In the world today there is a problem of our own making, one that all our craftiness has failed to address this problem, indeed it has been the very cause of our ail. The problem is complexity, specifically the kind that invokes the confusion that is a significant part of our worldly suffering. Even with all the comforts of modern society, we are in strife for not being able to understand the world we live in, and it's many systems. We are powerless to influence these systems, increasingly digital technology sees the development of systems happening behind closed doors in the interests of global monopolists. Jungle is an attempt to blur the line between use and development. it is a platform and framework that builds collaboration and democracy into the foundations of the toolset, and abstracts the hard problems of software development while presenting a visual environment that can make the essential structure accessible to people without programming experience.
The year is 2017 and we rest upon the cusp of one of the great technological revolutions of mankind. The rapid accelleration of computer technology has affected all aspects of our lives and sectors of economic organization, self driving vehicles are likely to make a large portion of the workforce redundant, while the spectre of an artificial general intelligence outbreak makes prediction of the future near impossible. The people of Earth are enjoying higher levels of wealth than at any point in history, with the global capitalist market driving emissions and inequality, concentrating power into the hands of an unaccountable technocratic elite. Democracies are failing in the face of poplust fearmongering, driving deep divides between neighbors. The situation is complicated, to say the least, some are content in thier stations but of those who truly try to see unblinded few are not wondering when and how the change is going to come.
Software does not solve any problems on its own. People solve problems using a variety of tools, software being one immensely powerful tool that facilitates the channelling of information between computational resources and io-devices and forth to humans and the world. The ability to create software is in many ways like the ability to write, requiring us to learn a language, and to know what to write for a certain situation.
Unfortunately the ability to program software has been percieved as being a profession specific skill, and there are certainly clear historical reasons why this would be the case. Writing was an activity of the elite classes until the industrial revolution fuelled the creation of a bureaucratic class that could create and process the documents inevitably required with the increased complexity of production and logistical systems. Software drives down the cost of replication and processing to new low's and each system created can be deployed on a global level with comparitively low cost. This means that fewer adepts must learn the skill in order to deliver the systems on a worldwide level.
Now in the face of this new era, there is a risk. This risk is that the majority of people do not have any say in or even comprehension of the systems that have an exponentially increasing influence over their lives. We are increasingly becoming only points of data to be churned through these machines driven by global corporations. "So what?" you might say, "we can access all the information we need, and we are provided with convenient services, and we arent relinquishing any self-determination doing so right? Moreover we are given a platform where our voice can be heard, all without having to learn programming. Besides, all you can do with programming in a month of starting is make tic-tac-toe, that's hardly worthwhile." This perception is problematic, it creates the divide between have and have-nots of software literacy, the haves will be used by those with capital, seeking to profit while the have-nots will accept those creations given to them( the phrase "program or be programmed" rings clear). The problem with this is that it is deepening the divide of the ruling elite from the rest of people, they gain the data advantage, granting the ability to predict trends disperse revolution and create a world that entrenches their own supremacy.
In my view, once everyone is able to contribute directly to the systems that constitute the entire planetary economic system, only then do we have a true democracy. Currently the media and entertainment sectors are checked, the first to be consumed due to the ease of distributing information based services online. soon education, logistics, finance and will be operated by automated software systems.
Jungle aims to provide an environment where people in diverse field can begin to have a voice and impact upon systems that they use in their professions and societies.
How could it do such a thing? When it has taken the efforts of some of the worlds smartest people over decades to create the tools we use today, you can't go ahead and recreate everything ever made.
No. I cannot, but we can.
To achieve this aim requires a rethink of some of the assumptions of how we build software, these revisions are stated and explained and a model implementation provided in the course of this book. That is only a starting point of how a world of truly democratic software could look. It is more-or-less a continuation of the ethos of open source software in general, and there are many heroes to credit, but the idea must be taken to new extremes in the face of the modern crisis.
For Jungle to address the aforementioned issues it must meet some key criteria
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Integrate with all existing services.
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Build democracy/collaboration/connectivity into the platform.
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Allow for distributed operation.
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Influencing the system and using the system are not technically distinct.
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Open source all components with plug-in reusability in any context.
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Applicability to all domains.
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Accessible to many levels of technical skill
The Jungle Framework is, from the outset, in its own category with regards to existing frameworks in the software world, it should not be confused with Web Application Frameworks, or Platform SDK Frameworks; indeed even the restriction to software is a stretch, because it is more an ethos outlined by the above key objectives. The initial implementation is in Typescript, a language that serves the purpose of supporting extensibility of the framework by providing static types while being able target the highly proliferate JavaScript environments. It should nevertheless be considered only an implementation of the framework that is Jungle.
This Book serves as a full course in the Jungle Framework, This is no small ordeal so it is broken into several sections according to what angle of understanding one may wish to approach.
Philosphy - A collection of writings about the fundamental underpinnings of Jungle, ranging from practical software design philosophy to a metaphysics of Jungle.
Analogues - A collection of examples from real life, reconsidered as jungle systems to gain an intuitive grasp of the ideas, great for learning from narrative style and diverse perspectives
User Guide - Yes it is empty, that's because you can't use it yet
Concepts - Pure explanations of the foundational entities in the machinery of Jungle.
Speculation - Fanciful discussions of what could be achieved using the framework
Copyright Edward Dalley 2017