What do we really hope to gain from Web Two Point OHHH!! shit here comes the McDonald’s marketing machine!!!

An article over on New Media Age sparked a little idea that has been rattling around for a good while.

I am a big believer in the idea that people themselves should control the medium of high culture. Its essential for democracy and a healthy storytelling culture in general. What this article shows is that we are moving to a point where everyone with a mobile is now connected via the world wide web.

From the point of view of a democrat (cultural and political) this provides an amazing opportunity to build platforms into this system that will allow for a more inclusive, collaborative society.

From a marketing perspective, it means a captive audience, constantly exposed to the machine of modern global capitalistic opportunity.

Why bother informing, educating and involving people more in the system when you can push them to buy more stuff. The more stuff they buy, the better the economy does, and that means everybody is happy.

I’m as realistic as the next man, and I don’t blame anyone for trying to make a buck, but there’s a line you don’t cross and a base level you try not to reach.

How good would Jesus’ message have been if he had been wearing the name of a local eatery on his gown while allowing his fisherman friends to sell copious amounts of cod at his speeches. Its a perfectly acceptable arrangement at some level, but you cant help imagining the self-styled Son of God thinking to himself, ‘Guys, I’m trying to ‘communicate’ here’.

Its completely understandable when you consider the day to day reality of our economic system and its affect on our culture in general. The medium, as with everything, is part of the marketplace. And, of course, that’s all very…. interesting.

Problems arise when, out of this system, culture becomes product and the medium is taken over by the producers to sell their wares (physical product and / or ideas).

Here you have a medium that is completely open, democratic and transparent. And yet there is a very real danger that it will be swallowed up by the progressive marketing machine that has plagued every other ‘modern’ medium.

The evidence is there to show that all you end up with over time is a diluted message, an uninvolved public, and a load of generic content that does little but aim at the lowest common denominator.

It was relatively acceptable in the the golden ages of print journalism, cinema, radio and TV. Industry controlled content and the means by which it was presented. Like smoke filling a room, it was inevitable that the marketing machine would invade every possible nook and cranny.

But this is OUR Internet, OUR medium. And it is unacceptable if we allow this smoke to pollute its airways.

When you accept that the medium is the avenue along which ideas, information and discussion are supposed to flow within a community, you come to understand why so many of the real problems we face as a global nation are not being dealt with.

People are dis-connected. They are unfocused. They are confused. They come to believe sub-consciously that the world being presented to them on their TVs is somehow real, and that they must live up to its underlying message.

And I don’t accept the argument that ‘that’s life’ or ‘that’s how people really are’. That’s ‘horseshit’ frankly.

Rather than being completely Red and anti-establishment about it, I look at this arrangement with a cool head and I think ‘this is not good for society’. Especially one that, if you read the right books, newspapers and websites, is slowly tearing itself and the basis for its existence apart.

What we are talking about here is democracy and storytelling and how these are allowed to breath within a society. What we are also talking about is a global society that really needs to get up off its ass and start working as a team to solve all the problems we face together.

What all of these require is a community communicating. But how could they communicate with each other through a TV or Radio? These media were like noticeboards controlled by the teacher. Content was not representative and non-collaborative. It was controlled by the upper echelons of whatever institution had the power and the money to do so.

What the Internet (especially in the Web 2.0 era) is supposed to do is to allow even the poor angry trouble making kids in the back of the class to be heard. And maybe if they did, if their voice mattered, if they could contribute, if they were allowed to express themselves, then maybe they would start to grow up, they’d get involved, they’d try to make a difference, maybe even lead.

To me, Web 2.0 is about giving people the power to communicate with each other. To talk to each other. To share ideas. To act together. To take control of their own medium.

What will emerge is relative, innovative content, created by the community, for the community.

Its not a commie idea. Its not a hippie idea. Its not the calling card of dreamers, greens, reds, right wingers, Jesus freaks, anti-war-riors, or any other interest party. Its not for them alone.

Its for the sake of humanity Goddamn it!

Maybe if we work hard to ensure the smoke doesnt fill the room. Maybe if we build collaborative, creative, open, democratic platforms that allow people to make themselves heard and to take effective action when necessary. Then maybe the whole concept of ‘Power 2.0 the People’ can become something of a reality.

Had to pop out to the shops there a little earlier to grab a few of the basics. I live in a pretty affluent area (don’t you know). I stress the phrase ‘live in’ rather than ‘belong to’.

