So as much as I can complain about how, you
know, we're living too much in electronic
world, you know, too many screens, and we
should remember the real natural world, blah
blah blah, all heard this before.
I'd say most people agree in principle, although
it's just a matter in practice of how practical
we consider it to be to spend time in the
natural world, when for so many of us, our
economic life, working life, and our social
life are based in screens.
But rather than complain about it again today,
I want to think about what I can actually
do, and what we can do, to make use of the
new technology, the new situation.
Now, as much as this technology leads to us
being isolated, because we always have this
screen in front of us, and less time actually
interacting directly with people, but at the
same time, this communication technology allows
us to have communication at all with people
all over the world.
There's the ability to communicate with people
that, in the past, we would have never met
at all.
I mean, throughout history, we've mostly been
limited to communicating with people in our
immediate environment, people that are in
the same town.
We can meet and communicate.
But now we have the ability to communicate
with anybody around the world.
So it seems like this ability is not being
used as much as it could be.
I mean it's one thing to have, OK, you can
call anybody in the world, but who are you
gonna call?
You don't just call people and start talking
to them.
You can email anybody in the world, but who
are you gonna email?
But now we have this technology of being able
to have video conversations, and it's almost
like being in a room together.
I mean, imagine you could have an online room
where anybody could simply join, and you could
make it as much as possible like a real room.
So that, you know, it's a space, it has some
kind of purpose, a shared purpose that it's
meant for, and then anybody can simply show
up, knock on the door, or maybe just open
the door and walk in, and there you can have
conversations with the people who are there.
And anybody can just go in and out.
Of course, it doesn't have the real, physical,
direct interaction of a real room, and it
certainly doesn't replace it in any way.
But the advantage of it, what it can be used
for, is that this can be one virtual room
shared by anybody in the world.
So that if you create a room around a shared
interest, say you have a very specific interest
that nobody else has, maybe, or or nobody
else you know has, you're interested in some
very specific thing, then you might have a
room in the world, and you could hang out
there and invite anybody.
Anybody who's interested in, you know, your
topic, you could say "Come to this room and
we will hang out and talk about it."
But let's say if you're interested in something
really obscure, then you might not find anybody
who's interested in talking about it.
But if you create this as a virtual room,
as a room that anybody can connect to around
the world, it seems like you now have a much
better chance of finding somebody who can
share your interest.
So it seems like this is what's missing, is
this feeling of having a place, a room.
We can send messages, but we don't clearly
have as much of a feeling of I can go to a
place virtually and have the feeling of meeting
people in that place.
Now if there is, if you know of any kind of
technology system set up like this, please
let me know, because this is what I've been
looking for for a while and imagining, that
we can make the most of this technology to
find people to connect with anywhere in the
world.
So it's almost like you can imagine, I guess,
it's like a video call, but it's sort of like
a permanent video call where anybody can sort
of join or leave at any time and have a discussion.
So with all the disclaimers about how electronic
life does not replace the real world, we can
still use this light speed technology, the
ability to communicate light speed anywhere
in the world, and use this to actually create
more connection.
The technology seems to be there.
I'm just not quite sure how to apply it.
So I'd love to hear any ideas on this.
