Copyright (c) 2008 Jackson Kern

The subtle difference between pure social development and social-political sustainability is very central to the pursuit of sustainable development. Just as economic development accomplishes little if the achievements heralded are unsustainable, so too must social enrichment go hand in hand with a concerted effort to ensure its persistent viability.

Open, contested political arenas offer the only means to this endarenas that are contested by you. These three phenomena endanger the sustainability of our social-political processes; they beg our devoted attention.

1. The most insidious danger of all is that of prevalent political apathy. If the population at large cannot be convinced that its fate is sufficiently at stake to engage itself actively, then all hope surely is lost. The causes of apathy are many; clearly the simplest is inner-focused individuals who are more concerned with personal than societal enrichment, or who believe that the benefits derived from social engagement will not be commensurate with the time and resources invested. This phenomenon can be likened to game theory and political science notions of the “tragedy of the commons”. A related cause of political apathy is blind faith in social and political institutions. But we must remember Sartre’s espousal of the one who “is loyal to a political and social ensemble, and who never ceases to contest it”. There is no contradiction in believing that a nation’s social and political processes are the best ever conceived by mankind, and still rising every morning to challenge them. Indeed, this is the very essence of democracy.

2. The existence of social inertia is different from apathy. We human beings are creatures of habit. Even when informed and acknowledging of specific problems, we can be resistant to the specter of addressing them aggressively via political mechanisms if so doing entails a rupture with time-honored cultural tradition. In a 2006 poll, eighty-five percent of Americans indicated their belief that global warming is “probably happening”, while half asserted that the issue of global warming is “extremely important” to them. Yet the ubiquity of single-occupant vehicles on America’s highways remains undiminished.

3. When the general populace is involved and engaged, this can often pose problems of social-political inefficiency. This issue can be particularly acute in nations which are large in population and geography. An inability to reach consensus can sometimes lead to paralysis. Under an autocratic establishment, the government can execute changes to social-political institutions with an alacrity that is sometimes enviable. But this, of course, is not consultative; sustainability of the social-political dimension is only ensured in the long run if it is reflective of the collective will. A different sort of social-political inefficiency arises when there is no obstruction to consensus but when channels for initiating change (particularly in the judiciary) are constrained, convoluted or overloaded.

Political apathy and social inertia can only be combated in ongoing daily efforts to inform, arouse and provoke. Happily, social-political inefficiency can be addressed more methodically. Governments, businesses, non-governmental and not-for-profit organizations alter and influence the state of our social and natural environment every day. Actors which seek to bridge the gap between these entities and the general populace and to facilitate their interaction, aided by extraordinary new technologies of participation, have a grand role to play in the future of social-political sustainability.

An evocation of these challenges would not be complete without a consideration of the dynamic interactions the social-political domain engenders with other elements of sustainable development. Economics is the science of resource allocation, the study of the ways in which we satisfy human wants and needs. No human need is more fundamental than that of nourishment. In a revealing illustration of the interdependence of sustainable development’s three constituent parts, rising world food prices now pose a grave threat to social-political sustainability around the globe. One need only turn to recent social unrest and political instability in Haiti, Egypt and the Philippines to be assured of that. These rising prices stem from uncertainties regarding the sustainability of our agricultural processes. To be specific, some have very explicitly cited efforts in the West to subsidize and encourage biofuels production as a leading inflationary factor (though burgeoning middle classes in India and China seem surely to be responsible for other upward price pressures). And all this as the viability of biofuels falls under a penetrating scrutiny.

These challenges of social-political sustainability will remain inextricably bound to the future of sustainability as an enterprise.

Web 2.0 and social software in general, a topic that is being referring to as Social Computing.

If we dare to look beyond this type of computing, as extensions of Web 2.0 and Social Computing, we have the integration of all of our software and IT systems. Microsoft’s Dr. Gary Flake refer said during the launch of Live Labs as the Internet Singularity. Dr. Gary Flake says; “The idea that a deeper and tighter coupling between the online and offline worlds will accelerate science, business, society, and self-actualization.”

