There's a new cultural infrastructure. An invisible layer powering… | James Kirkham | 49 comments

The Internet’s Lonely Urban Design

The Information Superhighway paved over Virtual Villages; can we bring them back?

Keaton Brandt

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12 min read

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Jan 28, 2024

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In the beginning, the internet resembled a quaint village where everybody knew your name. It was largely self-governing and self-policing, with its own norms and customs. Like many i... See more

The most important role in a social network is the vibe designer, because the big questions are sociological, not technological.

One of the core needs of humans is a sense of belonging. For centuries, religion, our tribes, our communities, our families have given us that sense, but modern culture, catalyzed by the internet, has broken down a lot of these connective tissues. And so we look desperately for other places for belonging, places where we can participate in some way... See more

I digress but the main point is simple: the drivers of social coherence, such as culture, governance, morality, law, shared stories, and shared values might as well be considered “technologies”. These stories, at least as much as our manipulations of fire, matter, and information, sustain our relationships with one another and with the planet. Thei... See more

As I thought about it, and explored the idea further, I realised that of course friends around the world were already naming aspects of, or bigger concepts of which 'relational infrastructure' might be part of.

Take Civic Square's "Civic Infrastructure", Participatory City's "Neighbourhoods by everyone, for everyone", Cassie Robinson's "Imagination ... See more