Tech and Society

The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost or risen in quantity.

I do not blame anyone but myself for this. This is not something the corporations did to me. This is something I did to myself. But I am looking now for software that insists I make choices rather than whispers that none are needed. I don’t want my digital life to be one shame closet after another. A new metaphor has taken hold for me: I want it to be a garden I tend, snipping back the weeds and nourishing the plants.

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. Their status registers how well we are doing, at least as meaningfully as the potency of our machines.