Logic’s End

The lifeblood of political community!

Although a wealth of modern technology effects our lives in a myriad of ways, it fails to alter the fundamental nature of who we are as human beings. Futurists and progressives often view the adoption of said technological wonders as cataclysmic events. Thus, the rules of how we live our lives are in a constant state of flux with their philosophical interpretation of the world. Philosophically freewheeling over human nature and the principles that govern our interactions, using the blunt hammer of technology innovation, irresponsibly erodes communities.  With the advent of social media, the wave of innovation has finally broken and rolled back, uncovering a once familiar landscape that has always existed around us: a human political community.

Technological innovation is taking place today as it has throughout history. We invented fire, the wheel, the gun, the abacus, nuclear fission and other “insignificant” advances such as written language. While any of our tools can be employed in ways both beneficial and detrimental to the human condition, it’s worth highlighting they are just tools. Human choice determines how they are employed. Gadgets may be designed in ways to afford certain uses, but they do not make that choice themselves. Just as the hammer and the screwdriver do not build a house, a Twitter feed and a Facebook profile do not make an entrepreneur successful or bolster community involvement. We must choose to leverage them wisely.

If Twitter and Facebook magically manipulated human nature and morphed the principles that govern us and create supportive communities, then the way we use them would be irrelevant. Want to tweet about how many followers you have reading your tweets four dozen times a day? It wouldn’t hurt your social reputation if certain fixed human principles didn’t exist. Feel like harassing your neighbor with tweets about how you’re going to put a golf club through his front window, and then posting the pictures of yourself in the act on Facebook? Why not! After all, with all of this innovation around the rules are (no pun intended) out the window!

Understanding how to use social technology requires first comprehending what it means to live a good life within a community. Folks who live in small towns (perhaps even close-knit neighborhoods within larger cities) have the good fortune of experiencing community life amplified to its highest level. If you were out doing doughnuts in farmer Jeb’s field, you can bet that the whole town will know who did it after you tell three people. Coincidentally, such communities help discourage burglary and other malicious activities, thus fostering the development of better citizens. Life in any small town USA is often as close as one can get to a modern rendition of Aristotle’s polis (a political community that fosters the greatest conditions for human beings).

Twitter and Facebook are helping create a modern polis, right in the midst of where traditional Internet has largely failed. Want to see what’s taking place in Buffalo, NY, on any given Saturday night? Follow the #Buffalo hashtag and you will quickly be in the loop. Heard about a crime alert around town? You can bet that’s on twitter too. Curious as to what the specials are at your favorite restaurant? Chances are that venue has a presence on twitter of its own that you can check on the fly. Community events, thoughts, and opinions can all flow freely over the streams of information that are the social networks.

Indeed, the promise of the social networks is great. They are the next frontier of the digital age, a tome of knowledge in which we’ve only just read the first page. There will be dark chapters filled with misinterpretation and the gross misuse of these new social tools. We should not let that deter us from exploring their potential prudently.

A couple of things to be mindful of:  information overload (reading and producing so much information as to end up not allowing enough time to give it proper consideration and thought), and surrogate technology syndrome (using said open communication systems as replacements for real personal human interaction).

Newspapers, pubs, and town halls were once capable of supporting our political communities in a similar fashion, and they are in fact still quite useful. Twitter and Facebook are not surrogates for them–they are complements. Their use can bolster support and sustain older one-way forms of communication substantially. One skillfully word-smithed tweet may succeed in putting an otherwise obscure newspaper article or announcement right in front of hundreds of new readers. Many citizen tweeters may become educated and inspired enough to speak out at town halls and pubs. All of this while keeping everyone in their political communities honest and informed.

In the end, technology will always be defined us. Our choices make all the difference. Just as we could choose to use the gun for murder or justice and nuclear fission for mass destruction or public energy, we can likewise use social networking for community and thought development or mindless and incessant chatter. In the end the same human principles that have continued to govern and judge our use of the wheel will ultimately guide our use of social networks. Moreover, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Henry V, we each have to deal with the consequences of the choices we make as our tools come of age.

With that, I’m off to visit family in #Minneapolis!

A cup of enlightenment

Sitting at a booth in my new favorite coffee lounge, Coffee Culture of Buffalo, I find that nothing more efficacious than the espresso in a creamy caramel latte for inspiring me to write. With the portability of my new netbook (almost 9 hours of battery life), I actually write more often. It’s simply so easy to take it places where my thoughts best reach their boiling point. Thus, having long sounded alarm of technology gradually dehumanizing us and supplanting real human interaction, I’ve noticed a burgeoning shift back in the other direction, a technological “enlightenment” or renaissance if you will.

Using a computer isn’t restricted to nerds in their mother’s basements anymore. I think nothing made that more clear than the day when my 70 year old father signed up for Facebook, god bless you dad. It’s no longer about how fast your computer is, it must be usable, mesh with our lives, and not get in the way. Take mobile phones, there’s little more revolutionary in consumer technology than what’s taking place in that industry. We’ve witnessed apps for everything from turning on our cars to reading the Wall Street Journal. As the iPhone and the Google Android gain ground, it’s destined to get better.

If our mindsets remained restricted to that of the 1990′s, sitting at an unwieldy cathode tube computer screen with a large noisy box next to it, then there would have been no progress. There would be no Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare–no revolutionary Bloggers birthing a new form of media. Technology had to adapt to humans to truly take hold.

Every inception of technology, however, brings with it means of misuse, of which we would be wise to take heed. Having 2,000 friends on Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re more social, nor does tweeting every 5 seconds. It might in fact be a sign of a narcissistic obsession. Vague-booking (writing an long, overly-emotional, and cryptic status messages on Facebook) really can make you seem like an unstable, self-loathing sociopath.

We ought not become so obsessed with this astonishing technology that we allow it to dominate our lives. There are some things best done in person. Nothing is more frustrating than arguing with someone via AIM or text message, nor anything more rude than tweeting or texting while on a date (I’d advise dumping that person with haste if you encounter it). Some of the best inventions in history–the gun, fire, or electricity–have all found their way into the hands of their abusers. The important thing to remember is this: used in the right measure, they stand to complement our lives.

One captivating way of using social media is as a form of psychological support. I’ve seen coworkers quit smoking with the inspiration from fellow ex-smokers reading their blogs and tweets. Moreover, from a business perspective it has the potential to connect owners to their customers; a hand typed blog with comments and feedback about their products can truly help inspire buyer confidence more than a static website ever could.

Focusing more on the business side of things, how can all this stuff help if you’re a retail business that doesn’t have an interest in selling products online? Maybe you own a coffee shop? I present to you Foursquare. Foursquare utilizes mobile phone apps to give retail business owners a direct line to their guests the minute they walk in the door. For us consumers, that goes a long way toward helping us too. How many times have you clipped a coupon and left it at home? With foursquare your local Starbucks could know when you walk in because you would notify them with a simple tap of your Foursquare app, and the eligible coupons could stream directly to your phone.

As I bring this rather lengthy post to a close, I’d just like to highlight that if there is to be a bold new technological renaissance, mobility will be the vessel that delivers it. The new web is compartmental. People want access to information that’s most relevant for what they’re doing when they’re doing it. Sure, a proper website will always be the anchor of a business presence, but there’s so much more that we as consumers want from our gadgets. We’re a society increasingly on the go, thus technology will continue to adapt to us. We just need to be careful not to allow it to replace the fuel of our souls: real human social interactions.