h2g2.com Looks Ahead to the Next Quarter-Century
> The idea was fantastically, wildly improbable. But like most fantastically wildly improbable ideas it was at least as worthy of consideration as a more mundane one to which the facts have been strenuously bent to fit. > > Douglas Adams
# A Manifesto
We, the Researchers of h2g2.com, the Earth Edition of that wholly remarkable guidebook to the meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything known as The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, can look back with some pride on the last 25 years. We can do this because we accomplished some pretty cool things, such as amassing quite a lot of Guide Entries, publishing ten books, and connecting quite a few people around the planet.
We can also do this because we're a bunch of dewy-eyed optimists with a 'never say die' attitude. We never say 'die' because we're charter members of the Anti-Entropy League and besides, it's such an unpleasant word.
As we approach our next quarter-century, which we hope will be even more replete with excitement, adventure, and bizarre things to write about, we've sat down and had a good collective think. We've looked at ourselves, the planet, and the internet. And we've come to a conclusion.
Over the past quarter-century, we've seen the internet evolve in ways we like and some we don't like. This scenario is all too familiar: it happens again and again when there's innovation. The big companies just keep getting bigger. Individuals become 'users' who matter less and less.
Back in the 19th century, some people found a way around the sheer power of the big companies by forming 'mutual societies' – they used the power of membership with lots of individuals having some skin in the game as a way of reclaiming agency. We want to do that.
But we need your help.
Our biggest strength lies in what we are that the modern business climate is not. Instead of giant corporations with business models based on selling our data over our heads, we remain dewy-eyed (but now experienced and dewy-eyed) and want to build on the principles that made the internet a bold, new frontier in the first place, a rewilding story if you like.
# The Story So Far
In the unchartered backwaters of the unfashionable end of the internet, lies a small, precious website, based on a unique global legacy and a unique set of intellectual property rights.
In April 1999 – before Facebook, Twitter now X, Twitch, or Tik Tok, before even Wikipedia, more or less of the same vintage as Google and back in a dial-up world (yes, really, we're talking ancient history) – the late, great Douglas Adams launched The Earth Edition of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy live on Tomorrow's World on the BBC in London.
Improbably, h2g2.com is still going 25 years later. Its original vision is still being pursued by an extraordinary group of Field Researchers, who have quietly continued to work away on a site held together by love and sticking plaster.
The reason for the sticking plaster is also the reason h2g2 is special. h2g2 doesn't belong to a giant corporation. Sirius Cybernetics owns no piece of us. Nobody farms our data, thank you very much.
# Where Are We Now?
The current rights holders of h2g2.com (Not Panicking, Ltd -there are only two of them and one of them is Robbie Stamp the original founder with Douglas Adams) want to create the next stage of the story. What we want to do is to keep owning ourselves. To do that, we need help. This help could take the form of:
Money. We're not building a rocket, or anything. But we will be doing some fundraising in the near future to cover some tech upgrades and do some hard yards work on designing the first global mutual society. And if you've got a spare fortune lying around, we wouldn't say no to a no-strings-attached donation. But here's the key: We will grow at the pace our financial support – provided by members, patrons and fellow field researchers – allows. Raise a lot, and we can be ambitious; raise a little, and we can afford a little more sticking plaster.
Skills. Are you a programmer? Volunteers welcome. Are you an organiser? Do you manage projects? Do you have free time? Could we organise a Hackathon? Let's talk. Talent. While the geniuses are redesigning the interface and fiddling with the thingummies, we still have to be writing the Guide! Can you research, fact-check, write entertainingly? Come join the Researchers.
Spreading the word. Do you know other people who might help? Please talk us up among your friends. Maybe send a few emails – or mobilise your followers on social media. We need to network here.
> Note: If you want to join the site, sign up at h2g2.com. If you have a skill set or even money to contribute, email the PTBs (=Powers That Be) at [email address needed here].
