@JulianOliver We had such faith in our ability to harness these technologies in the service of individual empowerment.
In fact, the threat is systemic. While individual efforts may create the equivalent of a digital cabin in the woods, I'm not sure that the individual can use digital technologies to effect the transformational changes now required.
@lowtech We did, such a hearty and broadly-held faith it was. Today, and to build upon your metaphor, I'm increasingly of the mind that villages of cabins are the future.
It's the cities I worry about.
(From recent hike)
@JulianOliver I hear what you say. Understanding humans as communities, and mobilising the power of disintermediated, in-person collaboration could be a great way forward.
Certainly it's key to see (and, if necessary, resist) the subtle influence and invisible power of convening. Context is key. Meetings in village halls or community libraries or parks or cafes or homes or workshops or shops are different from each other, and very different from interactions ìn online fora. Meetings that gather like with like may be cosy, but diverse (even arbitrary) groups have more collective intelligence.
An understanding that casts technological ingenuity as the ultimate key to human progress may be self-defeating. We'll all benefit from becoming more aware of the double-edged effects of the technological, and how it often tends to manifest the pervasive logics of convenience and value extraction.
Dumbotron of Loxley
Julian Oliver
James Wallbank