Maybe I was a little tired or pissed off or whatever, but for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel the peace of the area, or the well mowed lawns, or the contented successful folk. I didn’t feel any desire to be the guy in the snazzy car diving passed with the blonde. I wasn’t thinking ‘Jesus, anyone who reads the papers will know that there are a lot of fucked up shit holes in the world and this aint one of em thank god’.

You know what I saw. I saw stuff.

I thought about the real world. I thought about what makes a person who they are. I thought about what we really enjoy and love about each other. I pondered our potential as human beings. And again I looked around and saw a lot of even-more-meaningless stuff.

I wondered whether or not we’d all be better off if we didn’t have to spend half of our time having to chase around after all this stuff so that we could then spend the other half of our time chasing around after all this other stuff and we could just ‘be’.

What does it serve and what does it cost? Never forget those 2 questions when faced with any thought or situation in your life.

It’s not real, in that, it doesn’t tell me anything about who that person really is. It just defines them within a certain system or situation.

I passed it off at first. I didn’t find it a very happy thought. It felt elevated and detached. A little immature and inexperienced maybe. I considered stopping off for a pint. I countered with the usual argument that it ignores the realties of people’s daily lives. That these people had worked hard to attain what they had and at some level all of this stuff meant something to them.

I saw families who maybe had struggled before and now they could afford a new house. I saw an old man proudly pruning his front hedge. I saw young men parading around in front of their mates in their new souped up cars that they had worked so hard on. I saw women dressed up to the nines and heading out with their mates on the town. And then I thought for a split second how lucky we all were that we weren’t lying in a bombed out shack in the middle of Baghdad and then I stopped and thought…

SCREW THAT!!!

That’s too easy. In fact that’s downright chicken shit.

Maybe it ignores the reality of a person’s daily existence, their trials and their tribulations, their struggles and their immediate needs. But it gets to the very heart of the idea of who that person really is deep down.

The strange thing about all of this is that I have absolutely no problem with the basic idea of people and the creation and/or attainment of stuff. I think it’s a healthy human practise. Choosing to create or attain something that you feel defines you or explains you (or indeed satisfies some part of you) is one of the great characteristics of the human race. Jewellery that represents a sacred belief. Clothing that represents status in a community. A fuckin hair style that represents your own individuality. It’s all basically good!

The stuff we choose is really based on the systems that we are a part of and our own definition of ourselves within those systems.

One mans Ferrari is another mans prize bull. One woman’s latest plastic surgery op is another woman’s self made pottery.

I wouldn’t buy a souped up car even if I could afford ten of them, but the guy next door would save for years just to afford one. Maybe we’re the same age, we went to the same school, maybe we watch the same TV shows, but he has chosen this stuff to define him and to satisfy him. He probably thinks I am as retarded and misguided as I think he is.

And now to the first point.

No matter how individual we feel we are by expressing ourselves and satisfying ourselves with our particular bag of stuff, most of the choices we make come from the conditioning we have received throughout our lives.

That of course begs the epic question – ‘what systems are we being conditioned to be a part of?’

What if the systems themselves are not ‘healthy’? What if they serve something else other than our individuality or our interconnectedness? What if they are necessarily shaping us into something we are not in our heart? What if we are just using these things as crutches? And if any or all of these are the case, what are they taking away from our basic sense of self; our basic individual and communal humanity?

These aren’t some paranoid angst ridden teenage rants. These are genuine real world concerns and they affect all of us everyday.

The way you address the questions is with another.

What would we be if you took all of this stuff away? How would we cope? How would we define ourselves? How would we relate to each other? What would we reveal about ourselves?

We would be naked, stripped of all our trinkets and our garments, our warm natural bodies exposed to the elements. You can see how a lot of people would be uncomfortable with that, with nothing to hide behind. No one is advocating global naturism, but this is your true form, the reality of who we are on a physical level. Your body is the real you more than the clothes you wear.

And that brings us to the second point.

There is always the danger, depending on culture, society or whatever, that all this stuff can mask your true humanity.

That’s what I saw walking down to the shops earlier on. Not a load of zombie puppets on strings suspiciously eyeing each other up. But a lot of good people taking on, dedicating themselves to and hiding behind stuff they didn’t create, but which their society, economy and culture have placed in front of them to be used as objects to define themselves.

Were they all sad, depressed and mourning their natural state? Were they f&*k! Most of them were happy out on the face of it. And that’s an even more worrying point.

