September 26, 2006
PROTESTOR:
the best thing to happen to activism since oppression itself
Protester™ is a free platform for developing, tracking, and valuating real-world social applications. Protester™'s project incubator allows activists to propose actions, meet and collaborate with others, and measure the success or failure of their work. Protester is designed for those who understand the need for creative approaches to the world's social justice issues.
How is real social progress achieved? How can social actors tell if they are making any progress? While value-creation remains simple for the economist, the artist is plagued with smoke and mirrors. Worse yet, the rise and fall of economies is at best a poor indicator of the happiness of society's cultural producers. For those people caught in the vague uncharted territory outside of business politics, art, dissent, community, or terror; there are clearly other standards. Is culture for everyone? It turns out that the gap between the "haves" and "have-nots" is just as great whether we're talking about economic capital, or "cultural" capital. Yet, the concept of Cultural Capital; - a quantitative measure of cultural value - has not been sufficiently explored as tool for evaluating the activism industry.
By logging in to Protester, activists access tools which enable them to see real time results of their political action. There's no reason to sit on the couch in frustration, watching carefully crafted messages twisted into knots by the media. By adding projects to the Incubator, networking with users, and maturing their Social Applications, Protesters gain skills and develop projects while growing their Cultural Capital. Watered-down legislation constructed by the nonprofit industrial complex becomes irrelevant in the face of the DIY direct action of Protester. Time spent bickering with other activists or groveling for foundation money can be maximized by cultivating a much more renewable resource: Cultural Capital.
Projects, matured in the Incubator, may graduate into fully realized Social Applications. These apps are valuated in part by our new RTMARK Cultural Capital Index. To help encourage creative apps, we have created a tool to identify Intangible, or foreseeable future events that present an opportunity for a viral critique or clever reaction. We have also created a marketplace for the exchange of futures - speculative wagers of the future value of an app. Buying and selling futures allows activists to grow their Cultural Capital while indicating support or predicted success for a particular Social Application™. In the process, Protesters can send messages to other users, add collaborators, and discuss private projects. Activists see their social network grow in less time than it takes to make a maltov cocktail!
Our progressive ecosystem allows the development of knowledge products for dismantling corporate memes and detourning conventional ideologies. Protester is the best thing to happen to activism since oppression itself. [via artificialeyes.tv reBlog]
Posted by jo at September 26, 2006 04:54 PM
