by The China Syndrome.13 “The nuclear industry, already foundering as a result of economic, regulatory and public pressures, halted plans for further expansion.” [Portelli. Martin, and Guarnieri, 2015]. The Day After (1983) is a TV film broadcast by the US television network ABC in 1983 and can still be seen on YouTube.14 The Day After may well be the most impactful film ever made about the devastation of nuclear war. More than 100 million people, in nearly 39 million households, watched the program during its initial broadcast. With a 62% share of the viewing audience during its initial broadcast, it was the seventh highest rated non-sports show up to that time and set a record as the highest-rated television film in history - a record it still held as recently as a 2009 report. The film depicts a fictional war between NATO forces and the Warsaw Pact that rapidly escalates into a full-scale nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The action itself focuses on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, as well as several family farms situated near nuclear missile silos.15
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www.singularityhub.com (accessed 09/04/2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Syndrome (accessed 20/01/2018), and. 14 See the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=92&v=MOFsOA9VsBk) and full two-hour program at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yif-5cKg1Yo (both accessed 21/01/2018). 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After (accessed 21/01/2018). 13
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This TV film had a major impact in the debate on nuclear arms control. As one reviewer put it in 2017, “The way the show treats it as an epochal, moon landing-like event isn’t really an exaggeration: More than 100 million people really did drop everything to watch it on November 20, 1983, with many sitting in stunned horror and having their own existential conversations afterward about how we were all basically screwed….But the reason The Day After probably left so many shaken is that it does far more showing than telling, letting its piles of charred corpses and slowly accumulating radiation blisters speak more than teary monologues ever could.” [O’Neal, 2017]. US President Ronald Reagan watched the film several days before its screening, on November 5, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed," and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war". The film was also screened for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. A government advisor who attended the screening, a friend of Meyer's, told him "If you wanted to draw blood, you did it. Those guys sat there like they were turned to stone. Four years later, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed and in Reagan's memoirs he drew a direct line from the film to the signing.16 Дом. (Russian, 1995) a series of 10 fifty-minute dramatic fictional programs (телеьрпоман) or television novel) in which various economic topics were embedded. These included defense industry conversion; privatization of real estate; startup of new enterprises; the workings of markets for goods, labor, capital, and foreign exchange; and fighting the Mafia. This approach is known as “social marketing” in the TV business and is widely used in other countries including Brazil and Mexico. Such social marketing can help in forming a national consensus on social and political issues [Knight and Schiavo, 2007]. The characters all have names drawn from well-known Russian classic novels and short stories, hence their physiological profiles and social tendencies are immediately recognized. The characters live in a well-known Moscow skyscraper. Дом was produced by the Russian firm Message Agency, led by Matvey Saprykin, and was broadcast by Russia's premier private television station, NTV, in December 1995. The dramatic series sought to educate Russians (and other Russian speakers) about the workings of the market economy, build hope in the country's renaissance as a market democracy, encourage privatization and the establishment of legitimate business enterprises, and fight the criminal structures which have become an international as well as a Russian menace. The project was endorsed by a number of Russia's leading economists, including Economy Minister and Member of the Board of the National Training Foundation, Yvgeny Yasin; Deputy Economy Minister and Chairman of the Board of the National Training Foundation, Sergey Vasiliev; and Chairman of the State Duma's Economic Committee, Sergey Glasiev. (These were the posts occupied by the persons mentioned in 1995.)17 On December 2, Deputy Premier of the Moscow Government, Vladimir Resin, along with former Deputy Premier of the Russian Federation Alexander Shokhin, hosted a one-hour program on Moscow Television (МТК, Channel 3) about the series, with interviews with the Producer, Director, Scriptwriter and stars. This program was broadcast on МТК together with excerpts from some of the episodes 16
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#cite_note-Empire-19 (accessed 21/01/2018). http://web.archive.org/web/20040131073850/http://knight-moore.com:80/ (accessed 21/01/2018). 17
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featuring scenes of Moscow, at 8:00 PM on December 15, 1995 prior to the last episode in the series. Call-in questions were taken from the audience. Дом was seen as a major cultural event, important in the rebirth of the Russian film industry.”18 An Inconvenient Truth (2006) is a documentary film narrated by former US Vice President Al Gore. The documentary was a critical and box office success, winning two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song. In a July 2007 47-country Internet survey conducted by The Nielsen Company and Oxford University, 66% of those respondents who said they had seen An Inconvenient Truth stated that it had "changed their mind" about global warming and 89% said it had made them more aware of the problem. Three out of four (74%) said they had changed some of their habits because of seeing the film.19 The Day After Tomorrow (2014) is a film that focused global attention on the potential for climate change become intense and abrupt due to melting fresh water ice in Antarctica to alter the North Atlantic Current (a climatic tipping point), rapidly bringing about a new ice age. “If not a full-scale shift, many in the environmental community hoped that a major motion picture addressing climate change would at least push the debate on climate change forward. Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) organized actions to coincide with Day After’s release. The activist MoveOn.org used the film to highlight what it considered then-President George W. Bush’s poor record on environmental issues, hoping thereby to weaken his chances for winning a second term. Bush’s decisive win that November indicates that Day After fell short of MoveOn’s ambitions, but the film has nonetheless had a significant impact, not just within the film industry.” [Svoboda, 2014a]. The film also had a strong impact in the public sphere and academic circles. It influenced least eight other films, TV films, and TV series around the world on similar topics.20 Social Marketing in dramatic TV serials (1970s and continuing). As in the case of Дом, social marketing in dramatic serials (known as telenovelas in Latin America) has played an important role in changing public opinion in various countries on topics such as birth control and teenage pregnancy with measurable impacts, especially when reinforcing government programs are available. For example, Mexico’s significant reduction in population growth from 3.5% to 2.3% during the 1970s (and to 1.5% in the first decade of the 21st century21) is attributable in part to the family planning messages presented in telenovelas. Between 1975-82, Televisa, the principal Mexican television network, presented a series of telenovelas with social value messages. These telenovelas dramatized social problems, such as illiteracy, child abuse, alcoholism, and coping with too many children. One telenovela, for example, showed a mother who had ten children and insufficient resources for raising them. Family planning messages were delivered in a subtle manner; viewers were referred to the Health Ministry of Social Security Institute for 18
http://web.archive.org/web/20040131073850/http://knight-moore.com:80/ (accessed 21/02/2018). 19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Inconvenient_Truth (accessed 21/01/2018). 20 See also https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/08/10-movies-that-changed-the-world/ (2016). (accessed 21/01/2018). 21 http://geo-mexico.com/?p=3141 (accessed 21/08/2017).
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help with their own personal problems. During the first year that the telenovela ran, the number of women who joined family planning programs increased by a third over the previous year. Contraceptive sales increased by 23% compared to the 7% increase observed during the previous year. The government's family planning program, which makes contraceptives widely available, was a prerequisite for the effective delivery of family planning messages. The television series motivated the public to seek contraceptive assistance, and the government's family planning program made it possible for the public to obtain the assistance they desired. The telenovelas were produced by Irene and Miquel Sabido, a brother and sister team, and developed in consultation with sociologists and psychologists. The programs were exported to several other Latin American countries and also used as models to develop new series in other countries.”22 In Brazil, where over 97 percent of homes had a TV set as of 2016, social marketing has been widely used in telenovelas and mini-series of Rede Globo, by far the country’s most important TV network, reaching almost all of Brazil’s 5,570 municipalities. From Monday through Saturday telenovelas represent a quarter of all television programming and are concentrated in the prime-time period that captures the largest audience. Since 1990 and in partnership with a specialized company, Comunicarte, Rede Globo’s communication unit has worked closely with telenovela authors and actors to identify opportunities for social merchandising in the initial scripts; develop appropriate scenes, situations, and dialogs; and monitor their delivery. An example is Páginas da Vida (Pages of Life) broadcast in 2006/2007 and written by Manuel Carlos. It included socially educational content on HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive rights, and the problems faced by children with Downs syndrome. For this telenovela, surveys and – in the case of Downs syndrome – focus groups were conducted to assess the impact of content on viewers’ attitudes and behaviors. Among the many findings was that the “influence of scenes on undesired pregnancy on the attitudes and practices of the women interviewed is particularly noteworthy among women aged 18-24 years: 71% said that the soap opera influenced them to “pay more attention to avoid getting pregnant.” [Schiavo and Moreira, 2007, p 215] Of those interviewed, 53.3% were motivated by the program to seek health service, and “the most sought-after services were: consultation for preventative exam of ovarian cancer (76%), consultation to obtain information and orientation on the use of contraceptive methods (42%), and consultation to obtain a contraceptive method to prevent undesired pregnancy (32%).” [Schiavo and Moreira, 2007, p 216]. Regarding Down syndrome, “64% of those who declared that the program increased their knowledge also reported a change in behavior, in a positive direction.” [Schiavo and Moreira, p. 222]. Rede Globo’s telenovelas have also extensively supported the UN’s Millennial and Sustainable Development Objectives.23 A more recent example is 16 and Pregnant (2009-2014) an hour long documentary series shown on the US network MTV and focusing on the controversial subject of teen 22
https://www.popline.org/node/404605 (1984). See also [Bernstein,1992] and [Tedesco, 1992]. 23 For example, see Comunicarte [2015] detailing 5,010 socio-educational scenes in 101 telenovelas over the period 2000-2104 dealing with Millenial Development Objectives and Comunicarte [2016] citing 701 scenes in the telenovela “Velho Chico” treating 15 of the 17 Sustainable Development Objectives.
