aron

The landscape of information online is time-independent yet observer-relative. My interaction with content is shaped by my unique digital context – my online habits, frequented sites, and chosen links. This reminds me, in an unscientific manner, of Einstein’s relativity, where time and space are relative to the observer's position. The meaning and significance of online information change based on the viewer and their vantage point. No wonder the internet feels like a vast, contentious discussion space, with everything existing in all states and variances simultaneously. In real life, things change over time, but perhaps in the physics of the internet, it's all about the relational dynamics of data, defined by its current network of relationships and connections.

When I post online, I add basic metrics to track views. But I never know the contexts or the viewers. Suddenly, this information exists in multiple states of interpretation and misunderstanding, yet in a seemingly timeless way. It appears in various timelines and communities, creating different contexts and associations by proximity alone. This makes me think of information entanglement, where separate pieces of content, or even fragments, once removed from their original context, become intrinsically linked in the minds of others, existing all at once in myriad forms. The data becomes the medium. Like a quantum particle, understood only in layman's terms, it exists in multiple states of interpretation, misunderstanding, and relevance simultaneously, collapsing into a specific state only upon interaction (viewing, sharing, commenting, etc.).

How to Citizen: “To citizen” is to show up. We just assume there’s something for us to do, and we don’t always know what that is, but we have an orientation toward, “Put me in. I don’t have to lead, but I have to be a part of the thing.”

Number two: “To citizen” is to invest in relationships with yourself, with others, and with the planet around you. We have inherited a story of separation of all these things, and they’re actually all one. The quantum physicist will tell you that really in a short sentence. So that myth busted.

“To citizen” is to understand power and all the different ways we have it. Eric Lou, I call him one of our founding guests, founder of Citizen University. He says: power is just the ability to get somebody to do what you want them to do.” And we have different ways of doing that. Physical force is obvious. Money, especially in this society, is pretty obvious. Ideas, sharing them. You’re very powerful, Krista. Putting our attention on something, we give power to what we give attention to, and we can choose, within default settings and design incentives, but we have the power to choose what we give our power to with our attention.

Fourth of four of these principles is: “To citizen” is to value the collective. We do all these things out of a sense of collective self-interest, not just personal, individual self-interest. Valerie Kaur was our very first guest for How To Citizen.