I'm sure all of you recognise this shape. Yes, it's a square based pyramid. This particular one has each face in a different colour, That's because I'd like to show you the four separate faces of the pyramid. Most people only ever see one. Well, that's not strictly true. You do see all of them but you don't necessarily recognise them as such. Hopefully, by the time we reach the end of this blog, you'll be able to see them all much more clearly. You're going to have to do a little bit of maths, nothing complicated, just some simple multiplication; and a little thinking outside of the box, so to speak. Are you ready? Then let's start with the first face; the easy one.
This is the one that everybody sees, the face of Mystery. The most famous pyramids in the world are those which stand on the Giza Plateau in Egypt. Beloved of mystery fans and conspiracy theorists the world over, more has probably been written about these ancient structures, than any other buildings in the world. And yet so little is truly understood. Nobody really knows for certain who built them, why they were built, or how they were built. You can search the internet for weeks and find countless theories from the worlds of archaeology, astronomy, astrology and loads of other -ology's. Are they tombs? Are they acoustic generators? Are they observatories? Or are they portals to other dimensions? Who knows, but my money says someone out there does. They're just not telling. Or maybe we can't read their writing?
Of course, these aren't the only pyramids in the world. You'll find them everywhere, even in Australia! All these are from the ancient world, but there are also many modern ones scattered about. This is only to be expected, as the pyramid has a high visual impact when used in architectural design, like the one in front of the Louvre in Paris.
Then there are the ones you don't notice, and the ones you see all the time, but have become part of the background. Okay, enough of this one. You can have a look at all of this at your leisure. Now it's time to take off the tin foil and put on your thinking caps. Here's another face of the pyramid to look at.
This one's closer to home. In fact it's right under your nose, staring you in the face, but you can't see it. Why not? Because this is the face of Illusion, where the magicians deceive you with their sleight of hand. Ever wondered what goes on behind David Copperfield's curtain? Trickery, that's all, simple trickery. This face of the pyramid is like an optical illusion, where your brain tells you you're looking at one thing, but in fact it's something quite different. So let's pull the curtain back and take a closer look.
Does this look familiar? Where have I seen something like this before....
To view this illustration of how pyramid schemes can become unsustainable, in it's original context, then go here. Or you can find another explanation of them here. And if that's not enough for you, then ask the US Federal Trade Commission for their advice. Yes, I can hear what you're thinking - "But we aren't in a pyramid selling scheme, we haven't invested anything and we're not selling anything." Think again.
1. You are investing a lot of your time chasing pageviews and referrals, time = money; or don't you value your time? This may not be in monetary terms, but in terms of other things you could be doing with your time.
2. You are selling promises of financial gain to all your referrals, by telling them they can earn money.
There is a mathematical proof of why most people in pyramid schemes lose money, and you can work through it if you like.
If you're finding all this maths confusing, let me try and simplify it for you. According to a certain promotional video, all you need to make $1,000 a month, is a referral tree of approx 80,000 people (numbers rounded down for convenience and assuming an RSR of $0.50), and even if you're only 10% successful you'll make $100/month from 8,000 referrals.
Happy with these figures? Okay, lets take a closer look behind the curtain, at all the pyramids you can't see. What, you thought there was only one pyramid? Oh no my friends, that is the illusion. You each have your own little pyramid. As each sign up can only be included in one person's referral tree, then every member has to have their own little pyramid of referrals. Are you with me? So lets assume a membership of say 500,000. For each of these 500,000 members to earn $100/month, they all must have their own little referral tree, or pyramid, of 8,000 referrals, yes?
Now for some simple maths
500,000 x 8,000 = 4,000,000,000 0r 4 billion.
Any bells ringing yet? They should be. For 500,000 people to make $100/month, the total membership required is 4 billion people. At the last count, the world's population stood at roughly 6.5 billion. So signing up 4 billion people, though technically feasible, is extremely unlikely to say the least. For one thing, you would need a database server the size of a small building, and there aren't enough computers to go round anyway. Oh, and if 500,000 of you want to make $1,000/month, then you'll obviously need a membership of 40 billion. You can juggle the RSR as much as you want, the basic maths are inescapable. For example, let's raise the RSR to $5.00; you'll still need a membership of 400 million for 500,000 to make $100/month. Anyone out there got a radio telescope and a Neptunian phrasebook?
Now, did anyone notice that the last two paragraphs, from "Happy with these figures.. to ...Neptunian phrasebook" were incorrect? My own little sleight of hand, or should I say word. There is a deliberate mistake in there somewhere, if you spot it you can always tell me about it in a comment. I included this little section to show just how easy it is to mislead people with words and numbers, and to have a little laugh and maybe raise a smile or two. But how many of you did I have believing me? Not that you'll admit to it. But beware, there are many conjurors out there who don't have such scruples, never mind morals or ethics.
