c.Figallo

Posts Tagged ‘greed’

I’ve been reconsidering the feeds I follow to inform my blogging here. Obviously, I don’t post very often, and I think I’ve discovered the reason. Those feeds – chosen because they seem to be the most authoritative around the industry of social Web applications and activity – are stuck in a circle-jerking fascination with the financial success of a never-ending parade of products and ideas that have a snowball’s chance in Hell of making any difference in the world.

Could it be we have too much time on our hands? I’ve got nothing against leisure; I’m not a throwback to the Puritan work ethic. And I’ve spent enough of my life immersed in community to appreciate the value of maintaining relationships. But the proliferation of digital gadgetry for the sole purpose of informing others of the trivial events that fill your 24-hour, 7-days-a-week life just looks to me like someone’s not paying attention to what’s happening in the world at large. Missing the forest for the trees seems like an apt metaphor.

The trees are the countless hours and creative juices that go into “Hey, look at me! I’m looking at you looking at me!” The forest is “Can we summon up the time and creativity to figure out how to solve these important global problems before they collapse our toy-based lives around our ears?”

One lifestream that screams out for notice (and yes, it does get a lot of notice on at least a superficial level) is the advance of climate change. I happen to be plugged into that stream, and there’s plenty of news to follow. It changes every day, but the one constant is that we’re not making nearly enough progress in dealing with it. It’s like following a stream of information leading up to a car wreck but without being able to get the driver’s attention. “Hey, slow down! Pull in to the other lane! At least take your foot off the gas!” And like a bad dream, you witness the progression of events and scream at the driver, but no sound is coming out of your mouth.

We’ve got plenty of very capable communications tools to spread the word, to engage in global conversations about the situation, to share information and knowledge…it’s not a lack of good enough apps that is to blame for our lack of effective action. A better Facebook or Twitter is not the solution for global warming – and at least those two examples have merit in having been adopted by huge user bases. But the heavily funded industry for crazy social gizmos that barely add any new functionality appears to me (IM ever-so HO) to be a fucking waste of good time and resources.

Maybe – hopefully – the adolescent target audiences of these silly applications will move on quickly to a consciousness that includes the planet and environment in which they will mature and grow up. I do have some confidence that people in their 20s show awareness of the world around them and their place in it. Maybe it’s us older generations that are still stuck in the world of venture capitalized pap.

If we’re really interested in “community,” we should be engaged with the people who comprise our own in ways that will make the most positive difference in their welfare. The conditions that allow our communities to exist and thrive are not guaranteed. Indeed, many of those conditions are under threat of destruction. Today might be a beautiful day wherever you live – as it is here where I live – but what are you doing to insure that such beauty will endure?