Even network structures of scientists or scholars dealing with seemingly purely academic issues are potentially capable of encouraging the people to pursue new inspiring goals. A networked team of astronomers, geophysicists, climatologists, and evolutionary biologists called the Virtual Planetary Laboratory atthe University of Washington studies how to detect exoplanetary habitability and their potential biosignatures. This network structure seems to have the potential of inspiring multitudes of people with new fascinating goals such as exploring the distribution of habitable worlds in the universe and searching for new “humankind’s homes”. A promising candidate is Proxima b, a planet rotating around the star Proxima Centauri, our sun’s nearest known neighbor at 4.2 light-years away.
To sum up, the development of the network social formation should be facilitated by networked organizations and movements, analogs of biological chaperones, that should design and promote optimum scenarios of the ongoing network revolution. They could make good use of all possible strategies including, e.g., advertizing useful efficient networks and filing petitions on their behalf to the government. Social chaperones should make efforts to improve the emergent network society in the interest of the whole humankind and to attain the goal of harmonious productive interaction among various networks and between them and non-network structures including hierarchies and (quasi-)markets. In order to successfully monitor and promote the development of decentralized networks at the local, regional, and global level, social chaperones should exert a sufficiently strong social and political influence on power structures and the leading representatives of the business world.
References
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1 The term “network structure” is used in the literature in at least two different meanings. The broader meaning refers to any system composed of nodes (vertices) connected by links (edges). In terms of this interpretation, the analytical tools that deal with centrality measures, clustering, and community structure-related criteria, small-world behavior, and other network characteristics have provided important insights into the organization and functioning of various objects, including biological systems and human society. However, there is a narrower interpretation of the term “network” that is predominantly used in the social sciences: a network structure is a decentralized, non-hierarchical system that is regulated by cooperative interactions among its nodes. The characteristics of a network’s organizational situation are to be considered in comparison to other types of structures such as (1) hierarchical (vertical, pyramidal) structurescharacterized by a single dominant activity center (central leader, pacemaker); and (2) (quasi-) market structures dominated by competitive, rather than cooperative, interactions among the actors involved [1].
2 Some biological molecules include parts that control their self-assembly, i.e., represent internal chaperones.
3 The Zed Books company had no single boss, all its staff members enjoyed an equal status (were paid equal wages) and tried to be maximally similar to one another. The author of the article cited [9] was even worried about their becoming identical clones. In this respect, the company resembled a leaderless, equipotential fish shoal. However, since the company ‘s size was quite small (12 people), it was also similar to an egalitarian troop of chimpanzees that is typically composed of a limited number of individuals. The work cited also references the Gore network that is famous for having developed Gore Tex, a waterproof, breathable fabric membrane. This networked team seems to conform with the “ant paradigm”. Like Gore with its ~10,000 associates, an ant family comprises a number of small worker teams that have temporary task-oriented leaders.
4 This analogy seems sufficiently meaningful because the growth of fungal mycelium is in conformity with the rhizome paradigm of biological networks.