I agree with much of this, but not that "they rob us of the skills for face to face contact". Some of us didn't have the skills in the first place, and for us social media is a lifeline - as discussed in this blog post by an online, autistic friend of mine. https://helenjeffries.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/online-isnt-real/
This is a really interesting idea. I'm sure there are eleventy-billion practical reasons against it, but - in essence, wouldn't it force everyone to spend a good chunk of the day reading and thinking about what they want to say with that preciously finite amount of time, rather than just reacting, reacting, reacting, with all the indignant heat of the moment? A deeply considered version of social media?
Thanks for thinking creatively and thoughtfully about a curation of time and focus for interaction on Twitter! I agree. And, we need a larger audience and discussion. I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack in the last few days much more than reading on Twitter. Perhaps a forum that includes J.H., author of STOLEN FOCUS, would move us toward responsiveness instead of bewildered reaction to the Twitter crisis?
I suspect this idea, is like cutting back on cigarettes. Twitter, and its many social media platforms, transforms human hardwiring of hypervigilance and cognition - rewarding, and evolutionarily adaptive in pre-digital doses - into an addiction. Cutting back is like cutting down on cigarettes - once you are addicted, the cure is quitting. Twitter did not make your body of work, Mr. McKibben, and I suspect 350.org, if anything , is made less effective, not more so, by Twitter. The stories that need to be told are long and winding roads, not parking lots.
QUOTE: "these deep side-effects stem from the fact that, to a much too large degree, these platforms have become the world. Some of us live in them as fully, or more fully, than we do in the unmediated, unabstracted world of people and trees and moonlight."
This is a crucial point Bill. I came back onto Twitter just over a month ago to promote my substack and to contact various people in the environmental movement. In the last few days I've participated in an exchange that has included climate skeptics. I'm both fascinated and a little dismayed to discover that they seem to live in a parallel universe to the one I'm living in. This parallel universe is where there's no real problem at all!
One thing that I've noticed is that their arguments tend to be very abstract -- focussing on 'propaganda,' computer models and how ridiculous climate activists look. There's very little about lived experience. For me, lived experience is a crucial part of why I find climate breakdown compelling in a way that they apparently don't. I'm 49, and I can remember when it regularly snowed in the UK in winter. Also, the experience of 40 degrees in the UK this summer just gone terrified me and was viscerally real. I think that many skeptics are likely living in comfortable suburbs with air conditioning so are by and large cushioned from these impacts. Obviously, things aren't quite bad enough yet to penetrate that sort of cocoon. But 'tuning out' the double-decker bus that's hurtling towards you won't stop an imminent collision....
Some of the things I liked about Twitter were real time reactions to breaking news, having authors write and respond to readers, links to fabulous articles and essays I otherwise would have missed, comedians who make me laugh, some celebrity posts that were about their art, animal rescues, etc. Then it became a political sewer with people so often posting outlandish and awful things in an attempt to “go viral” including a former President. Bots and whatnots are also not a good thing. And it has become a platform to post lies and plant seeds of doubt amongst everything, so it leaves many confused about what is fact and what is fiction. That’s a horrible line to blur on any given day, yet alone thousands of times a day. Now, under Elon Musk, it’s future looks grim. He has neither a real business model for it nor a sense of dignity or any ethics. He has already posted nonsense and it seems to be simply a toy he is using to manipulate people, which is what people with no true loving connections do. Add to that his incredible wealth, yet his inability to help others beyond the view from his own mirror, and he has become a bully with a store bought pulpit.
I propose a different approach to transforming social media to support planetary regeneration. The collective discourse on social platforms could be more intelligently shaped and architected, to support people enhancing their capacity for reason and logic. For instance if someone wants to make a comment like “humans aren’t causing global warming,” the comment is labeled as “unsupported/hearsay” unless they go through a process of tracking back through the scientific evidence and following a dialectical reasoning process that might require a few hours of self education. Then, if they still make a comment that others find unsubstantiated, there would be some process where that comment could be challenged via a structured debate process.
If we think about it, every time there is a profound new media technology, government eventually changes as well. An empire like Rome was impossible without a written code of laws that could be shared. Modern democracies were impossible before the printing press allowed the people to educate themselves on the issues of the day. Now we are running out governments on obsolete 18th century media technology. There is no reason that representatives have to hold their positions for 4 year cycles. There could be a direct democracy platform where people vote continuously in many areas, proxying their votes and also being able to redirect their votes immediately when they discover their representative is corrupt. I actually think this would create more stability over time. At the moment democracy is endangered by the threat of Right Wing takeover - people feel they have little real choice and that the political process is a corrupt simulacrum. I think it is real democracy, direct democracy, that is needed to give the people back to the power - but only if there is also a social network designed to compel them to learn how to reason better.