Social web sites such as YouTube , Facebook, Flickr and MySpace are examples of the paradigm change that happen suddenly as these new arenas are available to the users of the internet.

Technological Singularity

Dion Hinchcliffe has some interesting ideas around the new era of the internet and how it will evolve. Especially what is interesting is his mentioning of the The Social Graph: Issues and the strategies they propose for 2008. He says in his blog the following; “One of the hottest topics in the online world in the last couple of years has been the growth of social networking services such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as the addition of a social element to existing user experiences. Despite riding several waves of hype, it’s now clear that the social networking space will only get hotter in 2008 according to most watchers. Social software has come fully into its own as of 2008 — for all appearances permanently — and understanding the reasons for this rapid rise as well as figuring out how to leverage it best is the job of everyone who wants to make the most of the Web 2.0 era.

Gaining a deeper insight to the social networking phenomenon, now exhibited by the tens of millions of users employing them globally on a daily basis for both personal and businesses uses, currently means understanding the fundamental unit of the social network, also one of the biggest new buzz phrases of the year: the social graph. Fortunately, that’s simple enough despite the term’s oblique reference to graph theory, which it is heavily based upon.”

Maturity of users on the internet play an important role in development

I agree with Dion in the majority of his standings, as the web is still in the young years for the mass users. The mass users needs changes as the maturity amongst the users develops. Its just like watching a baby begin to explore its environment during the first years of its life. From the baby lying there and only concentrate on its basic needs to become more interested in its surrounding through its crawling on the floor to the stage of walking for itself. The rest of its life it will learn how to communicate and be accepted in the social network of its culture and its sub-cultures. Internet I would say we are at the walking stage, however we are learning how to communicate with each others, which is part of the young humans life, however we need to be sophisticated and understand so many various cultures and their sub-cultures on the internet, which is part of the human teens and rest of life.

Social network analysis (SNA)

The popular business social networking service LinkedIn, uses a social graph model that sorts a member’s social graph into different degrees of separation.

Through the social analytics, such as the Socalistics application in Facebook and the Interactive Friends Graph, though there are also commercial standalone products here for the enterprise and open Web spaces from companies like KnowNow and Bravadosoft. The Interactive Friends Graph is a nice, simple example anyone can try on their own.

Dion uses a basic approximation of the linear usage trends of Service-Oriented Architecture, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and other organizing principles in software. These various types of software or architectures will maybe merge . But they also reflect that they are aspects of the same conceptual thing. This “same conceptual thing” , something called the Timeless Way of Building Software, can look completely different depending on their focus. Despite they have the same essential, constituent parts. In this future merged software world, people and the relationships between them together with the flow of control will change towards a more democratic model.

Technology and Intelligence

Philip Dorrell wrote in 2006 this; “The concept of the Technological Singularity is that technology is used to create new and more powerful technologies, and this creates a positive feedback cycle. The rate of development constantly accelerates, until, at some point in the future, there is an “explosion”, where all possible new technologies are developed in a fraction of a second by a super-intelligent entity, whose super-intelligence is itself a result of the accelerated development of technology.

Intelligence plays a critical role in this scenario, since human intelligence is one of the main drivers of technological development, and “intelligence technologies” can be expected to play a more significant role in the feedback cycle as time progresses.”

In the same breath of this Phillip Dorell brings in some interesting aspects which is in my area of interest, namely the concept of what intelligence and the meaning behind this. Since intelligence is going to be a main differentiator of applications in the future, we need to understand the meaning of intelligence first of all. Intelligence is purposeful information processing to achieve knowledge of the subject of interest..

So that means the future applications will not only be to create intelligent machines, but to make humans more intelligent, and therefore act as intelligence amplifiers.

