Clique Space(TM) and the argument for regional, rural and remote economic sustainability.

A friend of mine quizzed me on the utility of a system like Clique Space in relation to non-metropolitan economic sustainability. The argument is a corollary of that earlier post.

• Clique Space would provide an environment in which physical is replaced with virtual collocation. Contributors in this environment would be earning an income commensurate with any other physically collocated contributor, and hence, would be bringing this money in to the community where they live. This money would flow through their community, in turn fostering wealth, jobs and the opportunity for others who possess skills that don't readily lend themselves to the same degree of autonomy to stay where they may prefer to reside.

Currently, the persistent trend has been away from this ideal; people are coming together which is putting pressure on others to do likewise. This pressure creates a kind of a gravitation that interferes with the wishes of those who respond negatively to this growing stimulus to be physically bounded together.

The malaise created by what in many respects is a kind of social claustrophobia becomes, if reversed with the help of a system like Clique Space, a means by which an environment of economic self-sustainability might flow to regional, rural and remote communities and individuals. Money starts flowing toward rather than away from people who wish to keep themselves at a distance, because these people have greater latitude to contribute in occupations that derive incomes, yet without having to consider what the greater loss is: to give up the prospect of an income, or to forego the solitude they desire.

An open question for people to consider.

I have a PCT patent, and this patent is due to expire on 15 July 2010. I applied for this patent because I decided that a concept, which is very simple, may have eluded the minds of 6.5 billion others.

Now, my question is this: If my idea is so simple, why hasn't anyone had a go at it before I applied for my patent?

If anyone can show me that my assumption that no one has done anything like this before I applied for my patent is wrong, then please point this out to me. Alternatively, if anyone out there might be in a position to help me implement it, then approach me.

You have until 15 July when my PCT lapses. There will be no prospect of ownership after this date because if you try, your competitor will point out to you this blog, my lapsed PCT, and all the other stuff I have published and assert that the knowledge is in the public domain.

Get cracking people. What else can I do but disclose the concept publicly. It appears as though the concept is mine. To assert this, and remove the possibility of anyone else making a claim, I can do little else than publish, and invite others to help me realise it because I don't have the means to realise the concept in its entirety myself.

Clique Space(TM) and the self.

From what I've put here, my Facebook page, and elsewhere, it can be seen that Clique Space defines something that has thus far been a hard concept to pin down: the self.

Anyone (any thing) that wishes to assert the quality of selfness in a Clique Space does so through an Account. Anyone who possesses an account asserts this quality through a Connection to a Client Device and an Affiliation to an Account Profile (some type of group-role representation). The Connection and Affiliation are associated through an Active Affiliation before the Client Device can be used on a Clique Space.

So, what is a self? On a philosophical angle, I don't ultimately know. However, if approached from a pragmatic angle, one might think of it as the origin of one's actions, and that which is ultimately responsible for these actions. In this case, I have a self because I assert this quality to you. Hence, in order for me to do this, I perceive you as another self to whom I assert my quality of selfness. I therefore perceive us as being two distinct selves, and would therefore expect that if you wished to use Clique Space, you would like to have an Account because this is the way one asserts that they are more than just a device to a Clique Space - or more factually, to other selves from a Clique Space.

So, if you want an Account, then you are a self.

Still, what is there to prevent you from having more than one Account? I suppose very little. However, in the "Public" Clique Space, people may want to know that you are who you say you are; that you're not two or more different people at different times (or even simultaneously) whenever it suits you. No one would accept this, and to masquerade as two or more different identities, changing them at your whim would inevitably erode the definition of your self to yourself as well as to others. At least it would to me. Clique Space has a few solutions, but I'll talk about one of my favourites...

Clique Spaces can be federated. In the public Clique Space, anyone can grab any old Account and start generating Client Device activity with it. On the other hand, a proprietary or government administered Clique Space could offer stronger authentication so to guarantee that people who are using it are the people that the government or proprietary organisation intends.