Another insightful gem. Hard for me not to say something like "Twitter is for Twits" but I'm not on it and so have no 400,000 followers. I also loved your comments about ubiquity, and omnipresence. For me this points to the lack of proper humility in humans, and our desire to prove, not be, we are like the gods. But that's just my opinion. What is true is that we live right next door to Nature but it might as well be 100 zillion miles away. We don't know Nature anymore, and what we don't know doesn't need to be nurtured or respected. But that's just my opinion...8–)
Best to have users find their own rhythm on Twitter than have time windows mandated (which as you say won't happen in any case). More important, a constrained platform would limit some uses of Twitter right now that are saving lives in communities facing climate extremes - like Jakarta and flash floods - a capacity developed by a Jakarta team (@petabencana) and Jim Moffitt, a veteran developer of extreme weather warning systems who now works building public data interfaces at Twitter - @snowman (at least has until last Friday). More in my post on seven ways anyone can "own" Twitter - now on Substack: https://revkin.substack.com/p/enough-about-elon-heres-how-you-can-22-05-03
Here's a great recent presentation by @snowman, talking about mining Twitter data almost a decade ago for early warning of flood dangers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEAbWmHC-5g
Twitter has elevated important voices. It's been invaluable for Ukrainians placing human faces on the statistics of war and genocide. But, my biggest concern with Twitter is that, with few exceptions, the majority of well-intentioned people mistake passive Twitter posting for grassroots, on-the-ground activism. If people stopped seeking alternatives to Twitter, and donated their posting time to actual activism, the country would be in a far better place.
I agree with much of this, but not that "they rob us of the skills for face to face contact". Some of us didn't have the skills in the first place, and for us social media is a lifeline - as discussed in this blog post by an online, autistic friend of mine. https://helenjeffries.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/online-isnt-real/
good point that!
This is a really interesting idea. I'm sure there are eleventy-billion practical reasons against it, but - in essence, wouldn't it force everyone to spend a good chunk of the day reading and thinking about what they want to say with that preciously finite amount of time, rather than just reacting, reacting, reacting, with all the indignant heat of the moment? A deeply considered version of social media?
yes, that's very well put. it's like a time-out
Thanks for thinking creatively and thoughtfully about a curation of time and focus for interaction on Twitter! I agree. And, we need a larger audience and discussion. I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack in the last few days much more than reading on Twitter. Perhaps a forum that includes J.H., author of STOLEN FOCUS, would move us toward responsiveness instead of bewildered reaction to the Twitter crisis?
I suspect this idea, is like cutting back on cigarettes. Twitter, and its many social media platforms, transforms human hardwiring of hypervigilance and cognition - rewarding, and evolutionarily adaptive in pre-digital doses - into an addiction. Cutting back is like cutting down on cigarettes - once you are addicted, the cure is quitting. Twitter did not make your body of work, Mr. McKibben, and I suspect 350.org, if anything , is made less effective, not more so, by Twitter. The stories that need to be told are long and winding roads, not parking lots.
QUOTE: "these deep side-effects stem from the fact that, to a much too large degree, these platforms have become the world. Some of us live in them as fully, or more fully, than we do in the unmediated, unabstracted world of people and trees and moonlight."
This is a crucial point Bill. I came back onto Twitter just over a month ago to promote my substack and to contact various people in the environmental movement. In the last few days I've participated in an exchange that has included climate skeptics. I'm both fascinated and a little dismayed to discover that they seem to live in a parallel universe to the one I'm living in. This parallel universe is where there's no real problem at all!
One thing that I've noticed is that their arguments tend to be very abstract -- focussing on 'propaganda,' computer models and how ridiculous climate activists look. There's very little about lived experience. For me, lived experience is a crucial part of why I find climate breakdown compelling in a way that they apparently don't. I'm 49, and I can remember when it regularly snowed in the UK in winter. Also, the experience of 40 degrees in the UK this summer just gone terrified me and was viscerally real. I think that many skeptics are likely living in comfortable suburbs with air conditioning so are by and large cushioned from these impacts. Obviously, things aren't quite bad enough yet to penetrate that sort of cocoon. But 'tuning out' the double-decker bus that's hurtling towards you won't stop an imminent collision....
