Geek As Citizen

Geek As Citizen: A Statement Of Hope

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Sunrise

So, as I’ve been writing on Geek Citizenry, I’ve been focusing on areas we can be good citizens, and areas that we as geeks (both in general and as that ephemeral mass of geek culture) can improve in as citizens. It’s been awhile, and I’d like to make a statement.

I have hope, great hope really, that we Geeks, we technophiles and makers and cosplayers, can be really great citizens of our cities and countries and indeed the world. Many of us are already pretty good at it, and it seems that we’re trying to improve who we are. I catch that improvement in geek charities, in discussions of our culture and its problems, in reflections on the importance of technology.

I guess I believe in us on a gut level.

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Geek As Citizen: Disrupting Disruption

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Planetary Collision

We hear about disruption a lot, especially in techgeekery. Disrupt this. Disruptive technology. Disruptive disruption. If by now you’re anywhere in technology and aren’t sick of hearing about it you have an issue that probably needs to be disruptied because the buzzword is everywhere.

I’m getting a bit concerned about it actually and its use – or frankly misuse. The term “disruption” is getting a bit omnipresent, and that’s a bit of a warning flag that having hammers and seeing nails is starting to happen – and in the case of the hammer of disruption, I’m not sure everyone even agrees what it is.

So since this is part of the technosphere of geek culture,it’s something I’d like to address because it’s something that affects how we relate to our work and what we do.

Because I think it’s distorting our perspectives – disrputing them if you will, and not in the cool-innovative way.

In fact, I wonder if we’re even all talking about the same thing . . .

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Geek As Citizen: My Own Private IdaHell

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Flames

Last week I discussed how trying to get to Heaven made us bad citizens.

Specifically, I discussed how there’s a desire to escape everything and reach some permanent paradise (that is never permanent nor really that great a paradise) that separates us from others. Relying on the unexpected tag-team of C.S. Lewis and the Buddha, I looked at how that desire to get to that special inner perfect area drove us onward yet disconnected us from others – and that getting to it was never permanent anyway.

Of course my intention was to look at how that was relevant to geeks.

My concern was that there is a distinct part of geek culture that focuses on the Great Escape, from the Singularity to the perfect job where you never work, that could disconnect us from our fellow humans and society. To try and get away and keep grasping the elusive ring, we missed what was important, and even in our success we became alienated from others. As we’re in an Age of Geek, it’s an important issue to address so we don’t become less human and worse citizens.

But there’s a flipside to this “Heaven Seeking” behavior that I’m sure we’re all equally familiar with. Some people are happy to have their own private Hell, and in some cases it’s easier and the rents are cheaper. Though we may not think of it as the same, it still creates social, emotional, and just plain human distance.

And we know hell all too well.

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