Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
To understand the problems of our day, I realized that I needed to understand how our attention was being fragmented, pulled and pushed by technology’s forces. Attention became the lens through which I began to understand technology.
If you don’t value, and you don’t prioritise, having some quiet moments, some pauses in the stream of information that floods into our brains, it diminishes the chances for a lot of creative thought, for making connections between otherwise non-clearly linked events and ideas.
When I’m at work I’m staring at a screen. When I’m not at work I’m staring at screens. Checking social media. Scrolling through updates. Scrolling through friends. Scrolling through products. Scrolling through #instagram. Scrolling through #amazon. The customer is always right. Make sure that what you’re selling is something that people want to buy.
Given that within living memory the earth has been home to people who were capable of traversing the Pacific in small watercraft by their wits alone, could it really be that we now need an internet-linked device to navigate our dinner plates? I think I hear the sparrows laughing.
Perhaps the saddest accolade of our modern faith is this: “Our world is more interconnected than ever before.” It’s a statement as bold on the first read as it is meaningless on the second, and one that is not only sad but also somewhat horrifying upon further examination. So, exactly what is “more” interconnected, and why are we celebrating?
Playing for Team Human today is Post Carbon Institute fellow Richard Heinberg. Richard is the co-author of Our Renewable Future and most recently, the manifesto, There’s No App For That. On today’s show Richard and Douglas challenge the idea that technological “progress” is a panacea for solving systems-level crises like climate change.
Of course, GPS is a remarkable technological feature. It gets us to a destination without getting lost, without having to wonder where we are. Yet, cocooning ourselves in a cushion of geographical illiteracy also breeds a listless lack of awareness, demanding nothing more from us than an abiding self-interest.
Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is a symptom. Overshoot is a systemic issue. Until we understand and address this systemic imbalance, symptomatic treatment will constitute an endlessly frustrating round of stopgap measures that are ultimately destined to fail.
Many people (even if only on a subconscious level) are waiting for technology to rush in like a superhero to vanquish these crises and lead the way to a sustainable future. But technology won’t be our great green savior, at least not without first wrestling with the tough moral dilemmas of our time. In a new manifesto, #NoApp4That, I question the pervasive belief that technology alone will save us.
Loomio is part of a new wave of entrepreneurs figuring out how to finance a more democratic, values-centered online economy.
Most people I know — left or right, American or European, religious or not — are different only in the brand of information provider they use, and all accept the information given to them as though it were real experience.
Some of us prefer sun and wind and depth and color to the play of shadows on the walls of the cave.