Some of the things I liked about Twitter were real time reactions to breaking news, having authors write and respond to readers, links to fabulous articles and essays I otherwise would have missed, comedians who make me laugh, some celebrity posts that were about their art, animal rescues, etc. Then it became a political sewer with people so often posting outlandish and awful things in an attempt to “go viral” including a former President. Bots and whatnots are also not a good thing. And it has become a platform to post lies and plant seeds of doubt amongst everything, so it leaves many confused about what is fact and what is fiction. That’s a horrible line to blur on any given day, yet alone thousands of times a day. Now, under Elon Musk, it’s future looks grim. He has neither a real business model for it nor a sense of dignity or any ethics. He has already posted nonsense and it seems to be simply a toy he is using to manipulate people, which is what people with no true loving connections do. Add to that his incredible wealth, yet his inability to help others beyond the view from his own mirror, and he has become a bully with a store bought pulpit.
Hi Bill,
I propose a different approach to transforming social media to support planetary regeneration. The collective discourse on social platforms could be more intelligently shaped and architected, to support people enhancing their capacity for reason and logic. For instance if someone wants to make a comment like “humans aren’t causing global warming,” the comment is labeled as “unsupported/hearsay” unless they go through a process of tracking back through the scientific evidence and following a dialectical reasoning process that might require a few hours of self education. Then, if they still make a comment that others find unsubstantiated, there would be some process where that comment could be challenged via a structured debate process.
If we think about it, every time there is a profound new media technology, government eventually changes as well. An empire like Rome was impossible without a written code of laws that could be shared. Modern democracies were impossible before the printing press allowed the people to educate themselves on the issues of the day. Now we are running out governments on obsolete 18th century media technology. There is no reason that representatives have to hold their positions for 4 year cycles. There could be a direct democracy platform where people vote continuously in many areas, proxying their votes and also being able to redirect their votes immediately when they discover their representative is corrupt. I actually think this would create more stability over time. At the moment democracy is endangered by the threat of Right Wing takeover - people feel they have little real choice and that the political process is a corrupt simulacrum. I think it is real democracy, direct democracy, that is needed to give the people back to the power - but only if there is also a social network designed to compel them to learn how to reason better.
By the way I explore these ideas in greater depth in my book How Soon Is Now.
Bill, in “What is Hell” (Sept 24) your final entry under “News from the world of climate and energy“ was a suggestion to follow Antonio Guterres.
What he tweeted 4 days ago (Oct 27) deserves mention in upcoming “News from the world of climate and energy” potpourri, namely:
• https://youtu.be/mCkUcJUuCPE
• https://www.unep.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-2022
• https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129912
Perhaps, even a full-blown commentary — I’d love to hear your views on this conundrum 🤔
Cheers,
Doug350
Another insightful gem. Hard for me not to say something like "Twitter is for Twits" but I'm not on it and so have no 400,000 followers. I also loved your comments about ubiquity, and omnipresence. For me this points to the lack of proper humility in humans, and our desire to prove, not be, we are like the gods. But that's just my opinion. What is true is that we live right next door to Nature but it might as well be 100 zillion miles away. We don't know Nature anymore, and what we don't know doesn't need to be nurtured or respected. But that's just my opinion...8–)
that seems so right to me--so close and yet so far
Best to have users find their own rhythm on Twitter than have time windows mandated (which as you say won't happen in any case). More important, a constrained platform would limit some uses of Twitter right now that are saving lives in communities facing climate extremes - like Jakarta and flash floods - a capacity developed by a Jakarta team (@petabencana) and Jim Moffitt, a veteran developer of extreme weather warning systems who now works building public data interfaces at Twitter - @snowman (at least has until last Friday). More in my post on seven ways anyone can "own" Twitter - now on Substack: https://revkin.substack.com/p/enough-about-elon-heres-how-you-can-22-05-03
Here's a great recent presentation by @snowman, talking about mining Twitter data almost a decade ago for early warning of flood dangers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEAbWmHC-5g
Twitter has elevated important voices. It's been invaluable for Ukrainians placing human faces on the statistics of war and genocide. But, my biggest concern with Twitter is that, with few exceptions, the majority of well-intentioned people mistake passive Twitter posting for grassroots, on-the-ground activism. If people stopped seeking alternatives to Twitter, and donated their posting time to actual activism, the country would be in a far better place.
indeed!