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pregnancy. It followed the stories of pregnant teenage girls in secondary school dealing with the hardships of teenage pregnancy. Each episode featured a different teenage girl, with the episode typically beginning when she is 4 1⁄2 – 8 months into her pregnancy. The episode typically ended when the baby was a few months old. The series included an animation on notebook paper showing highlights during each episode preceding the commercial breaks. 16 and Pregnant spawned three spinoff series: Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2 and Teen Mom 3, all also shown on MTV. Each series followed the lives of four girls from their respective season of 16 and Pregnant as they navigate their first years of motherhood.24 Kristof [2014], writes that “tweets containing the words “birth control” increased by 23 percent on the day after each new episode of “16 and Pregnant,” according to an analysis by Melissa Kearney of the University of Maryland and Phillip B. Levine of Wellesley College [2014]. Those tweets, in turn, correlate to increased Google searches along the lines of ‘how get birth control pills.’ Kearney and Levine find that regions with a higher audience for 16 and Pregnant and the Teen Mom franchise had more of a drop in teenage births. Over all, their statistical analysis concludes that the shows reduced teenage births by 5.7 percent, or 20,000 fewer teenage births each year. That’s one birth averted every halfhour.” Proposal for a S4S media moonshot To accelerate development of a global consensus on how exponential technologies can help achieve SU objectives, I propose that SU (since 2012 a California B Corporation)25 help finance and disseminate films, dramatic and documentary television series, and various other types of TV programs with SU themes. In April 2017 SU entered into a partnership with Emmy Award-winning executive producer Mark Burnett (The Voice, Survivor), and Chris Hardwick. NBC ordered six episodes of “The Awesome Show,” a series to showcase groundbreaking scientific and technological advances that are shaping the future, as well as to celebrate the pioneers and communities at the forefront of what SU views as a golden age of unprecedented discovery, innovation and opportunity.26 This appears to be the first time SU has been directly supported a TV series. But this series was never aired. The proposal outlined here seeks to accelerate the production of both fiction and documentary films and TV series (and other TV formats such as news segments, spot announcements, interviews, and “magazine” type shows). The objective is to achieve at least a ten-fold increase in the production of film and TV content as measured in hours, reach a billion viewers, and produce measurable changes in both public awareness and approval of S4S/SU objectives. To do so will require substantial funding from a variety of sources, e.g. foundations, corporate sponsors, and revenue from film or TV content sales. A public benefit corporation, preferably SU, is the ideal legal structure for mobilizing this kind of funding, including for-profit sales of content. Securing funding, content producers, and content distributors can be facilitated taking advantage of existing networks of individuals and institutions pursuing similar goals, beginning with the SU community, but including the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network (http://unsdsn.org/), The International Society for 24
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_and_Pregnant (accessed 21/01/2018). https://su.org/about/how-we-do-business/ 26 https://su.org/about/press-room/press-releases/nbcs-the-awesome-show-celebratesscience-technology-innovation-with-chris-hardwick/ (accessed 17/01/2018). 25
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Ecological Economics (http://www.isecoeco.org/), the Basic Income Earth Network (http://basicincome.org/), the Institute for New Economic Thinking https://www.ineteconomics.org/, and the S4S Network. No doubt there are other organizations that can be leveraged to attract resources needed to execute the media moonshot. Why raise money for a media company that will support several films or TV programs (TBD) rather than a set of individually proposed media projects, each of which would stand on its own merits in terms of fundraising? There are economies of scale to be realized by having an organization staffed by a few dedicated specialists familiar with both the SU objectives and the global film and TV business. SU is known internationally. The new department would be able mobilize additional funding, advice, and talent as well as to provide seed money for promising projects. The proposed department would be lean and able to draw on SU’s own extensive network of individuals and chapters as well as on those of other more specialized networks. Assembling such staff and raising seed money on a piecemeal basis for each proposed media product would be far costlier and would lack the synergistic character of dedicated department in SU. Using the existing SU legal structure is probably the cheapest and most effective means of realizing these economies of scale, but a stand-alone public benefit corporation is an option that can be considered if SU’s management is not willing to use its own. Examples of possible film and TV projects The following are four examples of the kind of media projects that might be undertaken.
