|
I do think though that empowering individuals is key. Teamwork is still the work of many individuals, and I think a person's upbringing & disposition & the capabilities they've developed are hugely influential on what kinds of teams are possible in the world. The world of computing today gives users interesting capabilities, but only shallowly, only on the surface; it denies us the view below, denies us the freedom to see, understand & explore, and humanity always being so yolked restrains human growth, restricts what I see as one of our key better nature from getting a chance to come out & thrive. Sure, we are not going to all learn how to build apartment buildings; we will take much for granted. But many people do learn some home repair, or try their hand at fixing appliances. Sometimes just to save some money, but sometimes because it's interesting, & because there's videos showing them how to, because they can. But computer/information tech, in my view, has created a highly resistant unrepairable unviewable digitalia that is anathematic to this basic human engagement with the world about us. It is not just a built environment, but a built environment which resists real understanding, which prevents human empowerment. Creating an accessible world, one where human's have a strong locus of control, where they have flexibility & options to experiment, to play, to try, to explore is absolutely capital to me. Humanity loses who humanity was when/if we view the world as prebuilt, as a creation of some wider us, that we are but tiny figures upon. Yes there are many things that we have to rely on groups for, but that ability to learn about the world, to understand it, to investigate & understand & experiment in the pieces of it we so choose- that spirit is the lifeblood of this planet, and it's that attitude & disposition that produces highly functional teams & groups. Which is something we will, best I can tell, always need. To speak to technology & it's revelatory potential, to put it in scope here, I think it's important to review Ursala Franklin's dichotomy of technology. She divides tech into work & control related, work that helps individuals do things, control that regulates systems. Going further, she divides tech into holistic & prescriptive techologies- prescriptive technologies which break down work into fixed, predictable, deliberate steps & processes, and holistic technologies, which amplify the capabilities & prowess of the tool-bearer. There's a lot of tech on this planet, but even "creative" tech like a photo-sharing sight is mechanistic in nature, follows limited & fixed flows, & affords only superficial control to it's users. Where-as tech like Mess with DNS amplifiers human understanding, gives us the power to explore & test out what is possible, lets us set our own rules. This world is in need of techno-spiritual healing- computers are widely used but rebuff understanding, they have become overwhelming elements of control rather than empowerment. I look forward eagerly to a shift, to revelatory technology that abides different ends, that seeks a holism. Mess with DNS is "just" a little playground for some tech, hardly an attractive application on it's own, but I believe that individuals everywhere would be much better off- that teams would be much richer as a result- if tech worked to open up the engine-bay & allow some monkeying around. |