1 hour, 3 minutes, and 13 seconds
Audio Link (58.5 MB):
https://podqueue.fm/proxy/L8yvwgELibpAQb2GrbUKCQ
Description (automatically extracted)
The Western world is in a crisis of democracy - but we learn a lot of our principles from the ways we interact online and the internet is essentially a feudal space that gives absolute power to a few and robs the many of agency. Nathan Schneider suggests that if we were able to shape a more liquid democracy online, our experience of generative interactions would spill over into the outer world. Has to be worth a try, right? So how do we do it?
As we spend increasing amounts of our time, energy and emotional bandwidth online, so we are increasingly exposed to what passes for democracy online. And then we internalise the inherent autocracy and are at risk of exporting this to the real world. So what can we do to change things? What's democracy for in the first place and how can we experiment with increasing the scope and scale of agency and accountability so that we can build trust in the processes that define our lives.
Nathan Schneider is a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Media Economies Design Lab and the Masters program in Media and Public Engagement. The book that drew me here is 'Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for online life', - which you can buy as a paper copy, but you can also download for free. He has also written 'Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy', 'Thank you Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Movement' and God in Proof, the Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet. He's edited other books about crypto and co-ops, writes numerous articles and his blog posts are essential reading. He serves on the boards of Metagov, Start.coop, and Waging Nonviolence. Follow his work on social media at @ntnsndr or at his website
In essence, discovering Nathan has been like discovering the well of life... He's deeply enmeshed in that liminal space where the best of human technologies meet the leading edge of digital technologies and he brings to it the sense of deep wonder, humility and humour that I've only otherwise met in meditators or contemplative mystics. I feel I only scratched the surface of his thinking in this conversation and would dearly like to go back for a second round, but only after I've re-read everything he's written - and dived into some of the online spaces. In the meantime, as a taste of what's possible, please do enjoy this podcast.
00:00 Introduction: Setting the Stage
00:51 Welcoming Nathan: Personal and Professional Background
02:07 Defining Democracy: Ideals and Challenges
05:04 Historical Perspectives: Governance and Social Structures
13:21 Online Spaces: Implicit Feudalism and Governance
29:54 Silicon Valley's Influence: Power and Politics
33:32 The Importance of Democratic Structuring
34:14 Coralyn Ada Emke's Fight for Codes of Conduct
35:09 The Spread and Impact of Contributor Governance
35:30 Exploring the Contents of a Code of Conduct
36:32 Addressing Harm and Governance Systems
37:13 Building Governable Stacks
38:45 The Role of Cooperative Governance
39:50 Challenges of Scaling Democratic Practices
40:35 Indigenous Perspectives on Separation and Power
42:55 The Complexity of Governance Algorithms
43:54 Embracing Plurality in Governance
46:33 The Role of Cooperative Economies
47:06 Local vs. National Scale in Governance
49:02 Investing in Locally Governed Technologies
50:12 The Importance of Local Problem Solving
50:47 Governance in Online Spaces
54:26 Attention Economies in Governance
57:21 The Multiplicity of Democratic Systems
58:27 Final Thoughts and Resources
59:15 Core Principles of Democracy
Nathan's website https://nathanschneider.info/
Governable Spaces https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/
Everything for Everyone https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/
Thank you, Anarchy https://nathanschneider.info/books/thank-you-anarchy/
University of Colorado Media Economies Design Lab https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/
MetaGov https://metagov.org/
- Added on:
- August 9th, 2024 06:08 PM EDT
- Last modified on:
- August 9th, 2024 07:08 PM EDT