Professor Peter Cruse

[Dildo Argentino]

This is the guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kruse (not a very good Wikipedia page, but still).

This is what first caught my eye (it was put up on the tube by the Hungarian Pirate Party): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neh34iKn3vI

As it is in German with Hungarian subtitles, I've translated it into English. I caught one serious mistranslation in the Hungarian (I don't speak German), I'd be grateful if any German speakers pointed out any others, if there are any:

"So let's say that first of all the continuous hindering of the organisation of human networks must be given up.

The problem of the hierarchy is that it wants to constrain people and make them predictable. Networks, on the other hand, are, by their very nature, structurally unpredictable. So halting the hindering of the organisation of networks means nothing less than giving up a certain amount of power. That's the problem of hierarchy. 

In actual fact, we have been living in a tradition of preventing the organisation of networks for centuries. That's our problem. Supporting the organisation of networks simply requires stopping preventing it. It requires nothing more, because people naturally organise themselves in networks. Except that it's not all that simple, because it requires the relinquishing of power, and who on earth gives up power willingly? Who is happy to face a situation that they are unable to keep in hand? After all, "we are managers", right? "We keep things under control!"

Yet no man alive can control networks. And that is a good thing. Networks are solution-oriented systems, which have their own, individual dynamics. That's the reason we are forced to organise networks, because the dynamic and the complexity of the external world requires us to do so. We can simply follow Ashby's law: he already stated in the 50's that any highly complex and dynamic system of problems will need a solution that is at least as complex and dynamic,  otherwise it will not work.

So if, in an extremely complex world that is organising itself into networks, we are unable to preserve the freedom to organise networks, we will also, unfortunately, lose the solution. I realise that this sounds very simple, but it is an open intervention in the horizon of power, which makes it very difficult."

(The Ashby he refers to is this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Ross_Ashby - I see he was mentioned once before on PD, http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,17548.0.html, but that was 5 years ago.)

Then I found a seven-part interview with this guy Kruse in English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv6qLzKW7zs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQBj-3JBwQ0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIbt6ruxBSg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnAjynMp5Lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-aoElig--c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaZyRozzNMA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If7l7q7nFSA

Quite apart from the amusing Dr Feelgood Strangelove (my brain ain't what it used to be) accent, I think his spiel is interesting. And inspires hope.