Network Society Project

A new technology based vision for the next phase of

economic and social organization
David Orban
Table of Contents
Introduction
A set of simultaneous technologies is growing exponentially, with the common feature of
being decentralized, and organized in a network. This contrasts with the centralized and
hierarchical organization of today's traditional society and its basic functions. The shift from
the old to the new structure will subject the Nation State to an unprecedented pressure. The
Network Society project creates a vision and analytical tools to allow individuals, enterprises
and the society at large to deal positively with this unstoppable change.
An inclusive and open collaboration is necessary to achieve the goals of the Network Society.
Consequently this manifesto and all materials developed by the Network Society Project,
unless otherwise noted, are released under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
v4, September 2014

Introduction 1
Objectives 2
Pillars of Change 2
Technology Services And Their Disruptors 2
1. Energy 2
2. Manufacturing 2
3. Food 3
4. Health 3
5. Education 3
6. Finance and Entrepreneurship 3
7. Security 4
8. Policymaking 4
Selected Talks And Presentations 4
Contact Information 5
Change log 5
Copyright notice 5
Network Society Project v4 1
Preparing for the coming social infrastructure phase change
Objectives
The Network Society project aims to:
1. analyze the reasons for change,
2. teach its nature and its technological basis,
3. collect and monitor the dynamic indicators on its development and
4. stimulate the evolution of individual behavior, business strategies and the adoption of
policies consistent with its nature.
Pillars of Change
What are these technologies and what is the kind of change they represent in detail? The
eight pillars of the Network Society, the point of arrival of the phase change of our social
organization, are the basic functions of the Nation State now, listed here with the
technologies that are revolutionizing and decentralizing them:
energy, solar panels
manufacturing, 3D printing
food, plantlabs and vertical gardens, 3d printing of meat
health, Quantied Self
education, MOOCs (massive access to online courses)
nance, Bitcoin and mathematical currencies
security, trust platforms like AirBnB
policymaking, open data and direct democracy
The Network Society Project involves activities with multiplying effects in ever-widening circles
of people and organizations. Represents a set of tools for individuals, businesses and
policymakers for the design and implementation of strategies compatible with an accelerating
future!
Technology Services And Their Disruptors
Below is a more in-depth description the eight pillars and how they are transformed from
hierarchical and centralized activities to distributed networks.
1. Energy
Renewable energy solutions, spreading rapidly rst of all through photovoltaic solar panels,
are represented by a decentralized installation organization, as opposed to centralized energy
production based on coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear.
2. Manufacturing
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The technology of 3D printing allows to accelerate the design, development and production
of increasingly sophisticated and varied objects. Contrary to traditional production systems,
increasing the complexity of the object created does not increase the production costs. The
added value of a complex object that performs complex functions is then accrued by its
designer and not by the manufacturing process and therefore the owner of the means of
production.
3. Food
Agribusiness green revolutions have allowed us to avoid the most dire predictions of the
Club of Rome from the 70s that included, in case of inaction, global famine. The challenge
today is to go beyond this and new solutionshydroponics, urban and vertical gardening,
and container-based plantlabs with crops lit 22 hours a day, which do not require pesticides
transform agriculture from an activity whose output is proportional to the area occupied to
one that grows with the volume. It is then possible to feed a growing population while
increasing food quality, with a radically smaller environmental impact.
4. Health
Monitoring the state of personal health, with mobile apps and increasingly sophisticated
sensors, makes customized preventative medicine available to everyone.This is a
fundamental contrast to the traditional focus on illness and the disease and its treatment in
hospitals.
5. Education
The opportunities of modern society are open to all, with barriers to entry that get
progressively lower, as long as knowledge is accessible and the ability to put it into practice
increases. The schools are in chronically and increasingly late in developing curricula that
prepare their students to play an active and useful role in society. The online learning
revolution challenges schools at all levels, and universities, disrupting their role and the
providing of all the necessary tools for a customized continuing education, driven by passion
and value.
6. Finance and Entrepreneurship
The mathematical invention of the Blockchain, and its implementation with Bitcoin has
revolutionized the world of payments. But even more generally, the explosion of innovative
cryptocurrencies and their applications, offers an alternative to central banks, nancial
institutions and their products and services. Decentralized, viral, accessible to all, the new
world of Bitcoin promises solutions that lead to the emancipation of the individual, and to the
increase of creative entrepreneurial initiative. We are already in the implementation phase of
insights on how notaries, legal services, and investment and startup funding can be based on
a similar algorithmic approach.
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7. Security
The exceptional nature of the war is visible by how the attention of the world immediately
focuses on the luckily few contemporary examples. External security today is not based on
traditional military forces, but it is more that of the e-borders, which are not geographically
dened, the sound practices of data management and advanced security. Internal security is
fundamentally changing: I do not know you or we have never even met? Do you want my car
or my house while I'm on vacation maybe? There is no problem! The only requirement is that
we're both on the same car sharing or apartment exchange platform and the network will
deal with the verication and reputation management in an incomparably more streamlined
and efcient manner than any police force.
8. Policymaking
Recursively, because a priori also responsible for the regulation of the activities of the other
pillars, new tools are needed to design the transparent discussion, support and
implementation of policies at local, regional, national or supranational levels. The limits of
representative democracy are evident and our accusations against the politicians are
hypocritical: they are simply human beings, faced with challenges that they often do not
understand and for whose solutions they are not suitable. New tools and platforms that
involve direct participation for increasingly large groups of the population are emerging,
putting pressure on traditional systems that are based on more opaque politics.
Selected Talks And Presentations
Immune Reactions Against The Network Society Singularity University
NASA Research Center, CA, USA, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKmCNTcUrlk
Creativity, Passion, and Innovation in Banking and Finance - H-ack Bank, H-Farm
Venice, Italy, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wieJQkqiRCA
Network Society - Login
Vilnius, Lithuania, 2014
http://www.slideshare.net/davidorban/network-society-login-2014
http://www.login.lt/conference/speakers?id=232
Human-Machine Coevolution - GALA
Miami, USA, 2013
http://www.gala-global.org/gala-2013-miami-keynote-david-orban
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The Coming Societal Phase Change - TEDx Bologna
Bologna, Italy, 2012
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Network-Society-The-Coming-Soci
Contact Information
Web http://netsoc.org
Email info@netsoc.org
Facebook facebook.com/netsocproj
Twitter twitter.com/netsocproj
Change log
v4
Updated: logo, contact information.
Added: open collaboration paragraph to Introduction, copyright notice, talk at Singularity
University.
Copyright notice
This document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You are free to:
Share copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
Adapt remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
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Attribution You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if
changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that
suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that
legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
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