To offer people a level of assurance that I am who you say I am, I might Connect a Client Device to two Clique Spaces: the public Clique Space that everyone uses (a place that might not have strong authentication mechanisms - unless one is willing to pay for them) and to a Clique Space administered by an Australian federal government authority. Obviously, I would obtain these Connections under the same Account.

This Australian Government Clique Space would be a federated neighbour of the public Clique Space, and anyone on the public Clique Space might be able to see that my devices were also logged on to the Australian one, so people could see that my identity was endorsed by the Australian government. I would perhaps be providing my Australian citizenship to others as an endorsement of the Connections to Client Devices I possessed on the public Clique Space. I, for one, like this idea.

I also like the idea of remote authentication and "Connection Limbo". A device (a Client Device) cannot be seen by other users on Clique Space unless the Connection has been Activated. One Activates a connection by associating the Connection with an Affiliation in the process described at the start of this blog entry. A Client Device that has an inactive Connection is in a kind of a limbo state.

Now, a device that is in a limbo state might not authenticate directly. The Clique Space within which a Connection has been obtained might instead, notify another Client Device that the Account holder can authenticate against, and request that the Account holder validate their credentials on this Client Device to authenticate the Connection of the first Client Device. If authentication succeeds on this other Client Device, the first Client Device's connection is Activated along with the appropriate Affiliation. If authentication fails, the first Client Device is disconnected from the Clique Space. Now, there might be a single device through which authentication might be given, and hence, a single and hence simple way to authenticate every Connection to a Clique Space for any Account holder.

Even Connections may not have to be requested by a Client Device. A user could instruct a Clique Space to issue a Connection to a device, and this device might respond in any way it is programmed to respond to Connections from Clique Spaces.

Using Clique Space(TM) to Support Regional, Rural and Remote Sustainability

Two days ago, I had a conversation with someone from the university where I live, and they identified Clique Space as having qualities that make the concept suitable for enabling rural and remote economic sustainability. This is something I have believed for some time; in providing a system that allows the integration of any device into an organised collaborative activity, Clique Space is a vital tool of the telework enabling puzzle.

Until now, society has relied on collocation to achieve cooperative activity necessary for many organised tasks. Such activity has historically been achieved by providing a central business hub, and locating necessary resources as close as possible within this centre both to maximise the speed of response to changing conditions, and to minimise the handling time to products as they move through a process.

Today, factory floor automation is reducing the necessity for humans to be directly involved in the production of physical goods, yet society still relies on these established mechanisms of collocation to engage in activity that is largely divested from the necessity of physical collocation. Common occupations have largely shirked physical activity. The blacksmiths, farm hands, wood turners, mill and factory workers of 100 years ago have either been made completely redundant, or are well on their way to being replaced by mechanised, robotic devices. Today, occupations such as information workers, secretaries, office hands, and other vocations that involve more of one's intellectual discipline than physical stamina are common place. Basically, people would rather be thinking and planning than making and doing.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I like it - thinking and planning is more engaging and more self-determining than is making. Thinking and planning is what comes before making and doing, and it is a normal extension of human nature to desire the former two things over the latter two. Thinking and planning also make for better living due to the reduced strain placed on the body, and therefore the prospect of a longer existence in which one doesn't have to battle an existence where chronic pain, fatigue, injury, or any combination of these are factors that result from physical labour.

Now, should these goals be reserved only for the city dwellers? Has such a question been asked of those who live elsewhere? While it isn't always productive to generalise, I would think the desires of everyone, whether from an urban centre or not, are in this case, generally directed away from repetitive activity; the desire to move away from repetitive physical activity is generally the stronger aversion.

In addition to what we try to move away from, are also those desires we are attracted to. We desire company of the familiar and the familial. Many (I would say most) people desire constancy over dynamism. In saying this, I have no wish to interfere with those who desire the converse; in fact, there is no reason for anyone to fear the diminution of a lifestyle in which change is a continuing factor by recognising that this lifestyle is neither for everyone, nor even for specific people all of the time.

