@Hazem, I am from Italy – not exactly a northern country. But you may be right about certain rituals that are culture-specific and difficult to move over to written interaction.
I have not read that particular Mozorov, though I have read other things by him and know a bit about his work. Writing gives a sense of false accomplishment? Could be. Maybe you see your own writing on the screen and something in you is nudged into believing this must be true. But writing has two advantages that, in my experience, compensate for any such disadvantage, with room to spare.
Written words are a track record. What I write today, and to you, @2mavin, and you, @Hazem, might be read in a year by a very different person. This incentivizes me to only state things that I think I would stand for in a broad range of situations. The result is self-restraint, or – more accurately – no less self-restraint than you would have in a face-to-face conversation.
Writing is hard. In order to overcome our natural lazyness, many of us only make the effort of writing down what they are passionate about. A lot of rants ad irrelevant stuff that I would say in a face-to-face conversation does not make it into the page, because I am not interested enough in my own ranting to want to make the effort to type it down.
@Hazem, i didnt mean it south vs north or culture wise! but ok i got the point you are making, which is that in diff cultures things might be interepreted differently!
1) yes, written word leaves a record, and yes someone can read it in the future and see all the nice or not so nice things we write. Your argument however that people think rationally or even realise that all they write might be accountable in future and might be detrimental to their own selves is faulty. Few examples? In Israel, IDF soldiers posting on Facebook and being put into prison recently. In Nigeria (if i recall the country), journalists expressing their anger on their blogs and twitter against the government and being jailed subsequently. Why is YouTube banned in Turkey? Not because people are careful and considerate in their posts. No, quite the opposite. Many other examples.
These people, of all, know much better possible consequences of their action, and EVEN they dont get rational or planning as you argue. What do you expect of the 18-25yrs old demography of kids form all over the world? Facebooks, Twitters, and other such outlets are FLOODING with useless, ignorant, stupid, racist and other stuff… All written, all preserved. Humans arent rational and they wont get unless one puts them into a hard position.
2) Writing on social media is NOT difficult. Indeed, it’s the easy thing for average 18-25yrs olds in most of developed countries, and even EASIER for the same demographic in developing countries. Hell, even Burma is now getting all the hubbub of social media… People post useless crap in a way they would have never dared to express themselves in face-to-face. Why? Mostly because the “virtuality” of the online makes them feel more secure and safe from potential consequences. Virtuality is the buffer, and they only feel how bad/good/etc is what they say when they can some reaction.
Again, from what you say, it seems you are the kind of considerate and careful social media user, and it is great! But you are an exception, not a rule.
You know how in most complex systems the average has no meaning, and there is no such thing as a representative agent? Something like Edgeryders is not built on the idea that the average person wants to engage on debates like this one. It is built on the idea that there are enough people around that use social media in a considerate and careful way for these debates to happen. What matters is not the percentage of “good” writers, but their overall number. Guess what: we are having these debates! It must be working.
@2mavin if you are saying the Internet is full of junk, I knew that (and guess what: so is offline interaction. Just go to a football match to get racist nonsense, violent language, sexism, commonplace and tribalism. I am afraid this is a fundamental part of being human).
If you are saying that therefore large scale constructive collaboration is impossible, you are disproved by Wikipedia, GalaxyZoo, Twitter coordination of mass demonstrations etc. etc.
You must be saying something else. But for the life of me I don’t get what.
I’ll be with you for the sessions on next steps in Egypt.
Will send something on my own work soonish. It will be about the driving and environment initiatives, education (incl mini-medina, yes) and coworking/ hack spaces.
Great opportunity to meet again with all edgeryders!
Hi Noemi and all,
It’s also great opportunity to present futurespotters our new project - SWAP shop in Armenia, so it will be great to have a possibility to have a session on this.
I’m just interested is it late to have a session and be considered for one of the paid-travel tickets?
p.s. sorry for not being so much active during this days, I had exams.
Hi @Enli, glad you wanna come! nope not too late to submit session proposal & put yourself on the radar for the travel support, here are some guidelines. Note that you can also co-host a session with someone from the community, especially from a different country to give yourself an opportunity to prepare it and collaborate before the event; if you have time to check the Futurespotters documentation from the workshops, you might just pick some of the burning questions and offer Swap Shop Yerevanas an example of how you yourself are beginning to find answers or test a solution. Hope to see you again soon!
Hi Sabah, I’m Noemi one of the organisers and member in Edgeryders since its beginning it 2011…
A good way to start and get to know peeps around here is to introduce yourself in a post. Most of us did it as we find it’s a good icebreaker, here’s my recent story. Where will you be coming from? Are you interested in one of the sessions already proposed? You can check them all out here.
can’t wait to see you guys in Tbilisi! As I read all the posts with close attention, it feels that I already know a lot of you. As you might know, in Tbilisi I will present preliminary findings from our research on Spot The Future - I am looking into main trends, main challenges and topics that emerged in our online discussion in the last 3 months. However, as Spot The Future is not only about on line participation, but also about off-line meetings and collaboration, I want to meet with you ladies and gents and talk more about what we see in the world, what bothers us and how we change it. Please register to my focus group discussion here . I need 6-12 active people, active future spotters from Armenia, Egypt and Georgia. I promise, you will get private invitations as well, not only this group call.
Once again - I can’t wait to see all of you in beautiful Tbilisi!
looking forward to see u in Tbilisi , have u arranged ur flight and accommodation or do u need help with that .
it would be great if u can introduce urself here in the arrivals so that we all get to know each other better . here is my post in the arrivals so u know more about me
I plan to come with my 1 year old daughter, so i need to organize the details of my trip in advance. A friend has already offered me accommodation in Tbilisi(thanks Inge!) and if I find a comfortable means of transportation from Yerevan to Tbilisi and back, i am totally in!
