12.6 Open Everything, Making, and Citizen Science
265
Last but not least, I must stress that living in a thriving society, in an age of
peace and prosperity, is not just about having access to material resources. There
are also a lot of “immaterial things” that matter, for example, social capital such
as trust, reputation, solidarity, etc. I would, therefore, like to promote again the idea
of creating a “Culturepedia”
91 or, as some people would say, running a “cultural
genome project”. The idea is as follows: Every culture is made up of all sorts of
traditions and success principles, many of which have been invented to cope with
particular problems. We should collect and document these specific practices and
success principles, how they work, and what they are good for—namely, in a special
Wikipedia.
By making these mechanisms explicit and by describing also the side effects
and interaction effects (e.g. with solution approaches of other cultures), it would be
possible to use them more consciously. Such a Culturepedia could certainly help us
to solve current problems, by applying and combining the best solutions and success
principles for the local situation at hand.
A Culturepedia would also help us to build “social guides”, i.e. personal digital
assistants that make other cultures better understandable and help us to navigate
them (imagine something like a “cultural adapter”).
92 Altogether, social and cultural
diversity can be a great asset. A similar observation has been made for biological
diversity, which we have learned to protect. So, why fight against other cultures? We
should rather learn to make better use of the social and cultural diversity the world
is offering us!
12.7 Open Source Urbanism 93
Cities are the places where the engagement of citizens can have the greatest impact.
The most livable cities manage to create opportunities to unfold the talents of
many different people and cultures and to catalyse fruitful interactions among them.
Opportunities for participation and co-creation are key for success.
Alexandros Washburn
94 said about the design process of New York City that he
could not control anything, but influence everything; successful urban design requires
the right combination of top-down and bottom-up involvement. It is therefore essential that urban development involves all stakeholders, including citizens. Vauban,
95
a quarter of the city of Freiburg, Germany, is a good example for this. The city
91 See “Democratic Platforms” in this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-dem
ocracy-survive-big-data-and-artificial-intelligence/.
92 Interaction Support Processor (August 13, 2015) see https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/det
ail.jsf?docId=WO2015118455.
93 This section also contains materials from the joint manuscript “Open Source Urbanism: Beyond
Smart Cities” that Sergei Zhilin and I have written some time ago, see https://futurict.blogspot.com/
2018/11/open-source-urbanism-beyond-smart-cities.html.
94 Washburn [38].
95 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauban,_Freiburg.
265
Last but not least, I must stress that living in a thriving society, in an age of
peace and prosperity, is not just about having access to material resources. There
are also a lot of “immaterial things” that matter, for example, social capital such
as trust, reputation, solidarity, etc. I would, therefore, like to promote again the idea
of creating a “Culturepedia”
91 or, as some people would say, running a “cultural
genome project”. The idea is as follows: Every culture is made up of all sorts of
traditions and success principles, many of which have been invented to cope with
particular problems. We should collect and document these specific practices and
success principles, how they work, and what they are good for—namely, in a special
Wikipedia.
By making these mechanisms explicit and by describing also the side effects
and interaction effects (e.g. with solution approaches of other cultures), it would be
possible to use them more consciously. Such a Culturepedia could certainly help us
to solve current problems, by applying and combining the best solutions and success
principles for the local situation at hand.
A Culturepedia would also help us to build “social guides”, i.e. personal digital
assistants that make other cultures better understandable and help us to navigate
them (imagine something like a “cultural adapter”).
92 Altogether, social and cultural
diversity can be a great asset. A similar observation has been made for biological
diversity, which we have learned to protect. So, why fight against other cultures? We
should rather learn to make better use of the social and cultural diversity the world
is offering us!
12.7 Open Source Urbanism 93
Cities are the places where the engagement of citizens can have the greatest impact.
The most livable cities manage to create opportunities to unfold the talents of
many different people and cultures and to catalyse fruitful interactions among them.
Opportunities for participation and co-creation are key for success.
Alexandros Washburn
94 said about the design process of New York City that he
could not control anything, but influence everything; successful urban design requires
the right combination of top-down and bottom-up involvement. It is therefore essential that urban development involves all stakeholders, including citizens. Vauban,
95
a quarter of the city of Freiburg, Germany, is a good example for this. The city
91 See “Democratic Platforms” in this article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-dem
ocracy-survive-big-data-and-artificial-intelligence/.
92 Interaction Support Processor (August 13, 2015) see https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/det
ail.jsf?docId=WO2015118455.
93 This section also contains materials from the joint manuscript “Open Source Urbanism: Beyond
Smart Cities” that Sergei Zhilin and I have written some time ago, see https://futurict.blogspot.com/
2018/11/open-source-urbanism-beyond-smart-cities.html.
94 Washburn [38].
95 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauban,_Freiburg.