So there might have been a time when humanity might have done well to physically collocate. Personal experience indicates that people are being drawn together by forces that are an anachronistic vestige of an era now past. Although I might not banish coming together on occasion for the esprit de corps of one's colleagues, no "special sauce" that executive or operational managers think might be wrung out of their plebs will yield any ultimate social or economic good from the continuing practice of physically collocating people in the bygone age of factory floor management. None at all.

People who do not live in metropolitan centres are being wrenched out of their communities by anachronism. Clique Space is my answer to this in that as long as one can coordinate, control, and audit activity over devices involved in modern human mediated processes, one might yet be able to choose where (and maybe the when) one gets involved in such collaborative endeavours. I believe such opportunity will enable people to stay in their community, and receive consideration in occupations as would befit someone who did something similar in a metropolitan office block who was subject to an anachronistic management structure.

Bugger Big Brother. The age old maxim to work (whether in an office block or from one's home) remains: getting the work done is usually prerequisite for guaranteeing one's continued employment. The totalitarian practice of huddling people together in an office block for a minimum 40 hours per week is not effective in guaranteeing productivity. This is actually far less effective than letting the individual determine an individual level of contribution in accordance with the individual's circumstances.

Clique Space(TM) and Silicon Valley Bullshit.

My prime motivation for coming up with something like Clique Space was that in no way was I going to continue to participate further in the software development industry if my participation required becoming a corporate nomad to serve the interests of a management structure that was pathologically attached to the notion of physical collocation.

Together sucks. It really does suck arse. I would rather be getting a pension than participating in your life of corporate nomadicity; wedded to my work so that I can pay off a credit card that affords me nothing more than the ability to accrue a debt that is serviced by the work that I am wedded to.

I have talked to people, and they say to me that in order to promote my idea, I should consider going to Silicon Valley to give it a hearing. You can hear my idea from me now. I am talking about it right now. Anyone on this planet can start talking to me.

I will not be pedalling my idea from anywhere else on this planet unless I get commitment that I will get something from the inconvenience first, and that doing so will not leave me stranded anywhere else on this planet. If it seems that others would rather wait for my patent to lapse than to help me register it world wide, I will frustrate and confound you all when I register my patent in the US and Europe.

In all other respects, I hope to be philosophical.

Clique Space(TM), a social nervous system, and moral good.

For those who might be following this blog, a question that I have been asking myself is with a system like Clique Space, is it possible to create a system that may express an evolving degree of nervous complexity? If such a concept might be so powerful, then what responsibility might be incumbent on its inventor to offer advice that a system like Clique Space may have undesirable moral consequences?

Firstly, I have stated before that the use of an invention leaves the control of the inventor the moment it is publicly disclosed. I decided that I would publicly disclose Clique Space when I applied for my patent. Now that it is patented, and I have subsequently disclosed it, I feel that I have limited responsibility of its use; such things are now the responsibility of the society in which I live, and like everyone else, I am subject to these decisions.

Now, on the technical side, I think Clique Space is a specification for a nervous system because one connects devices to it to make it function. Devices (Client Devices) are anything that can connect to a Clique Space, including the Clique Space Agent Devices - which may be thought of as the individual neurons that make up the nervous system of a Clique Space - themselves. Not only can a Client Device be something that one person might use to talk to another, but they can be things that might not be collaborative; things like cars (mentioned in my previous post) television sets, golf balls, robotic devices of any type, etc.

So, we have Client Devices that connect to a cluster of Agent Devices (themselves Client Devices) which comprise a Clique Space. The human body is comprised of cells that make up muscles and organs of various types that connect to a special type of cell (called a neuron) of which large numbers of these collectively function as the body's central nervous system. This has to be more than a trivial coincidence.