None of this changes the basic fact that pyramid schemes are inherently unsustainable. They will always reach a tipping point where it becomes clear that there are no more referrals to be had (pun intended). Such a tipping point may be reached for any number of reasons, not just the extreme ones e.g. population or computer limits outlined above. Think, for just a few minutes about the following. When the tipping point is reached and there are no more referrals to be had anywhere, then those on the bottom level of the pyramid will see that they are never going to get many referrals and will leave the pyramid. Now the next level up becomes the bottom and once they get wise to the lack of possible referrals, they will leave. This process will repeat itself all the way up the pyramid until the whole thing crumbles into dust. This is what happens to pyramid schemes in the real world and is the reason why they all inevitably collapse.
The only way in which this collapse can be prevented is by having the lower levels of the pyramid filled with people who cannot see this; or by keeping these lower level members trapped within the pyramid using some form of control mechanism. You may get some idea of how such a control system can be implemented in the next face of the pyramid, but again, you might have to think about it, I don't like spelling things out, I prefer people to think for themselves. But if you can't, or won't see this, I leave you to your referral chasing Pyramadness.
Time to move on, if anyone is still with me.
Here is the third face of the pyramid, it's very similar to the last one. Only this time it's not the curtain you have to move. You have to remove that $100 bill blindfold from your eyes to see this one.
This is an artistic representation of the capitalist system. Capitalism is the most prevalent socio-political-economic system in the world. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the many by the few. The masses at the bottom do all the work, so that the minority elite at the top don't have to do anything but reap the profits. If you refer back to the second face of the pyramid, and your little pyramids here, then you will see that the bulk of your money comes from the efforts of others below you.
To illustrate what great benefits have been brought to the majority of the people by capitalism, let's use that most shining example of free enterprise and market forces, the flagship of capitalism itself - America.
The top ten percent of the U.S. population owns 81.8 percent of the real estate, 81.2 percent of the stock, and 88 percent of the bonds. (Federal Reserve Bank data in Left Business Observer, No. 72, Apr. 3, 1996, p. 5).
One percent of the U.S. population owns sixty percent of the stock and forty percent of the total wealth. (Hawken, Paul, The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. New York: HarperBusiness, 1993).
These figures are old now, so a more up to date picture is needed. Pay particular attention to figures 1. and 7.
American dream? Welcome to real world nightmare.
It doesn't look any better elsewhere either.
But hey, if you're okay with reinforcing the mindset which has produced such extreme inequalities of wealth, and it's consequent levels of poverty, degradation and starvation, don't let me stop you; go ahead and exploit! Get your downline active, get them producing content, while you sit back and tell us all about your referral stats and monthly earnings. Crack the whip a bit if you have to. I'm sorry if I can't join you in this enterprise, but I have things called morals and ethics that sort of get in the way of stuff like this. I'm one of those strange people who believe in making money from their own efforts, and not off the backs of others.
Now it's time to look at the last face of the pyramid, the most elusive of all.
This one is harder to see, because it's symbolic and once again, closely related to the one above - Exploitation. It is all around you.
The words are completely interchangeable. You could use: Pope, bishop, cardinal...; CEO, manager, office boy etc. This is a command structure, based on lines of power and control. Orders come from the top and filter their way down. It is man-made, static and inflexible. Power cascades down this face of the pyramid in an ever diluting stream of control, until it reaches the bottom and trickles away. Water does not flow uphill; and neither does power or control. As I said, this is the most elusive of the pyramid's faces, it is always hidden. But it is symbolised in every pyramid that has ever been built. Empire is built on power and control, and wherever you find Empire, you will find a pyramid.
And so endeth our tour of the pyramid. But I haven't finished yet. Now I'd like to introduce you to another structure, an alternative to the pyramid if you like. This one is even more common than the pyramid, and has been around for a lot longer. It has been neglected for the last few thousand years though, and is in need of a good dust down and some serious redevelopment. It, like the pyramid, comes in different sizes. First we'll take a look at the biggest there is.
This image is known as the Ultra Deep Field, a picture taken by the Hubble space telescope, as it focused on a small, insignificant patch of bare sky for 11 days. There are 10,000 galaxies in this picture, each containing millions and millions of stars, each star like our sun. Every one of these celestial bodies are separate, and held apart by gravitational forces. Waves of electromagnetic radiation travel between them, across countless billions of light years of space. This is a small piece of the infinite network that is the universe. A place where stars are born, burn brightly, and in their turn, die, to be replaced by others, in an eternal dance of majestic illumination. If this image doesn't hold you in both colossal awe and humbling insignifigance, then I don't know what ever will.
Now before you get too dizzy, I'm going to take you back to earth. Here is a much smaller version, too small for you to see without the aid of an electron microscope. It isn't so much under your nose, as behind it.
