Some thoughts about the Wild Idea Preserve.



Topics
The whole idea is ideas. - Some initial ideas about how we're going to play.
Something in the middle. - A brief thought space with some initial targets.


The whole idea is ideas.
Jonathan Riehl


The Wild Idea Preserve's objective is to provide and encourage an atmosphere where ideas can thrive in their natural habitat. The meta-idea is the creation of a non-trivial, self aware, system of thought. The non-trivial part involves the creation of something that has a life of its own, something that is capable of surviving beyond its current membership and able to spawn derivative but unique systems of thought. It will be self aware in that its membership will be aware of the organization as a living, evolving system. One way of putting it is that the preserve will strive to be an idea engine, doing work by moving information from high concentrations (the human mind) to an idea sink (the human environment.)

One method of providing the substrate for such effort is is via the development of a distributed project knowledge base. However, what is more important than the actual implementation of such a knowledge base is capturing the "memes" behind the projects. Since the definition of meme is still contested, we will simply attempt to capture ideas and topics of interest. The ideas contribute to the preserve via a dynamic process.  Every individual has a unique way of self expression, and therefore there is no one process for sharing ideas.  However, process is driven by a set of principles.  With this in mind, the Wild Idea Preserve should act with the following principles in mind:


Something in the middle.

So, here is a little diagram that maps where we'd like to head in our understanding of life, the universe, and iced tea's popularity in the Southern states of the U.S.  More write up to come.

Last modified 1/21/2000, jriehl.