Digital History
I keep my politics off this platform because this platform is a big moist cognitive corporate disaster zone. (Plus as sad and shocking as things may seem—this IS who we are. Read Saum Song Bo in 1885… https://lnkd.in/efWR_YPp)But there’s another reason: I don’t believe these big platforms will drive a lot of change going forward. They’re okay for distributing news and confirming priors. They’re relevant but the center just doesn’t hold.But what is happening in small groups offline, and among neighbors or churches—enabled by simple and secure and private networks or just by folks making banana bread for each other, or 3d printing whistles—is simply not being captured by large platforms. Not even Bluesky or other ”alternate” platforms.At home and talking to friends all over I’m seeing kinds of networking that are not visible here. Kinder, more tolerant, activity oriented. My guess is that all of us have migrated some of our online lives into smaller, e2e encrypted spaces. It’s hard to see but it’s obvious too. It’s also getting easier for people to make their own tools and platforms.You can see how confusing that is to media and to our government. Where are these people coming from? They’re coming from the group chat. I think my politics really come down to wanting to enable that for people who want it.(As I wrote this a friend pinged and told us that their larger group chats had been invaded and they'd “lost their eyes and ears.“ So there's a lot to do.)