This is a graphic representation of a neural network in the human brain. What you see here are several neurons (nerve cells), each having many branches or dendrites. The dendrites connect with other neurons, and electro-chemical signals are passed from neuron to neuron throughout the network. This enables the brain to pass on specific instructions to different parts of the body, resulting in physical or hormonal responses. Without getting too technical, the system works as follows. When you learn a skill, such as playing a musical instrument, you repeat certain actions over and over again. The more these actions are repeated, the more connections are made between individual neurons, needed to pass on the necessary instructions to make your body perform these actions. This reinforces the particular neural network responsible for controlling the physical responses involved in these actions. In other words, the more you perform certain actions, the stronger the neural network becomes, and the better you become at playing the instrument, as your brain becomes quicker at transmitting instructions to your body. Practice makes perfect. Conversely, if you stop performing a physical action, the connections within an individual neural network become unused and they begin to break. If this situation continues then you will have to re-learn the skill, as the neural network will deteriorate, and it will take the brain much longer to transmit the necessary signals telling your body what to do.
So much for basic neurology. Now let's have a look at a similar kind of network, whose scale is in between these two examples, one you're all more familiar with.
This is a small scale representation of the internet. A bunch of computers, all connected to each other by electromagnetic signals transmitted via cables and radio waves. The net is a huge place, containing many small, individual networks, such as social networking sites, which connect millions of people all over the planet. As you know, there are many of these little networks. To get a better picture of an individual social networking site in practice, here's a graphic produced by a member of Flickr.com, depicting the social structure of Flickr in April 2005. I had to reduce this image but you can view it at it's original size on GustavoG's Flickr page.
Flickr.com is a social networking site based on the sharing of photographic images between it's members. In this picture of the "Flickrverse" are all the individual members, the connections between them are the links between flickr friends, just like other social networking sites. You should by now begin to see the striking similarities between the three networks I have shown you. Two of these are natural systems, while the Flickrverse is man-made. However, it is an almost perfect analogue of those natural systems. Superficially, all three appear random and chaotic in nature, but each individual is intimately connected, either directly, or indirectly through other members of the network, to every other individual, in a deceptively organised, coordinated system. All three of these networks are constantly changing, continually evolving systems, which grow over time in an ongoing, organic process.
Compare them with the static, inflexible, man-made and, ultimately, unsustainable structure that is the pyramid.
Pyramids lie all around the world, crumbling back into the dust from which they came, ancient remnants of unsustainable man-made systems; while the natural networks of the universe and the human brain continue to grow and evolve. And now, out here in cyberspace, where similar networks are connecting together individual humans, in an evolving, collective consciousness, the pyramids are being built again. All over the internet, these structures of power and control, with their faces of Illusion and Exploitation, are beginning to emerge, each one based on that most deceptive of all man's creations - money.
Of course, there is no reason why the members of a social networking site cannot be rewarded financially for their efforts. But it does not have to be by a referral system, which only encourages a pageview mentality, enabling advertisers to receive as many ad impressions as they can get, at the expense of members putting real content on their sites; and viewing that of other members. Maybe a better system would be to reward members, proportionally, for the number of comments on their blogs, pictures and videos, rather than pageviews. This may encourage people to put more real content on their pages; and to spend more time learning about other members. You only have to look around this site to see blogs full of referral stats and monthly earnings. Look at the number of casual comments for the sake of a page view, compared to thoughtful comments on your blogs, pictures and videos. Where are the slices of people's lives, their hopes and dreams, their fears and nightmares? Where are people's opinions on the state of the world and their own personal rants? Where are the blogs informing us of things which others think we should be aware? Where are the funny stories to make us laugh out loud and brighten our day? Buried under a pyramid of business presentations and links to get-rich-quick schemes.
Social networks are powerful things. Not only do they connect people all around the world, but they can unify, and bring together individuals, separated by thousands of miles, into a single chorus, with a voice that is loud enough to be heard half a world away. Some of you have seen this voice in action recently, when members of this and other networks, joined together in a concerted effort to put an end to a so called "art exhibit", which was nothing more than a sadistic peep show. This is the power of many. This is the power that can bring about effective change for the greater good. This is the power that is generated when I becomes we. We the People.
So far, I have asked you to think about lots of things, and asked you to question many others. Now it is time for me to ask my final question. What is the future of social networking - and the internet itself - to be? It is in your hands. You are the people who make social networking work. You are the people whom these sites depend upon for their existence - not corporate advertisers. It is you who provide all of the content. It is you who will determine how the landscape of the cyberverse evolves.
So what would you like to see, when you login and open your window onto the cyberverse? Row upon row of dusty pyramids, or a virtual biosphere of interwoven, interlocking, organic, open-ended networks; where one is all, and all are one?
Well here's your chance to air your views. Vote now
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