Gistmass Story is a fusion of fact and fiction to raise public awareness for a worldwide, democratic, cooperative revolution of networks over hierarchies.
“Gistmass rhymes with Christmas, which embodies the same memes. The name Gistmass combines two words. Gist is the essence of a matter, and matter has mass. Hence, the meaning of Gistmass is gift culture emerges from practice of gift principles.” – UV Faust, Gistmass Story
“In the New Testament, Matthew wrote that Jesus fed five thousand men, and more women and children with ‘but five loaves and a couple of fish’ (Matthew 14:13-20). In the cleanup, twelve baskets of leftovers were collected. How He did this was not divulged. It’s open to interpretation. Did He perform a miracle and materialize more food out of thin air? I have my doubts.
“I base my own interpretation upon the folktale ‘Stone Soup’ where a stranger arrives in a town where food is in scarce supply. Everybody claims to be starving, but all appear well fed. The stranger orchestrates an end to the famine that afflicts the town. He calls for everyone to help him make a large pot of soup. They gather the largest pot in town, fill it with water, and set it on a wood fire. Then the stranger adds a ‘magic’ stone to the pot.
“When the water is simmering, he tastes the broth and says that it’s almost ready, but it could use some herbs to improve the flavor. Somebody runs away and returns with some herbs, which are added to the pot. In succession the stranger asks for vegetables, and eventually meat. At each request the hungry townspeople retrieve the requested ingredients. When the pot of soup is ready, the stranger retrieves his ‘magic’ stone from the hearty soup, and all the townspeople sit down to a feast – the ‘famine’ is ended.
“Generosity can be contagious, and hoarding can too. I suspect that it is less likely that Jesus materialized food than that He was able to bring out the best in people. Through His charisma He motivated people to give of themselves and share what little food the pilgrims brought with them. A small quantity from many contributors is a large amount. A miracle? No. Miraculous? In some sense, yes.
“Do you know of anybody, alive today, whose leadership skills can bring out the generosity in people like that? Two people come to my mind. Two leaders of the free world. The first is Richard Stallman who started the free software movement in Boston, with his launch of the GNU Project to build a free Unix like operating system.
“The second person who comes to mind is Linus Torvalds who finished the final obstacle in the GNU Project with the Linux kernel, the core component of the GNU/Linux operating system. The legendary development strategy employed by Torvalds is described in the book The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
“Cathedrals are built by hierarchical organizations, like central planning. Proprietary software development operates the same way, with managers and workers following a plan passed down from above. Progress is measured, throwing more people at a problem often slows progress, results can be all or nothing, and bad plans lead to ruin.
“However, untold exchanges are made in a bazaar, at a personal level, on a voluntary basis, like a free market economy. In the free software community, the Internet and a ‘release early, release often’ fast paced development cycle made rapid progress possible. The Internet also made collaboration practical on an unprecedented scale ‘given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.’ Results aim from one stable build to the next, with unstable builds in between when new features are integrated. Torvalds’ kernel project successfully leveraged the collective forces of multitudes, on a collaborative effort, in a short amount of time, with outstanding quality, and no money changing hands. It was a high point in human history. Something we can all be proud of.
UV searched through the play list on his iPod. “Listen to this. I even invented this arbitration scheme using songs to calm our stormy arguments. The key song is this one by ABBA ‘I Let the Music Speak.’” UV held the earbuds like speakers and played the music on his iPod.
“The arbitration scheme works like this... To do this you need a large library of songs. Love songs in our case. Luckily my mom was a big fan of ABBA, the Swedish group. Vinyl served the purpose when Penny and I were married, but now an iPod simplifies things. I gave Penny an iPod for Christmas loaded with ABBA songs for that very reason. So let’s say that Penny wants to express her feelings. She finds a song that resonates with how she feels, and then she tells me the song title. Here’s one of her fare, ‘Should I Laugh or Cry.’ Let’s listen.”
