Sharing this thread to my own #SocialTech tag which you could follow and post to if this frame makes sense to you & feels generative
“social tech” is one of the tangible research paths emerging from my 2023 interest in focusing on utopianism or the idea that in a time of polycrises, we should still actively research and pursue our best and most beautiful possibilities for human beings and communities
I’m using #SocialTech as a conceptual frame because our culture loves to push capitalist tech as a panacea for the climate crisis. It absolutely is not.
While some tech can be helpful, without the right social tech, technological innovations can be harmful. Ultimately tech can’t save us, but I think shifting how we relate to one another is the only thing that can, and many of those necessary shifts may be more accessible than we realize. We can think of these shifts as social technologies.
This work is also rooted in a reading of Naomi Klein’s latest work, in which she asks us to look in the mirror and ask why we’re failing on the left. When I look in that mirror I see imploding social movements and burned out people who need: a)relationship skills, including a praxis of individual and relational patterns for successful group work; and b)easy access to the actual social patterns and blueprints we can be campaigning on & implementing to get us where we want to go
I found this in a little free library, a 2012 biking handbook by the rivendell bikes dude, and it’s a great example of what I would like to publish for social tech. Fun to leaf through, tips and tricks at all scales with cute drawings, a sense of humor, big chapter heading fonts, and a sort of pocket size in bright colors. As one of you suggested the last time I went off on this, a sort of Pattern Language for social technologies
@seachanger I would pitch in to crowdfund this, if money is a blocker to creating the time for it. You might also enjoy writeusefulbooks.com as a structural inspiration?
@seachanger I think we backslid a lot in terms of intellectual capacity. For one, the ability to anticipate right wing tactics just isn't there. Second, our journey from Twitter days to now has taken us from narrating around terms like #toobigtofail, #oligarchy & #rashism to a more coarse old-left vocabulary focused on "capitalism" which is all over my fedi TL. Old Twitter consciousness recognized that capitalism was dead, so I'm at a loss as to why the fedi intelligentsia does not.
@seachanger If a movement isn't minting its own descriptive terms, or at least applying different terms to a changing situation, then it isn't gaining any traction.
@tasket@seachanger old Twitter was owned by #capitalism so of course sought to persuade people that capitalism was dead. It isn't: it's alive, and more voracious than ever before, devouring not only us but also the planet we live on.
But feel free to ignore it while it keeps you in insecure housing and insecure jobs, brightly lit by the flames of what should have been your children's future.
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