Virtue Systems

Concept by Sheldon Renan, part of his Netness philosophy

Description

Sheldon Renan:

"Among other things, netness has to be generated by something that has greater functionality, granularity and aggressive mediation through computation than any ecosystem one would think of. I imagine this to provide a more tightly woven computational fabric of many services that are often associated with technologies like sensor nets, pervasive computing and "secret services."

It will probably manifest itself first in environments for the elderly and chronically ill. It will initially be implemented in small more easily controllable environments - a room, a car, a house, a property - where many heterogeneous technologies and networks can collaborate to provide a "whole world system" capable of mediating and optimizing every situation rapidly and autonomously at one level. But if new challenges appeared that crossed into certain boundary conditions or heightened risk, they would be able to recognize immediately when additional oversight and/or help was needed -- and connect with that in close to real-time.

For lack of anything else, I call these "virtue systems" because they harness as many heterogeneous systems and networks and technologies as are needed to assure safety and optimized outcomes for their “direct customers”.

Once small virtue systems are initiated, the size of area covered by virtue systems, the complexity of the systems, the granularity of events, the number of technologies and networks, and the implications they can deal with will all increase and multiply over time. (This assumes policies, rules and governance can focus on a greater good, as well as assuring individual safety and opportunity — and not be hacked for greed, ego, politics, vendor wars, et cetera.)

As different virtue systems evolve, one assumes that they will begin to intersect and overlap. The increased quality of information and speed of accurate, multidimensional feedback –- along with raising deep questions of policy and governance – will hopefully generate wisdom. (This is another, more complex discussion.)

Gradually the number of services, the seamlessness of their integration and the growing transparency of their effects will make virtue systems appear as if they were a natural part of our physical world. The area and populations they support will broaden. All of these things will imperceptibly extend the virtual digital on-line world further and deeper into the real world.

Another way to see it is that -- over time -- the two worlds will become one.

This is the emerging paradigm which we can call netness."