“The advantage of arbitration by songs is three fold. First, no interruptions are permitted. ABBA-trait rule number one: You need to listen to the entire song without interruptions. Second, songs express how we feel. ABBA-trait rule number two: All expressed thoughts need to begin with ‘I feel.’ That eliminates attacks, which begin with ‘You.’ Third, narrative is harder than pattern recognition, which I’ll demonstrate.”
UV held his iPod in their field of vision and twirled it about with his fingers. “You recognize this, of course, it’s an iPod, right? Ten years ago this hadn’t been invented. So let’s try to describe an iPod to people ten years ago.” UV resorted to two voices.
“It’s a portable, hand held device that plays music – a transistor radio.”
“But it stores it’s own music – a cassette player.”
“On a disk – a CD player.”
“On a hard disk – I thought you said it was portable. How long is the power cord?”
Blondie laughed.
“Step by step people interpret narrative into familiar forms. Forays into the unknown are unpredictable. Narrative has three components: accessing thoughts in memory, putting thoughts into words, and accurately conveying those thoughts into the mind of somebody else through targeted word choices. Men are lousy at conveying feelings in narrative form, but give us a large enough collection of songs and we can recognize the one song that best suits our mood at any given moment. That’s because narrative is harder than pattern recognition. Anyhow, those are the ideas underlying what I call ABBA-trait, which sounds similar to the related word ‘arbitrate.’
“But the ABBA-trait concept is more general than just songs. For instance, you could use horoscopes. Imagine a thousand different horoscopes. On any given day, a small number of those horoscopes would ring true. So you come home to be greeted by, ‘How was your day, honey?’ And you answer, ‘Horoscope number four hundred and ninety-one, sweetheart. How was your day?’ And so forth. Or recall how a certain point in your life resembled a scene in a movie or a novel. Same thing. So here’s my response to Penny’s song. It’s called, ‘What About Livingstone.’ Let’s listen.”
“So what does that tell us? Can I recognize where Penny is coming from? Aye. Can she recognize where I’m coming from? Aye Aye. But in the end it changes nothing, because we hold different world views. Democrats and Republicans both recognize the other party’s philosophy, they just don’t trust it. In fact, transplant ideas for feelings and my issue with Penny becomes the exact same narrative problem: accessing ideas in memory, putting ideas into words, and accurately conveying those ideas into Penny’s mind. Perhaps better word choices might have done the trick, but we’re past the point of no return. The tragedy of our relationship is that I wore out her patience. I lost her trust, and that’s an irreconcilable difference. Now, she’d rather trust a stranger than me. It’s unfortunate, but true about human nature, and grounds for divorce. This was her parting song, ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You.’”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It was popular in the day. For graduate school I moved to Stanford. So my train ride got longer, while our bed grew colder. That triggered this response from me, ‘Another Town, Another Train.’”
“Did you ever consider postponing graduate school? It might have saved your marriage.”
“Graduate school was just a ruse. Penny blamed me for holding her back. Her acting career got stranded on a small island, and she saw divorce as her opportunity for a fresh start. But things never turned out the way she imagined. After our divorce she still remained typecast in comedic or matronly roles. Her height limited her roles. Not me. You can hear those themes echoed in this piece that she sent me long after our divorce was final, ‘One of Us.’”
“Sounds like she wanted you two to get back together.”
“Aye, but always on her terms. Recall the family versus career ultimatum? Her words and deeds contradicted each other. Divorce was a career move on her part. She’s always had both. Although her career never lived up to her expectations, she acts during the summer and she’s surrounded by family – my family, absent me of course, but I come home for visits even though it’s gotten more and more uncomfortable each time I return. Penny insinuates that leaving is an admission of infidelity on my part. Here’s one of my eve of leaving songs, ‘Dance (While The Music Still Goes On).’”
“You still love her.”
“Aye, but not unconditionally.”
“Too bad you two can’t come to some accommodation.”
