Tonight I was reminded of the value of participating online. This nudge came after a rather disruptive week of online interactions with someone whose interests were less well intentioned. As the initial good interaction quickly turned into something more sinister, I was once again reminded of how the structures of technology often lead to the human instinct of hunt and capture. Note that this is different from hunt and gather. As capture implies ownership and dominance.
Later in the evening, through a series of 140 character Twitter messages, I was able to explore new ideas, and revive dead thoughts into better understandings. This experience lifted me far away from the darker experience. This always seems to happen when connected through technology. No matter how abusive some "entities" may become, be they programs, hackers, non-technical individuals, or political groups, the little creative human connections rise to the surface, through the smallest cracks. Because this huge infrastructure we are building, currently called the Web, (second decade so Web 2.0...), is after all, a communication device, which means for most of us, the opportunity to change our minds about what we thought we knew. I believe this will always be the case.
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