# What Are Our Goals? Shortly before he died, Douglas Adams wrote of the early years of the Guide: > What we are now in the process of doing is taking the experience of the last [few years} and radically redesigning the underlying architecture of the Guide so that it becomes much easier to find information, much, much easier to enter information, and much, much, much easier to connect one piece of information with another. Then we'll look at how that's working and then, I expect, we'll redesign it again.
It's a process called evolution. Who would have predicted where that's got us?
# Here's what we want to do: Stabilise What We Have – which is a really nice database full of informative and entertaining material written by people around the world over a period of 25 years.
Create Experimental Spaces - to play and for new signups. Make some plans for additional functionality. Douglas Adams had some ideas about that. So do we.
Launch New Substrate - set out on the Secondary Phase to see if we can use the convening power of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to create new models for social media – a place where more people can guide more people to more things they know and care about and share in a different kind of value creation and sharing!
It sounds simple, but the results might be profound.
# General Notes for a Small Planet Here are the core principles on which h2g2.com is based.
NO SPITTING. That started as a joke, but then we realised: no, we were right. Don't mess up the site. We live here.
BEWARE THE LEOPARD. There really is one, though not in a locked cabinet because we are very humane. Also, it's metaphorical. As Founder Robbie Stamp says: > This is not another dystopian free-for-all.
In other words, we have governing bodies and order. It will always be clear who makes what decisions where, even if we distribute decision making as widely as we can, we should all be clear, when push comes to shove, where the buck stops. We like the idea of Hitchhiker Assemblies based on the growing Citizens Assemblies movement and 42 is a good number for membership of those!
You are not 'entitled to your opinion.' As Douglas Adams put it, ALL OPINIONS ARE NOT EQUAL. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.' For this reason, we will continue to moderate and we won't allow trolling. We encourage participation from people who from time to time are willing to accept that they might be wrong about something.
# No Bait and Switch
h2g2.com will move inside a new structure, to be called hitchhikers.earth, that is owned by its members. It will never be sold out from under the members who produce it. There will be no bait-and-switch. Value is available through tithes and royalties – not the endless chase to float on a stock exchange.
Not Panicking Ltd, the current owners of the rights to develop HHGG as a “real world guide,” will transfer their rights into this new structure, once we have developed the necessary legal and constitutional framework. (We have a plan to get that work done).
The financial return to the Intellectual Property Holders for the transfer of rights will be based on a plan called “Then Hitchhiker’s Guide to not Becoming Obscenely Rich” - capped returns (real caps, not pretend ones) and significant proportions going into the creation of a Foundation or two.
The finances will be transparent. Indeed current plans would mean the Shareholders of Not Panicking Ltd leaving well over 95% of potential value for Foundation use. In comparison to the Ben Hur model of Venture Capital return whereby the chariots are driven faster and faster round the Circus until the wheels fall of all but one of them and one Chariot Owner gets very very rich indeed.
# Potatoes > It is a mistake to think that you can solve any major problems just with potatoes,' said Douglas Adams.
He was probably right. So if you think of something we haven't thought of, let us know at robbie@stampbros.com.
Don't Panic! Well, we had to say that, didn't we?
# Informing and Having Fun
There are a lot of serious problems in our world. By staying in touch and building the Edited Guide, we can make ourselves better-informed and better-equipped to deal with them. But we can also have a lot of fun doing it.
Our approach is serious and light-hearted at the same time. There is something about Douglas’ thinking and writing and the sheer number of memes he created that makes the HHGG universe especially well suited to this endeavour - from what questions to ask and 42, to Marvin the Paranoid Android and Ai to Babelfish and understanding, to Deep Thought and Improbability drives, to Vogons and bureaucracy and the Total Perspective Vortex we have what we need to create something new and lasting.
In other words, we're a bunch of hoopy froods who know where their towels are – and we're looking for like-minded Hitchhikers with ready thumbs.
We have also created a marginally probable plan! and some other thoughts/slides.