Sam Liebeskind
@samliebeskind
product strategy at New_Public; previously community & growth @ Geneva
Sam Liebeskind
Because each participant can remain anonymous and their input can be separated from their personal identity, they can feel protected. This can make them feel freer to speak, or equally important, not to speak, and simply survey the comments of others as they appear on the collective screen.
Alex Pentland • Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers
“anonymity” as an important element for safety
Zooming out: great communities, in the traditional sense, required limited options so people would remain dependent: no specialists or external trade (to ensure we all collectively worked together), and no diversity or weird ideas (to ensure a homogenous group with a focus on tradition). We had far worse medical treatment, underwent excruciating manual labor, and didn’t necessarily share the same interests with others, but because we were dependent on each other, the bonds were strong. Now the options are virtually limitless, and we’re seeing our social bonds decay as a result.
“Our towns are where civic culture is created, for better or worse. As this polarized moment in our national politics has shown, civic culture can be poisoned from the top down. But it can be healed and unpolluted from the bottom up and the inside out. How the residents of Tulsa choose to make a civic culture will of course be different from how... See more
Top Down Democratic Decline vs. Bottom Up Civic Renewal: Eight Working Hypotheses
Infrastructural goods are strategic because of the manner in which these three properties interact. Without monopolistic tendencies, the market could correct with competition. Without the variety in downstream uses, the power of infrastructure would be narrow (and users in a narrow domain can more easily coordinate countervailing power). And... See more
Robin Berjon • Digital Sovereignty
Democracy draws immeasurable strength from print — the old dying world of books, newspapers and magazines — with its tendency to foster deep knowledge, logical argument, critical thought, objectivity and dispassionate engagement. In this environment, ordinary people have the tools to understand their rulers, to criticise them and, perhaps, to... See more
So right now, it’s like the sparkle and spectacle of the shininess of the internet, it’s started to fade, and we’re really aware in this moment of, you know, trash in the comments and crowds on the timeline and, you know, misinformation graffiti on the walls.