The book’s message has been summarized in multiple ways and levels of detail, supplemented by an FAQ page:
- Two minute video
- A few words: “Accelerating automation threatens to displace multitudes of workers. We have a new solution. Let’s upgrade from ‘haves and have nots’ to ‘haves and have mores’.”
- A few more words: “When AI makes people not just unemployed but unemployable, what will give their lives meaning and self-worth? Elevating the experience of life for others. Here’s how to create a society based, not on your contribution to production, but on your contribution to others’ lived experience.”
- Three paragraphs: “Accelerating automation threatens multitudes with permanent unemployment. The solutions being discussed, a conventional guaranteed income and retraining, are not sufficient. In the 2020’s and beyond, enough people will become unemployed that something new will be required.
The existing “isms” are all scarcity-based. A Celebration Society will be the first type of society based on sustainable abundance. This rests on the provable facts that (a) all material wealth is some confluence of matter, energy and organizing intelligence (in future, mostly software), and (b) supplies of all three will soon become effectively unlimited.
A Celebration Society will be organized as an open-source model, designed to be self-sufficient and share its knowledge with others. In this way, the model can grow exponentially as wanted and desired elsewhere, once proven viable through simulation, testing, refinement and eventual real-life testing and improvement.” - 1,250 characters: “Accelerating automation will soon displace many millions from the workforce, rendering them unemployable. At the same time, it will enable automated production of the basic necessities of life. With few jobs available, people will need an alternative source of identity and esteem. We propose that these come from improving the overall experience of life for others.
Such contributions will be celebrated lavishly and frequently–thereby inspiring more great service in a virtuous cycle. In addition, people can play, create, explore, and learn.
The most surprising finding in researching this book was that superstars in all fields examined–from business to sport to science to engineering–do not work! They play, very hard, at games of their choosing or design. It looks like work to those of us who cannot conceive of playing with such dedication.
A small model society, based on systems of sustainable technological abundance, can be created, organized like an HOA writ large. Reliance upon best available evidence, supported by continuing experiments, will improve key quality of life metrics. Its model can then be duplicated where desired.”
- Five pages: http://bit.ly/1LN1ATQ OR https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-biggest-ways-in-which-the-world-20-years-from-now-will-probably-be-different-from-today-What-are-the-biggest-X-factors-changes-that-are-not-probable-but-are-possible-and-could-be-huge/answer/Jonathan-Kolber
- Ten PowerPoint slides: Very Brief Overview
- Profile by SU Global: Jonathan Kolber – On Building New Societies | The SU Global Community
- Complete book: http://www.acelebrationsociety.com/
If one reads the five pages, the ten slides, and the FAQ page, that is a good introduction to the core concepts. For a detailed roadmap, including the relationship of AIs to Celebration Societies, here is a 21-minute Keynote address to the Million AI Startups Group in Silicon Valley
SEE ALSO: a podcast interview on Imac Zambrana’s Chameleons series, hosted by Apple. For most purposes, it substitutes for reading the book: http://www.acelebrationsociety.com/finally-a-podcast-substituting-for-the-book/