Because I saw a potential community boxed off, divided, categorised and separated. I saw people conditioned by social, cultural, economic and political systems that I have never really found to be attractive. And I don’t believe they in particular should have the moral authority to define us or tell us who we are.

Removing all of this stuff, the good and the bad, and still being able to recognise and define yourself – that is your true humanity.

So you in the car and you on the bike. You with the cop suit on and you with the bag of pills in your pocket. You with the pen and you with the knife. Who are you? No really, who are you?

What do we get when people start asking themselves this question? We get a lot less people in their own little worlds chasing around after a lot of unnecessary stuff. We get a lot of community and a lot of humanity.

So you… ye you with the computer screen stuck to your face.

WHO ARE YOU?

Look at the massive potential that is being ignored. For the first time we have the chance to build an informed and involved electorate, the cornerstones of any healthy democracy. People can organise, network, make themselves heard and push for change. The reality of our way of life is that the majority of us are not involved in the political process. We don’t believe we can make a difference, because only a small percentage of us are in a position to do so. We have never had the platform. It is often strange to think how uninvolved the average person is in the decision making processes going on around him or her. Is this a true democracy?

We have a chance to aim for the storytelling ideal. Instead of coming home every night and panning out in front of the latest product from RTE, the UK and the US, people could be part of a network creating content and sharing ideas on a daily basis in a collaborative, community environment. The technology allowing them to do so will only get cheaper and more accessible. People will be able to record and represent themselves in the public arena like never before in the ‘modern’ world. Again, what doesn’t exist yet is a suitable platform.

We could also rebuild the network of strong local communities ripped apart by the workings of industrialisation. Throughout the industrialised world, there is a strong sense that we all live in our own little houses, hooked up to and connected by the traditional broadcasting soap boxes. These ‘imagined communities’ are connected by a shared past, a geographical boundary, national sports events and those very broadcasting institutions. But on a daily basis the majority of us don’t know our neighbours, don’t have a strong sense of belonging to the community around us; don’t have a sense of collective purpose. But the networking infrastructure linking every house is being built. It’s called the internet. Again – no solid platform.

Maybe its time we started building those platforms.

I just discovered a new word thanks to this gentleman, Eric Seider. I am too tired now to ponder it any futher, but I believe I believe it is a word that will become very important to me, to human communities and to the earth overall.

And that word is ‘permaculture’. Google it. Read about it. Blog about it. Twitter it. Do whatever you have to so, because its a doozy!

‘Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.’

The Human Community living in hamony with and respect for the earth that is its birthplace and its home. Say no more.

Read on here.

It is far from web-development college I was rared. It is not that I am not technically minded. Once I get my head around an application I actually enjoy the buzz of playing around with it. I get a great rush when coming up with ideas around what a site or an application could be. How each tool can help people communicate in specific ways. Its like this little creative place you get into in your head – click here / that leads you back to there – you end up with pages of scribbles no-one else can understand.

Its very much like getting the mechanics of a story down on paper. You end up with diagrams and arrows and elements and bubbles shot down in a frenzy of creativity. Often when you come back it makes little or no sense. The buzz then is trying to visualise the whole, add to it, cut bits out, beg, borrow and steal bits from other people and make them work in the way you want them to. Come to think of it, it is dangerously like storytelling. Maybe that’s why I like it.

The execution of that never interested me. Building the databases and rationalising the different applications. Hence Ill never be a web developer. But I want to build websites – there’s the rub. Why bother?

In 2000 I could barely send an email. I loved stories, I believed strongly in the importance of healthy storytelling cultures, I wanted to see the evolution of strong human communities working together and I disagreed wholeheartedly with anyone who tried to convince me that humans were separate from the earth, an embarrassment to it or a virus on it. We are the earth. This is the reality. Anything else is just an opinion, no matter how well founded it is.

Very soon after that I began to understand how the Internet could allow for the evolution of communities and information streams that had not been around for quite some time. Traditional media don’t really allow for people to relate to each other as a community and this has always been a loss for contemporary societies. People don’t know their neighbours. They dont talk about important issues in a way that can affect the world around them. They have to rely on BBC, RTE, SKY and CNN to tell them what is going on. But the times they are a changing.

What I began to do was come up with sites that I would like to see built. Ones that would aid storytelling in all its forms, community, the development of arts and trades, education, and all the things I enjoy about the human and human culture.

Enjoy and give your feedback – good and bad.