Humainologie creative dialogue tonight with Zoom link and a few key points from Daniel Schmachtenber

“Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do. The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future. In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.” - Timothy Snyder If you care about democracy, then become more aware of how important the little things are, such as your words and gestures, your decision to show up or not show up. If we had dialogue groups all over the city that are paying attention to history and the direction we are heading, yes that would make a difference. With Zenia and Greg leading tonight’s dialogue, we have a golden opportunity to create a butterfly effect. Here is the Zoom link provided by Shinobu: Topic: Humainologie creative dialogue Time: October 20, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Oct 27, 2021, 8 occurrence(s) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83728528644?pwd=VmxxbDRSdHoxbU1Jam5rYnlPbnB0UT09 Meeting ID: 837 2852 8644 Passcode: 12345 From this link provided by Zenia Tristan Harris and Daniel Schmachtenberger deep-dive into social media's effects on civilization - YouTube I have learned about the Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039 which indicate the damaging effects that such technology can have both on democracy and on personal well-being. I have made note of several points that Daniel Shmachtenberger made, which I will quote or paraphrase here: (About 43 minutes in:) Neither chaos nor an order imposed by a tyrant is what we want. The idea of democracy is that an emergent order can be achieved. We can have a shared source of news and commentary (journalism, the “fourth estate”) and make sense of each other’s values and thus move forward together using a process of well-informed public decision-making. (Starting about 47minutes and 15 seconds in:) People are more susceptible to addictive things such as drugs or social media when they are deprived of rich and rewarding social interaction. Therefore, make a sustained effort to create offline interactions, whether it’s in a Friday drumming circle or a walking-outdoors-together group or whatever, in order to regain control of your life from the Juggernaut of social media. (50:00 – 53:30 minutes in:) To escape the surveillance of these technologies, what is needed is a system like that established for the privacy of medical information. Your medical records are accessible by your doctor who is required to serve your best interests, not that of some pharmaceutical company. We cannot have a technology that does not store data, but we can regulate access and the purpose for which it is stored. (55:40 minutes in:) We could use these same technologies that are destroying open societies, to build better ones (better ways to educate people and to formulate public policy options), but that has to become the imperative of our time. (56:00 – 57:00 minutes in:) Both China and Facebook are deploying exponential technologies, but neither of them has the purpose of a healthy open society. What open societies must do is to deploy those technologies for that purpose. This should be a very lively dialogue and I hope you can join us. Arthur