1. A film or dramatic TV series based on the highly-rated award-winning Nexus trilogy of science fiction novels set in 2040-2041 written by Ramez Naam [Naam, 2012, 2013, 2015]. Naam is Co-Chair Energy and Energy and Environment at SU and a renowned author. He has also published two nonfiction books [Naam, 2005 and 2015] that provide the intellectual content for the Nexus trilogy. The novels treat the political, ethical and ecological issues associated with bio-enhancement and artificial intelligence around the projected date of the singularity, that is when machine intelligence equals and then rapidly exceeds human intelligence.27 The pros and cons of these developments are explored in a dramatic fashion as the novels unfold in various countries around the planet, including the United States, China, India, Thailand, and Vietnam. Naam (and the novels’ heroes) favor the pro side. Here is a brief synopsis: “In a future not so far from ours, the ingestible and illegal drug/technology called Nexus can link human minds electronically, wirelessly, nearly telepathically. There are some who want to improve it, some who want to eradicate it, and others who just want to exploit it. From San Francisco to Bangkok, from Beijing to Delhi, Nexus is a thrill-ride through a world on the brink of explosion.”28 The rights to the Nexus trilogy are currently held by a potential producer of such a film or TV series. 2. A film or dramatic TV series highlighting economic, social, and political issues related to the increasing use of robotics and artificial intelligence. Subjects can include worsening income distribution, job destruction, retraining of the 27 28
The classic presentation of this concept is Kurzweil [2005]. See also Kurzweil [2012). http://rameznaam.com/Nexus/ (accessed 17/01/2018).
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3.
4.
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technologically displaced, and public policies to re-define the relationship between work and income, e.g. Universal/Unconditional Basic Income (UBI). A film based on Ashlee Vance’s book, Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future [2015]. This combination of biography and journalism could become a great documentary film. As one reviewer put it, “I loved the insight into Musk and how he operates, and you get a very broad and complete picture of Musk as a driven visionary that is absolutely set on delivering some of the most aspirational goals of any human in history…. You get unique insight into his personal relationships, how he coped with things that went wrong (not always a pretty story), and how he manages through both failure and success…. Finally, you get a lot of detail around 'green' industry, space exploration, etc. which really fills out this ecosystem and delivers an inspiring and educational view of one of the most intriguing people of our lifetimes.”29 A television series based on Kate Raworth’s book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist [2017], Here’s a blurb on the book: “Named after the now-iconic “doughnut” image that Raworth first drew to depict a sweet spot of human prosperity (an image that appealed to the Occupy Movement, the United Nations, eco-activists, and business leaders alike), Doughnut Economics offers a radically new compass for guiding global development, government policy, and corporate strategy, and sets new standards for what economic success looks like. Raworth handpicks the best emergent ideas—from ecological, behavioral, feminist, and institutional economics to complexity thinking and Earth-systems science—to address this question: How can we turn economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, into economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow?”30 The television series would feature interviews with Raworth and other well-known economists, and include one or more debates between Raworth and critics of her thinking. At least some of the programs could make use of “B roll” footage to illustrate points the speaker is making. A television series modeled on the BBC’s “Hard Talk” with founders and top specialists of SU, including Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Rob Nail, Salim Ismail, Elon Musk, Salim Ismail, and Ramez Naam. The programs would highlight the work and achievements of each interviewee and more broadly of SU. A series of one-minute spot TV announcements/promotions on S4S/SU topics. These would be produced in a fashion similar to political ads or public service announcements, with high production values and dramatic B roll to illustrate the announcer’s audio.
Expected Results The Media Moonshot would seek at least a tenfold increase in the production of films and TV programming on S4S/SU topics (as measured by hours of running time), reach at least one billion viewers worldwide, and result in measurable positive changes in public opinion and government policies and programs. All English language films and TV programs would either be dubbed into other major languages including Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian or have subtitles in the language 29
https://www.amazon.com/productreviews/B00KVI76ZS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt_lft?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=positive&showVie wpoints=0&pageNumber=1 (accessed 26/01/2018). 30 https://www.chelseagreen.com/doughnut-economics (accessed 17/01/2018).
