2.0 What's in the foreground

-a generous reading of the state of affairs

What was SUPPOSED to have happened at the dawning of this era:

If the promise of the Internet was access & inclusivity, the promise of Social Media was connection & authenticity. Despite the spectacular successes (and failures) of each, those promises remain largely unfulfilled. In response to our persistent desire for something more, the the online space had become saturated with more content that we can ever hope to consume. -Yet this is not a sufficient answer to our aspirations for the internet age. "Successful engagement" should not be measured in eye-ball hours or market-share, but rather in ways that affirm & celebrate what it is to be human.

What baits the hook:

Why then, despite the shortfalls & pitfalls do we continue to subscribe, & to follow? We do it to keep up with friends/family & to keep abreast of the latest goings-on in our community or our field. We do it to spread awareness, find support, & to organize. We do it for entertainment and for confirmation, to commiserate and to belong. For all the different reasons we use these platforms, ultimately we do it to be closer to the people & things we resonate with. There is nothing unique about the motivations of those we serve.

To spark the renaissance, lower the flashpoint

Kings have been made in this digital age by leveraging those underlying desires. Some savvy users have managed to upcycle these platforms into tools for good, but only by hook and by crook. Meanwhile the majority of us plebeians have learned helplessness in face of the fact that our contributions are limited not by courage or imagination, but by the frameworks available for us to participate in.

And as a barrier to entry only holds relevance when venues are scarce. The clever response then is not to lobby for accessibly to those limited existing frameworks, or even to expand them, -but to promote the authorship of new ones. Our tools are purpose-built to restore agency and meed those ends. -We don't need to build a better mousetrap, or reinvent the wheel. Our modern technical capacities are sufficient and the desire is ubiquitous. Really all thats needed is the novel application of well-known principals to those already existing technologies.