Looking
back at Progress
Abstract: Optionality
Magazine has now transformed into Optionality
Discussions, an online WEBforum. This is the
final and concluding article in the series of
magazines issued monthly by Quintessence from
January 1991 to December 1998. This article looks
at how much progress has been made over that
period.
A. The first
issue of Optionality Magazine
The first issue of
Optionality Magazine was released in January 1991
and contained the article Where Liberty stops
. . . and Optionality continues. This
article explained that optionality differs from
concepts such as liberty, freedom, human rights,
independence and competition, in that those
concepts typically want governments to enact
certain legislation, whereas optionality rejects
government entirely.
Another article in that
first issue described how progress in postal
services is hampered by the fact that postal
services are typically provided by a government
monopoly. The article mentioned the example of
people stamping a barcode on mail, representing
the account number of their credit cards. This
way, people could put the mail in an automatic
mailbox that weighed the letter, measured its
dimensions and read the destination, whatever was
necessary to
work out the cost of mailing. Such a mailbox could
read the barcode, while allowing customers to
swipe their credit cards and enter their PIN, thus
facilitating automatic electronic payment.
Well, here we are all still
queuing up at the Post Office to have our letters
weighed and to buy stamps. So, what has changed
over the period of almost a decade?
B. Changes in
Society
While postal services
have not changed much at first glance, many
things have changed in the way people communicate
and pay for services. Electronic mail has
thrived, partially because conventional postal
services are so restrictively operated by
government monopolies. More money is now
exchanged electronically by global money traders
than all the money that governments hold in their
coffers. Progress in computing and
telecommunications has resulted in dramatic
changes.
These changes will
eventually make that such services will shake off
the government monopolies as barriers in their
further development. As predicted by DonParagon,
these changes are to a large extent inevitable.
Governments may try to slow them down, but in the
end, this merely means that subsequent changes
will take place more drastically, rather than
gradually.
C. How about
Ideological Change?
Much has changed since
the early 1990s. Communism has collapsed and few
people will try and turn back the clock. But few
new ideologies have emerged.
Libertarianism is one of
the ideologies that has grown in many places. But
few people have drawn the conclusions mentioned
in the article Where Liberty stops . . . and
Optionality continues, back in 1991.
Anarchy is also growing
in popularity, but as explained in many article
in Optionality Magazine, anarchy shares the
weaknesses with freedom and liberty that it is
rather empty, even negative in concentrating on
government, without much suggestions as to what
should come instead of government control.
So, it seems like
ideologically, little has changed and Optionality
Magazine has made little or no impact.
D. A Change in
Medium
Importantly, Optionality
Magazine has over the years managed to describe
DonParagon's Vision of the Future clearer and clearer. By adding
the lyrics of many of DonParagon's songs,
Optionality Magazine has become one of the most
important sources of discussion of DonParagon's
work.
But the above-mentioned
changes have equally affected magazines and, as a
result, Optionality Magazine has transformed from
a paper-based monthly issue into an online
WEBforum where people can enter into discussions
from all over the world, without being held back
by postal services.
While Quintessence still
plans to release new paper issues of Optionality
Magazine from time to time, this is only likely to
occur for special occasions, This change is a logical
step, in line with what DonParagon has been
saying all the time. In fact, DonParagon has
often argued that the nature of Optionality
Magazine, in which text inevitably takes on the
appearance of a scientific analysis or lecture,
is incompatible with what he tries to express.
While Optionality Discussions is a vast
improvement, it still remains largely text-based.
Therefore, one can expect a further
transformation to take place in future, towards
more audio-visual communication. In fact,
Optionality Discussions already allows for icons,
pictures, audio and video to be added, be it
mostly as attachements. Apart from this, Quintessence
Consultancy has conducted many face-to-face meetings,
conferences and conversations in which paper-based
content was only used for reference.
D. Conclusion
After discussing many
issues at length for a period of almost a decade
in Optionality Magazine, Quintessence has become even
more convinced of virtues of its method (i.e. Comparative
Analysis) and its preferred model (i.e. DonParagon's Vision of the Future).
Optionality Magazine may not have had a large subscription
base, in fact few people have ever read it at all. But by
making earlier articles available
on the Optionality Network, roughly as
that have appeared in Optionality Magazine, people can
see the consistency in Quintessence's consultancy work.
And of course, the articles still provide the best reference
source on the topic optionality!
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