“She’s painted herself into a corner. Her life is like a jigsaw puzzle with one missing piece. Our son is the incomplete man in her life. She’s uprooted her past and grafted herself onto my family tree. We’re... cultured intellectuals. My mother volunteers in the performing arts community, and Penny thrives in that spotlight. I was her leading man in high school, but she’s found no professional replacement. She keeps offering me the role with this song, ‘One Man, One Woman.’”
“Sounds like she’s waiting for you to come back and stay.”
“And I’m waiting for her to come live with me too. Either I could fulfill her dreams, or she could fulfill mine. Either way our dreams are incompatible. There’s one song we’re both waiting to hear from the other, which amounts to unconditional surrender. ABBA-trait rule number three: It’s a major breach of ABBA-trait etiquette to place lyrics in the mouth of the other person, as in, ‘do u Waterloo?’”
“That sounds familiar too.”
“Penny wants me to cash in my career and retire back to Ashland.”
“Could you retire?”
“Financially? Aye. Legally? I’m bound to a contract with one year remaining. When Telly turns eighteen, that’s when I could conceivably turn over the helm and retire. But that depends on him. My legacy is too important to leave to chance, for a lot of people not just me. For now this is the tune that best expresses how I feel, ‘I Wonder (Departure).’ ABBA-trait rule number four: Some lyrics are a little off course. Substitute ‘girls’ for ‘boys’ when you listen to this song. I call that ‘retune the lyrics.’”
“But you do intend to return to her?”
“Of course, if she’ll have me when the time comes. That’s the plan anyway. However, what’s amazing to me is how song lyrics capture some pure essence of the fragile nature of human relationships. Almost without modification, song lyrics apply to unforeseen situations with uncanny accuracy. I call it the ‘horoscope effect.’ How’d I do?”
“Do?” Blondie looked confused.
“Explaining the difference between narrative and pattern recognition.” UV displayed the iPod. “It took you an instant to recognize this iPod.” UV snapped his fingers. “Ten years ago it would have taken much longer and required a narrative. Ten years from now ABBA-trait might be a common feature of popular culture too, but today a narrative must suffice. Do you understand ABBA-trait as I’ve described it?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Pop quiz time.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not if I want you to use ABBA-trait yourself and spread the word.” UV waved and arm down the aisle. “How else is ABBA-trait going to save couples everywhere from needless heartache and frustration? So here’s the first question. Why did Penny divorce me?”
“And consider medicine... Now here’s where it really gets interesting. Here’s a question for you. The answer is opposite what you’d expect. Is free software or proprietary software more like socialized medicine?”
“You’re saying proprietary software is more like socialized medicine? I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s true, and here’s why. Think of software as a medical patient and a bug as a disease. First, with proprietary providers you cannot chose your own physician. You must seek treatment from the proprietary provider. So let’s say you call Microsoft and somebody takes down your symptoms over the phone and puts you on a waiting list for treatment. Triage determines the order that diseases are considered. Only when your disease turns into an epidemic does Microsoft act quickly. If you have a rare disease, or not enough people complain about it, then no effort goes into a cure. Treatment often amounts to workarounds to mask the symptoms rather than an actual cure. Even if you happen to be rich and are willing to pay the physician’s salary out of your own pocket, Microsoft has no public policy to offer that kind of service. Your only options are to live with the disease or find another provider, but be forewarned. All proprietary provider plans amount to the same thing, a lot like socialized medicine.
“The strategy of proprietary providers is to offer new services to sign up new medical patients, because patients pay up front to join the medical plan, like taxpayers in socialized medicine. Microsoft makes no money finding cures. Not only does Microsoft create diseases it will never cure, but Microsoft patients are susceptible to viruses. Anti-virus prevention for healthy patients degrades their performance, who slow down with age anyway. We’re talking chronic performance loss over years not decades. If you ever do get treated then chances are your doctor should have been sued for malpractice since he gave you the disease in the first place. Second opinions are not an option, and forget about Emergency Room visits. No ER option exists in proprietary provider medical plans.
