A Recurring Revolution
The jury’s in: The Social Media Revolution is over, and social media won. Now that everyone is online, it’s time to look at what our various “social” activities are doing to businesses, government, and our culture overall. The conclusions aren’t pretty.
The Reign of Social Terror
The wisdom of crowds is seen through The Terror of the French Revolution (1793-94), and how a social movement for cheaper bread yielded renamed months, a new religion, and lots of beheadings.
From Conversation to Colosseum
Ancient Rome’s transition from republic to empire reveals the strengths of true conversation and the dangers of promoting it without substance or follow-through.
A Million Villages
Medieval communities provided structure and safety in exchange for flexibility and freedom, which suggests some interesting future developments for online groups.
The Digital Duelists
Knights and wits have jousted and dueled for centuries, and these forms of “debate” elevate form over function while encouraging combative behaviors in lieu of collaboration. Online comments, anyone?
Pixelated Peasants
The union movements of the late 19th Century evidenced shared needs and coordinated action, not just interests or desires.
The Lost Networks
The original three broadcast networks and the suburbs of the 1950s were actually vibrantly alive communities; Milton Berle was a transmedia property 100 years before the term was coined.
Shared Risks
Individuals have been collaborating to overcome risk since the first charter corporations explored the Americas, and continued to do so through the farmer mutual insurance pools of the late 1800s.
An Analog URL
When Andrew Carnegie started creating public libraries in the 1870s (he funded over 2,500) many communities were able to access what constituted infinite knowledge.
Blogging About God
Most religious traditions include the conversation, debate, and subsequent annotation of texts by successive generations; these “trails” of content over time give these conversations meaning.
