About: The Relationship Between Technology and Social Change

I just updated by About page with a pretty succinct line of argument that sets the stage for much of what this blog is about….

This blog is focused on developing and argument for, and highlighting examples of, the increasing role that technology (and in particular the internet) will play in making Massive Social Change a possibility.

By Massive  Social Change, I am referring to the type of social change that is necessary to create the sorts of consensus that are necessary to begin to address very large global problems such as climate change, poverty, famine, war etc.

These problems are generally considered to be of the sort that we cannot realistically address. It is simply assumed that they are conditions of the human species; that things must be this way.

The argument that I am developing will suggest that it is the Perception of our Differences that results in the heterogeneity and fragmentation that is the source of our inability to solve these sorts of problems.

The Perception of Difference is the result of the fact that the evolution of the human species occurred in a manner that did not allow for Communication between disparate groups. Different hunter-gather tribes, for example, evolved without knowledge of each other.

This inability to Communicate was the result of geographic dispersion – their relations to each other were Non-Proximal.

The absence of Proximal relations between people says something about the Space that the people inhabit.

My contention is that the nature of Space is changing! The mere fact that I have connected with you is evidence of this.

That the nature of Space is changing makes it possible for us to address the Proximity issue that gives rise to the Patterns of Communication that result in the false Perception of Difference.

In resolving this problem, in time, people can come to realize that they are more similar than they think and that creating artificial boundaries that result in conflict and the inability to work collectively on problems of global scope is a false illusion.

If we view things as such we can set the necessary conditions for future generations to truly fix the world!!

Peace and Love,

Suresh Fernando
sureshfernando@hotmail.com