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of the country where they are shown. An effort would be made to have original production of films and TV series in all countries with a population of 100 million or more. Viewer statistics are relatively easy to obtain, but the SU department would commission studies to evaluate impact (attitudes toward the films/programs themselves, attitude change as regards S4S/SU objectives, changes in government policies and programs, etc.). There are many specialized survey companies around the world that could undertake such studies. Discussion/Conclusion Technological change - increasingly driven by exponential technologies - is proceeding at a rate faster than economic, social, and political institutions can adapt. Both SU and the S4S network seek to promote thought, communication, and action across three overlapping but not always associated areas: sufficiency, sustainability, and innovation. While each of these areas has its own networks and associations, these organizations do not always interact. Exponential technologies can play a major role in assuring that the basic needs of all are met without breaching planetary boundaries with catastrophic consequences for humanity. Current economic trends, driven by technology, including robotics and artificial intelligence, increasingly threaten employment and social stability. Accelerating biotechnology and nanotechnology also pose political and ethical challenges. These trends are resulting in a move toward populist and authoritarian political systems to maintain an unjust distribution of income and wealth, working against political, social, economic and ecological sustainability. New public policies, including universal/unconditional basic income as a human right and new forms of taxation to support It are already needed and the urgency to implement such policies and will increase sharply as exponential technological change proceeds. Studies in many countries have shown that films and television programs can be powerful tools for promoting discussion, shaping public opinion, and building support for public policies on important economic, social, political, and ecological topics. The proposed media moonshot seeks to use these traditional electronic media to vastly expand the audience reached, enhancing what can be achieved by the print media and new electronic media enabled by the Internet – websites and social media. Streaming of the films and TV programs over the Internet can further expand audiences and permit greater audience interaction on a global scale.
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References cited Bernstein, Sharon (1992). “Messages Delivered from the TV Soapbox: Television: Advocacy groups help develop soap operas around the world that deal with family planning, women's issues and other social concerns”, Los Angeles Times, 19/06). Available at http://articles.latimes.com/1992-06-19/entertainment/ca-728_1_soapopera-digest (accessed 21/01/2018). Comunicarte (2014). “Objetivos de Desenvolvimento do Milênio Presentes nas Novelas da TV Globe, Pesquisa Comunicarte, 2000-2014”. Comunicarte (2017). “Contribuição do Merchandising Social nas novelas aos Objetivos do Desenvolvimento Sustentável (ODS) Período: total de cenas em 2016” Daly, Herman (2015). “Economics for a Full World.” Revised version of a paper prepared for the Blue World award. Dubner, Stephen J. and Steven D. Levitt (2016). “The Jane Fonda Effect”. The New York Times, 09/16. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/magazine/16wwln-freakonomics-t.html (accessed 21/01/2018). Knight, Peter Titcomb and Márcio Ruiz Schiavo (2007). “Desenvolvimento de um consenso nacional”. Chapter 11 in Knight, Fernandes and Cunha, eDesenvolvimento no Brasil e no mundo: subsídios e Programa e-Brasil. São Caetano do Sul, SP: Yendis and Câmara Brasileira de Comércio Eletrônico, pp 273291. Knight, Peter T. and Jorma Routti (2011). “e-Development and Consensus Formation in Finland”, Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 2:1 (March), pp 117-144. Kearny, Melissa and Phillip B. Levine (2014). “Media Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV’s 16 and Pregnant on Teen Childbearing” January. Available at http://www.wellesley.edu/sites/default/files/assets/kearney-levine-16pnber_submit.pdf (accessed 21/02/2018)/ Kristof, Nicholas (2014). “TV Lowers Birthrate (Seriously)”. The New York Times, 19/03. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/opinion/kristof-tv-lowersbirthrate-seriously.html (accessed 21/01/2018). Kurzweil, Ray (2005). The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking Penguin. Kurzweil, Ray (2012). How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. New York: Viking Penguin. Naam, Ramez (2012, 2013, 2015). The Nexus Trilogy (Nexus: Install, Crux: Upgrade, and Apex: Connect). Nottingham, UK: Angry Robot Books.
Naam, Ramez (2013). The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Hanover: University Press of New England. O’Neal, Sean (2017). “Apocalypes Then: The Day After traumatized a generation with the horrors of nuclear war.” 8/28. https://www.avclub.com/the-day-aftertraumatized-a-generation-with-the-horrors-1798447330 (accessed 21/01/2018). Portelli, A. and C. Martin (2015). “The representation of nuclear power in cinema: The contribution of a filmic analysis to understanding the public debate” in Nowakowski et al (eds.), Safety and Reliability: Methodology and Applications.
