I covered a lot of different things, though I haven't yet gotten to the part about social media campaigns and bots (nor tied in that article about black feminists on twitter.) Bear with me, I'm getting there.
I try not to talk about utopia, in part because we've had such a long history of failed attempts to build them. At the same time, I think there should be some sort of ideal shaping our efforts, some goal to work towards. That is, if we're not just accepting the status quo. It may not be achievable, but better to work towards it than accept something that leaves people behind. (It's sort of like the ideal of justice, fairness, and whatnot. Saying 'it's impossible to be unbiased' may be true, but is often used to justify being selfish. Trying to be unbiased leads to something better, even if we don't always get it right.)
What I'm left with is a mishmash of things, including my 11 years of Catholic schooling, our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and various other things... though I don't think you necessarily have to believe in God to go along with this.
I do believe that "all men are created equal", though 'men' in this case is just the catch-all for 'human being'. Male and female. There is something special about every single one of us, though whether you wan to call it the 'spark of the divine' or 'our inherent shared humanity' or something else, I leave that to you.
In certain circumstances, we are in touch with that spark. Or our higher self. (Again, whatever you want to call it.) It's generally something we hear in silence. That is, in quiet stillness, when we tune out the noise of the world around us. It's easy to dismiss, to ignore. To decide we don't want to deal with all the consequences of listening. We can't hear it when we're angry, or scared.
When people are given the right environment, the type of environment where they can listen to that higher self, we're often amazed at what results. We're creative, playful, joyful. Our best selves.
And, well. I think a bit of that whole 'Wisdom of Crowds' comes into play. No one of us sees all, knows all, and makes the best choice... but together, we can.
And yet it's all too easy to undermine and subvert all of that. The 'wisdom of crowds' doesn't hold up when a determined party decides to spread misinformation. It also doesn't work when people conform too much, like all my previous posts on groupthink.
It's true that people aren't always smart, but the discussions we have (and the willingness of people who aren't experts to listen to the opinions of the mavens who are) can make us all smarter, collectively, than you'd think.
So my next posts, tomorrow or the day after or whatever, will focus a bit more on that sort of thing.
I try not to talk about utopia, in part because we've had such a long history of failed attempts to build them. At the same time, I think there should be some sort of ideal shaping our efforts, some goal to work towards. That is, if we're not just accepting the status quo. It may not be achievable, but better to work towards it than accept something that leaves people behind. (It's sort of like the ideal of justice, fairness, and whatnot. Saying 'it's impossible to be unbiased' may be true, but is often used to justify being selfish. Trying to be unbiased leads to something better, even if we don't always get it right.)
What I'm left with is a mishmash of things, including my 11 years of Catholic schooling, our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and various other things... though I don't think you necessarily have to believe in God to go along with this.
I do believe that "all men are created equal", though 'men' in this case is just the catch-all for 'human being'. Male and female. There is something special about every single one of us, though whether you wan to call it the 'spark of the divine' or 'our inherent shared humanity' or something else, I leave that to you.
In certain circumstances, we are in touch with that spark. Or our higher self. (Again, whatever you want to call it.) It's generally something we hear in silence. That is, in quiet stillness, when we tune out the noise of the world around us. It's easy to dismiss, to ignore. To decide we don't want to deal with all the consequences of listening. We can't hear it when we're angry, or scared.
When people are given the right environment, the type of environment where they can listen to that higher self, we're often amazed at what results. We're creative, playful, joyful. Our best selves.
And, well. I think a bit of that whole 'Wisdom of Crowds' comes into play. No one of us sees all, knows all, and makes the best choice... but together, we can.
And yet it's all too easy to undermine and subvert all of that. The 'wisdom of crowds' doesn't hold up when a determined party decides to spread misinformation. It also doesn't work when people conform too much, like all my previous posts on groupthink.
It's true that people aren't always smart, but the discussions we have (and the willingness of people who aren't experts to listen to the opinions of the mavens who are) can make us all smarter, collectively, than you'd think.
So my next posts, tomorrow or the day after or whatever, will focus a bit more on that sort of thing.
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