2020-07-15 // cancel culture
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There sure has been a lot of ink spilled over "cancel culture" in the
last week or so, spurned on by "A Letter on Justice and Open Debate,"
published by Harper's Magazine [0]. I think a lot of the issue, other
from "people being people" as my step-mom likes to say, is that social
media is designed to be incisive. People getting angry generate clicks.
I remember logging onto Facebook back when they were first rolling out
to universities and there just wasn't much there. You could see who was
in your classes, maybe exchange phone numbers. That was about it. They
rolled out the "like" button and the timeline, and people got HOOKED.

I saw Nick Punt's take [1] on rethinking how Twitter is designed, the
goal being to encourage people admitting mistakes and derail the outrage
train, so to speak. It's worth a look, not because Twitter needs saving,
but because it makes you think about how much the design of a website
plays into our actions on that website. I've heard it said that talking
to a friend on Facebook is like going through a gossipy third party.
Facebook gets to dictate *how* you talk with your friend by the very
use of their platform. Short comments, especially zingers, are rewarded
through a flood of reacts. Long replies are rewarded if they set up an
absolute BANGER of a conclusion that slam dunks someone into the trash.
Memes, GIFs, and outrage are the language we're to speak.

Economics is a mystery machine to me. Not that I don't understand the
basic premise of capitalism; the mystery is that we've all collectively
agreed to put the dollar on a pedestal. Everything we do, as a tribe,
is dictated by "market forces." We don't get to choose how we want to
work together. Is this how we'd arrange our culture if we were naked in
the woods, hot on the discovery of farming? David Graeber, author of
"Bullshit Jobs" and "Debt: The First 5000 Years," seems to think not.
He, and a handful of other scholars, write that they believe bartering
came as a result of currency, not the other way 'round [2].

Where am I going with this? I don't know. Old man yelling at clouds?

Regardless of our like or dislike of the social media machine, it's here
and it's not going anywhere anytime soon. How, then, can we live in the
culture that it fosters? One where people are outraged at others because
we've all been corralled into opposing sides so that we'll learn all
about fucking GOYA BEANS.

I've stuck my head in the sand before and tried to ignore social media,
but I don't think that's the solution, after all. Technology isn't going
anywhere.

And this is why I love the Small Internet. The counterculture of DIYers
who bend this same infrastructure towards noncommercial use. A place
where recycling gadgets is revered -- the antithesis of buying whatever
new shiny iThing is sure to fill the news and advertising when it's
released.

[email protected]

[0]: https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/
[1]: https://nickpunt.com/blog/deescalating-social-media/
[2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/barter-society-myth/471051/