Web Culture: Individuality, Belonging, and Scalar Freedom

I have posted my proposed talk for Reboot10, which is two weeks away in Copenhagen:

[from reboot10 - Web Culture: Individuality, Belonging, and Scalar Freedom

Free…. Are we? Free to do what, exactly?

I am interested in exploring the conflict between web culture’s tribal aspects — exclusion of the ‘others’, the power laws, the mob mentality of fads, herd behavior, taboos — and the value of deep bonds that can potentially transcend race, language, gender, and culture. Freedom cannot be unattachment. Our web cultural ethos has be be based on something deeper than self-interest. The web brings us a sort of freedom, but we become ensnared in each other at the same time. I want to explore the known universals of human cognition, and pull out some of the threads about the universals of belonging and examine the bright and dark that can arise from that. It may be that to be free, we have to accept the traps within us, and unsnare ourselves through web discourse and post-national, glocalized identity. We are like a recovering alcoholic: a kind of freedom, but one where any joy is tempered with doubt.