My Interest In the Givotovsky Project

[Mark Lizar]

Nick and I had many conversations about the power of people to control
there own information. We both met at the first IIW in Mountain View
Computer Museum in 2006 and we connected almost instantly. It quickly
became clear that we were on to similar concepts of control and
empowerement. Both of us intrinsically knew that people innately have
more control than was apparent.

Myself, I became very interested in what Nick was working on and we
both talked about how the lack of Identity Trust was a big barrier to
reaching the potential we have as a species. So with this
understanding in mind Nick agreed to be a co-chair of Identity Trust
working group at Identity Commons.

I have always been ranting and raving about the potential of personal
intelligence, a potential that can address everything from
commoditizing our downstream information (paying people to be more
intelligent) to addressing the most pressing issues we all face as a
species.

The idea of controlling and commoditzing our downstream information we
saw as a way to give financial benefit for people to control and
engage with organisations we share information with. On the other
hand the idea of commoditizing this information also was a scary idea
as we could imagine that it is a way to further enslave people to
capitalism and commercialising precious community and social space by
institutions.

In this way we wondered if a lack of identity trust might be a good
thing. Today, I am working on transparency and the level/quality of
notice that can be used to make a kind of identity trust that doesnt
enslave the human race. I miss Nick and especially these types of
chats with Nick, thanks for the space to voice this. Hopefully, this
list will reignite some of these great topics.

Mark