“Now let’s consider free software. First the pool of physicians is much larger. When you discover symptoms you check a public forum for reports of similar symptoms. The cure may already exist, and you just need to apply a patch. If you happen to be the first to report new symptoms the cure may come quick or it may take awhile. If you’re in a hurry, then you can pay any physician of your choice to diagnose your disease and apply a cure. You can even pay any physician of your choice to make a house call. Not only are you allowed second opinions, but expert physicians from all over the world consult to diagnose and find a cure for your symptoms.
“When a cure for your symptoms is found, the cure is shared with all patients free of charge. So you can get patches for symptoms you never knew you had. If you have the skills, you can perform regular updates yourself, or you can buy a service contract from any physician of your choice to perform those updates at your convenience. That’s a lot like free market health care. Best of all, the cost of health care is free and a physician is always on call. You only pay for services that you request, and free software patients are immune from Microsoft viruses.
“So the two medical plans differ greatly. The incentive for proprietary providers is to sell defective products and spend money advertising. The incentive for free market health care is to sell effective services. As a consequence, free market health care offers patients a healthier lifestyle with greater reliability. Patients of free market health care improve with age. In the free software community the price of the software is free, like air or human languages or scientific knowledge, but we charge service fees. If you can manage your own software installation, then you pay with your own time. However, hardware is not free. Some companies like ours bundle free software with hardware to offer superior products. If you already own hardware then you can migrate for free and gain all the benefits of free market health care. Do you use a PC yourself?”
“I do, yes.”
“Home or office?”
“Both.”
“Do you use an office suite: word processor, spreadsheet, drawing, and presentation applications?”
“Yes.”
“Open office dot org does all that and it imports Microsoft file formats and exports PDF formated files. Do you use an Internet browser?”
“Yes.”
“Mozilla Firefox is free software based upon the Netscape browser. Do you use email?”
“Yes.”
“The Mozilla community also makes a free email client. Do you use a music player?”
“Yes.”
“Video player?”
“Yes.”
“Games like solitaire?”
“Yes.”
“A sophisticated image editor?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t use it enough to justify the cost.”
“But would you use it if it’s free?”
“Probably.”
“Then, no doubt, free software would automatically increase your productivity. Can you burn a CD on you PC?”
“Yes.”
“Then here’s what you do.” UV pulled out a Post-it pad and wrote down an Internet address. “Go to this website.” UV handed her the note.
“Download the desktop software and burn it onto a CD. Reboot your machine with the CD in the drive and your computer should boot from the CD. That way you can test it out on your own hardware and make sure it all works before installing it. Any problems you encounter check online for help. Ubuntu comes standard with a graphical user interface, security, and a world renowned operating system.”
“What’s Ubuntu?”
“The Zulu word ‘ubuntu’ translates as ‘humanity to others.’ In a word ‘generosity,’ but it has deeper meanings of community. ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’ A British company named Canonical supports the Ubuntu effort.
“If you have enough disk space you can dual boot between Ubuntu and other operating systems. That way you can immigrate to the free world at your own pace. The installation CD handles all that for you. Once you’re up and running you can easily add applications. Let’s say you want to manage your own finances. You click on the ‘Add/Remove...’ menu item. Search for ‘finance’ and get a list of applications. You read the descriptions and chose one. When you click ‘Apply Changes’ it installs the application automatically over your Internet connection, and you’re free to use it.
“But say an application you downloaded isn’t ready for prime time. It’s for testers and developers, and you need a working version. You can remove the application with the same interface and install another application. Often more than one application is available to perform the same task. Microsoft will never refund the price of their own defective product and give you a competitor’s product for free. Also free software applications tend to import file formats from proprietary products, but you need to check that out on a case-by-case basis.”
“Sounds simple.”
“It is.”
“But it sounds too good to be true.”
UV sensed that Blondie felt discouraged from past experiences. “Well, if you buy proprietary software then you encourage the behavior that supports it. The down side of proprietary software does not justify its up side. Using free software makes us all better citizens and better members of our community.”
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