The sky was the color of a dead TV channel
This is really interesting, thanks for writing it.
@hexayurt did, indeed, change his mind somewhat. He now thinks that we are entering in a more optimistic age, basically because fracking helped hold business as usual together as solar gets cheaper. I am not sure about others. Not that it changes much: even if civilization is not about to implode, we still have plenty of big, scary problems to fix. And even if it is, our reach is still very, very limited. Sometimes, in the darkest moments, one thinks it gets about as far as talking about it at conferences and various events.
Grassroots swell is, I think, achievable. Many people yearn for story and adventure and the good fight. But once they are mobilized, then what? Many grow impatient with inaction and impotence. If you sound the call, and the people come, you’d better have something meaningful for them to do!
So, we try to find channels that smell right. Epic, but small and achievable. For example, I am really digging this episode; in which our heroes @mstn and @elf_Pavlik, building on data generated at the unMonastery plus others obtained by @piersoft manage to build an app mapping the position of Matera buses in real time. They participate in the City of Matera open data contest and win two out of the four prizes: they refuse to touch the cash prizes, and instead ask the city to use it to organize a development sprint to extend the work onto more cities in Puglia and Basilicata (the company serving Matera, Miccolis, also serves 15 more cities; part of the software written for Matera can be reused).
I am not sure how mainstream this is – after all, it does involve selfless, moneyless geeks vs. incredibly untransparent public transport companies. But even assuming it can be called completely mainstream, hey – it is something that was done. Some thing was not there, then somebody went out and built it, and now it is. This is, I find, inspiring and hopeful. Mobilizations without outcomes that the mobilized can be proud of is at risk of slowly poisoning the idea of mobilization itself: it happened already out there in the realm of old-style political and union struggles.