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London: Taylor and Francis Group, pp 1993-2000. See abstract and part of article at https://goo.gl/Fp2rhZ (accessed 20/01/2018). Raworth, Kate (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. Schiavo, Marcio Ruiz and Eliesio N. Moreira (2007). “Páginas da Vida: Pesquisa de Impacto do Merchandising Social”. Rio de Janeiro: Comunicarte and Population Media Center, July. Svoboda, Michael (2014a). “Ice-Fi: The Motion Pictur-Ice-sque Legacy of The Day After Tomorrow”, 10/29 https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/ice-fi-themotion-pictur-ice-sque-legacy-of-the-day-after-tomorrow/ (accessed 21/0/2018). Svoboda, Michael (2014b). “The Long Melt: The Lingering Influence of The Day After Tomorrow”, 11/05. https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/11/the-long-meltthe-lingering-influence-of-the-day-after-tomorrow/ (accessed 21/0/2018). Tedesco, Suzanne (1992). “Family Planning Media: That’s Entertainment! Soap operas, songs, and music videos are spreading the word about family planning around the globe, and changing lives in the process”. Available at https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/tedesko/ (accessed 21/01/2018). Urban, Tim (2015). "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence." Wait But Why, January 22 Vance, Ashlee (2015). Elon Musk: Tesla, Space X, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future. New York: Harper Collins. Recommended basic reading (annotated) Daly, Herman (2015). “Economics for a Full World.” Revised version of a paper presented at the Blue Planet Prize award ceremony, Tokyo, November 2014. This paper sums up much of Daly's (perhaps the leading ecological economist) work, using the distinction between an "empty" world (in the past) where the demands of human economic activity on natural resources, ecosystems and "sinks" for undesirable byproducts of economic activity did not exceed the earth's regenerative or absorptive capacity to today's "full" world in which they do. Easy to read, with easy-to-understand didactic graphics. Raworth, Kate (2017). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing. A thorough review of the history of economic thought and focus on sustainability in all its dimensions. Naam, Ramez (2005). More than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement. New York: Random House. Naam, Ramez (2013). The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet. Hanover: University Press of New England. Skidelsky, Robert and Eduard (2012). How Much Is Enough? Money and the Good Life. New York: Other Press,. Lord Robert Skidelsky is an economist and leading interpreter of Keynes. Edward Skidelsky is his son, a philosopher. In investigating the concept of sufficiency, it is useful to look back at how philosophers (and economists,
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once known as moral philosophers) have defined "the good life", and that is what the Skidelskys do in this important book. The starting point for this fascinating review of thinking on the topic is a 1930 essay by Keynes (1930), entitled "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren". Reddit (updated continuously). Basic Income FAQ/wiki. The most concise (one long web page) statement of what basic income means, the arguments for and against from a wide variety of political perspectives, a list of supporters across the political/ideological spectrum, how to finance it with minimum distortions, and many links to other publications. Wickipedia (updated continuously). Basic Income. Covers a wide range of topics with many links to topics mentioned. Kurzweil, Ray (2005). The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Viking Penguin. This is the classic on AI and explains exponential technologies that underlie it. Urban, Tim (2015). "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence." Wait But Why, January 22. A concise explanation of what is happening in AI. See also his longer blog post, "The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction." Wait But Why, January 27 Two books by Peter Diamandis (Co-Founder of Silicon Valley's Singularity University) and journalist Steven (2012) KotlerAbundance: The Future is Better than You Think. New York: Simon and Schuster; and (2015) Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World. New York: Simon and Schuster offer a more optimistic view of the future, based on what they call exponential technologies, but fail to ask the questions of growth of what, for whom, and why within the environmental constraints of Daly's "full world." Nevertheless they are well written and present persuasive arguments regarding what technology is likely to be able to offer to buy more time, develop technologies to substitute for scarce natural resources, reduce pollution, and decrease the need for degrading forms of labor. Ehrenfeld, John R. and Andrew Hoffman. (2013). Flourishing: A Frank Conversation about Sustainability. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Introduces the concept of flourishing rather than increasing GDP, and explaining why we need change socially accepted values to move from "more is better" to sufficiency or "enough for all" as objectives of economic activity. For a more extensive set reading and viewing suggestions on sufficiency, sustainability and innovation, see https://www.sufficiency4sustainability.org/recommended-reading.
