IBM’s “Smart Planet” project is “a
step forward in a backward moving model”; it is a step sideward.
First of all, the goal of the
project, as shown in their website, is to increase the Planet’s efficiency by increasing value, reducing costs and
reduce waste of products and services. This efficiency is achieved by a systemic
approach; by identifying and organizing the connections between different
sectors (transportation, health care, commerce, business and products &
services). In this approach they pretend to predict consumer behavior in the
above mentioned sectors in order to “map” the modus operandi of a society. Once
they have mapped it, they can articulate an improvement on the model, which
will be coordinated by a centralized power (such as the city hall).
A say that it is “a step forward
in a backward moving model” because at the same time that they are realizing
the systemic way that our society work; they are not changing our failing societal
models. What I mean is that, to achieve a balanced society as they want through
their project, the improvement should be applied to every city so that the
entire world is really connected. However, our present economic model relies on
having underdeveloped communities: in order to have cheap products and
services, we need to have cheap labor, low taxes, and cheap raw materials;
therefore, it needs people working with unfair salaries and exploitation.
Therefore the project aims in an
incomplete systemic approach, in consider a city as a closed system, and, even
if it consider the connection to other cities involved in the initiative, it
does not takes into consideration the entire world as a system of systems.
As
we are having many initiatives to reach a sustainable society and, the scope of
the IBM’s project does not aim on this goal; my question is: What is the
adaptive capacity of their project? If their initiative is applied on a city,
how can his city adapt to new models of societal settings without collapsing?
Is their model, at all, adaptive?
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