Data mining versus today’s data search

Information to knowledge is the key sentence for the future web applications in the next generation internet. Based on the fact that more and more data is available to us, in more and more complex forms, tells us that we need stronger internet infra structure and protocols to deliver the information. Transferring the information into knowledge creates the need for more intelligent applications beyond the web 2.0 arena. Searching and finding information in the google manner is no longer going to be enough for the users. They will need a more sophisticated tool set to empower their intelligence and feel the interaction between internet and other users. There are several tools enabling users to search and create knowledge of the searches already. Especially within pharmacy research and company like Array Biopharma’s use of SciTegic technology which facilitates fielding data mining models with the use of web as SOAP services. In addition software such as Clear Forest trying to make text driven business intelligence a step further by mining unstructured text plus enterprise data to create a competitive advantage.

Internet Protocol Development

The important step will be to build and Secure the Next-Generation IPv6-enabled Internet. Making the new protocols for transfer and communications is a major topic and will need to be addressed in order to enable transfer of larger and more complex data streams of the future.

Summary

So as a conclusion in this short article I would say there are several important quantum leaps that will happen in the next decade or even faster than that.

1. Evolution of a technological singularity of use in application development

2. Data mining versus data search will become central to amplify the human intelligence.

3. Social aspect and applications ability to envision and describe the social dependencies will become more and more important.

4. The internet communication protocols will enable use of more traffic as well as increased complexity of data

5. The users and their need to become more intelligent will be the main driver in the future development beyond web 2.0.

The technological singularity combined with intelligent data mining will create the
new era of social networks that will need a more robust and refined way of transferring data across the internet platform. Social networks will enable single users as well as businesses to create analysis and enhance their intelligence about themselves but also about others or their competitors.

With the advent of internet the term social networking is growing to be a favorite option to many people especially the youngsters. But it is not at a new term. Our ancestors lived in groups. Since there was no language it became essential to have some knowledge about their relationship like who are the friends, to whom we have to fight with etc. The need of gossiping arose. As there was no language they used grooming to communicate their relationship. So grooming is the first social networking application.

When the group became too large language was discovered instead of grooming. It was effective than grooming because one can communicate with number of people with language simultaneously. So language evolved to communicate and maintain social relationship.

Web based social networking solves the same purpose. The communication ability through internet has created large group social network. You can get social network with people all over the world. You can meet and communicate with people who have identical minds.

You can register your name in any of the famous social networking web site like My space. The registration procedure is simple and you can do it within minutes. Then you can create your own profile page. This will be a best way to communicate with many people. You can make new friends. You can share your views, ideas, and your favorite things like movies, music and much more.

You can also add video clips, your photos and so on. What you enjoy more is that the freedom you have in this social networking application. The traditional web sites will allow you to meet and talk to other members. But social networking web sites allow you to include your horoscopes, videos, photos, chatting, passing messages instantly and more.

The social networking web site will ask you to provide certain information like why you want to meet other people where you can have three options business, personal and both. Then you will be asked to write your name, date of birth, marital status, religion, education and so on. If you want to date or just meet people you can give the seat preference like where you want to meet. You can also add some details about you.

You can use social networking for your business purposes. There is separate social networking platform which you can use for business purposes. Linkya is a business social networking web site that allows you to get new partners, new business contacts, and ideas and so on. It is an international web page and so you can have more business contacts. You can register your name here and write about your profile. This will help in increasing business contacts and you can flourish your business as you can get international customers. This web site is especially for professionals and business people.

If you want to search any professionals like consultant, web designer etc you can do it within seconds through this web site. You can also search for any new business opportunities.

You can enhance your business relationship through social networking web sites. You can register your name in this web site absolutely free of cost. You can write about the business details in the space provided.

There are separate social net workings for singles, families and so on. You can find your friend, life partner etc through social net workings. Quick search of old friends or clients is possible. You can meet and share your thoughts with any one you like.

The flexibility and safety in the web sites have attracted many people. Your pass word will be encrypted and the details provided by you are not for global viewers. You can communicate only with those you want. If you want to share some common thoughts then you can do it also.