In the sociology literature it was observed that modern societies are effected by the burnout problem. If a burnout doesn't effect a single individual but a larger group, it's called a burnout epidemic. That means, that the situation is out of control and the question is how to handle the stress level of the group.
A naive assumption is, that the problem of stress, burnout and burnout epidemic will disappear without external intervention and that in the future, the tasks for the individual will become easier to solve, but not more complicated. A look into the reality shows, that since the advent of the Internet and a demanding complexity in the macro economy, the problems will become bigger but never smaller. That means, that future societies will be effected more by the stress problem, but not less.
The good news is, that an answer to the situation is available. It was first introduced for the software industry but can be adapted to other domains as well. The answer is to transfer existing processes into Open processes. Instead of creating proprietary software the idea is write open source software. Instead of creating paywall protected academic papers the idea is to publish a paper as Open Access. And in contrast to manage a society as closed society the better idea is to establish a open society culture.
But what does the term Open means in reality? At foremost it has to do with a different role model between consumer and producer of a good. Open Source software is from an economic standpoint an example for a consumer first ideology. The consumer which is the end user of the software, gets the latest security updates, the most advanced software and he doesn't has to pay anything for it. All the Debian users who have installed the software on their PC never pay something in return. They get only the latest linux kernel, the LaTeX tool and the powerful gimp graphics program and they have to provide nothing in exchange. The same case is true for the OpenAccess ecosystem, in which the enduser can read as many high quality pdf papers in Google Scholar without paying a single cent.
On the other hand, somebody has to produce all these good. The OpenSource software has to be written and a pdf paper too. The interesting point is, that this problem is up to the single producer and isn't managed by a company.
Today, software industry and academic content creation are the only domains in which the term Open was introduced. In all the other domains of economy, for example in logistics, retail industry and in the medical sector the paradigm is focussed on the classical closed economy model. Closed economy means, that that the consumer of a good has to pay the price, and the producer of the good gets a monthly salary. There is a reason why open source is available since the 1980s, while Open logistics not. Because software can be distributed over the Internet, but logistics services not. With so called telerobotics this can be changed. Suppose there is a truck which can be controlled from remote. There is no need that the driver is located physically in the truck, but everybody who has access to the internet is able to control the truck. Under such a contraints, it's possible to manage the task of cargo transportation as a game. Very similar to writing software it can be handled with the open paradigm. From the consumers perspective the situation is pleasant. Suppose a consumer has a need that the load is transportated from a to b. Similar to all Open services, he never pays a price for the task, but he asks if somebody is able to do it for free.
This sounds a bit uncommon, so let us go a step backward into the domain of the software industry. The current situation for endusers who are familiar with Linux is, that they are searching for a piece of software. For example a file manager. And the additional criteria is, that this software needs a GPL license. All the proprietary file manager are ignored by the consumer. He defines the GNU license as mandatory.
Now its easier to imagine what future consumers of logistics services will do. They are defining as a criteria, that the transportation needs to be handled without any costs. It's up to the opponent how he can reduce his costs downto zero. If somebody isn't able to do so, he doesn't get the task.
Today's economy isn't powerful enough for the Open society ideology. If somebody is asking for a truck for free, he won't find a single example. But with advanced technology and especially with remote control of machines it's possible to realize this ideology in the future. A possible toy example is a cheap drone which is controlled over the internet, and the advanced feature is, that the consumer doesn't has to pay for the service, but it's financed with advertisement or something else. Similar how Open Source and Open Access is financed.
Open society means to extend the term Open Source, Open Access and Open Science to the society in general. That means, that all services which are offered are provided without costs to anybody. This sounds a bit like socialism, but it's the opposite. It can be described as an advanced from of capitalism in which the stress level is increased.
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