On: Waldenponding.
Episode: N/A
Date: November 2019
Background: Writer and management consultant.
Key Subjects:
- Waldenponding:
- Various levels of retreating from technology.
- (Thoreau: virtues of retreating from social contact, leading a quieter life at Walden Pond.)
- Historically common response to emerging new (communication) technologies.
- Better response: adapt.
- Balance attention allocation – superficial up-to-date vs. more in-depth.
- Retreat from technology driven by mistaken perspectives on:
- Overestimating the impact of the technology and its design (they are too addictive).
- Underestimating the agency of the consumer (we have no control).
- Online platforms allow for emergence of a global social computing system.
- Bottom-up platform of participatory conversations.
- Individuals each contribute their private knowledge.
- Contributions are largely anonymous.
- [Is this true or necessary? Importance of weight of opinion, reputation?].
- May cause “fear of being ordinary” (FOBO).
- Afraid of losing credit for ideas.
- [Not sure this is a worry or reality for many.]
- Individuals may lose their identity or uniqueness.
- [Also feels like a stretch.]
- [Generally, at least at this time, there is little evidence of the emergence of intelligence through iterative online interactions.]
- [If anything, online platforms can be productive (and often they are not) by making information available more easily, faster and more widely than before, i.e. information discovery.]
- Bottom-up platform of participatory conversations.
- Unproductive technology usage.
- Driven more by the user than the technology itself.
- [Probably true for 90-95% of the people; to what degree do we need or want to protect the rest.]
- Be a producer.
- Try to create something new instead of reflexive reacting to others.
Key Takeaways:
- Be a producer.
Worth Listening:
7/10