New Year's Message: The Arc Of The Moral Universe Is A Twisty Path

from the twisty-little-passages,-all-alike dept

As long term readers of Techdirt know, each year since 2008 my final post of the year has been a kind of reflection on optimism. This tradition started after I had a few people ask how come it seemed that I was so optimistic when I seemed to spend all my time writing about scary threats to innovation, the internet, and civil liberties. And there is an odd contradiction in there, but it's one that shows up among many innovation optimists. I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's eloquent response to those who called internet dreamers like John Perry Barlow "techno utopians."

You don’t found an organization like the Electronic Frontier Foundation because you are sanguine about the future of the internet: you do so because your hope for an amazing, open future is haunted by terror of a network suborned for the purposes of spying and control.

And to some extent, my own thinking follows along those lines. I can see amazing, astounding opportunities to continue to make the world a better place through the power of the internet and innovation. I also think we have a bit of amnesia about just how much good the internet and innovation have already created for the world. But, that doesn't mean we get to stop thinking about ways in which it might go wrong.

If you'd like to read the past years' New Year's Messages, here's the full list:

• 2008: On Staying Happy
• 2009: Creativity, Innovation And Happiness
• 2010: From Pessimism To Optimism... And The Power Of Innovation
• 2011: From Optimism And Innovation... To The Power To Make A Difference
• 2012: Innovation, Optimism And Opportunity: All Coming Together To Make Real Change
• 2013: Optimism On The Cusp Of Big Changes
• 2014: Change, Innovation And Optimism, Despite Challenges
• 2015: Keep Moving Forward
• 2016: No One Said It Would Be Easy...
• 2017: Keep On Believing
• 2018: Do Something Different
• 2019: Opportunities Come From Unexpected Places
• 2020: Make The World A Better Place

Just a few months ago in a conversation with some friends in the tech policy world, I had to admit I was kind of surprised at how defeated they sounded. With dozens of laws being proposed (and a few getting passed) around the globe, at the federal level, and at the state level, there was a sense of despair among many internet supporters, that the good parts of the internet were on their last legs. I can understand where this thinking is coming from, and yet... even with all that, I remain optimistic. That's not to say I don't expect any of the bad laws to go into practice and destroy some of the value of the internet. I'm pretty sure a few such laws are likely to happen, and the consequences of them will be bad.

But, perhaps I've reached the age where I recognize that there is no "end of history" and no final state of things. These very bad ideas may come into play, but the internet is amazingly resilient in routing around such nonsense, one way or another, over time. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous quote is that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." A similar kind of thing can be said about innovation. How it plays out may take quite a while, but it tends towards improving the world.

That's not to say that there aren't setbacks and problems and disasters -- because obviously there are. But a key part of innovation is not just the act of creating something new and useful and getting it adopted by the world, but rather having society learn to adapt to it. I'm reminded of Clay Shirky discussing the innovation of the printing press, and how there was about a century of upheaval over that bit of innovation, until society really began to grapple with its power. Obviously, the internet has taken that to an entirely new level, and society is still very much adjusting.

Indeed, as we've noted repeatedly, many of the "problems" that are now blamed on the internet are actually problems that have existed in society for centuries that we just see more now because of the internet. I am still waiting for people to do a better job breaking down which of the problems commonly associated with the internet today are actually just the internet shining a light on existing problems v. exacerbating or creating them (and also weighing those against which societal problems have actually diminished thanks to the internet -- because that's a long list as well).

But, in the end, I have faith that society itself adapts. Not always neatly, and certainly not without many (potentially extremely problematic) mistakes. But society adapts. And the innovation drives it forward: not in a straight line, not without trips and falls, but eventually.

Indeed, despite the mess of the last few years -- and especially "the narrative" that "everyone hates the internet" -- I've been seeing more and more recognition that there are opportunities to return to an optimism about tech. Over the summer, I wrote about the concept of the Eternal October, bringing back an optimistic view of how tech and innovation can be good, but with the humility and wisdom gleaned from the mistakes of the past couple of decades.

History doesn't end. It just teaches us more lessons. The question is what do we do with those lessons.

I've spent the past few months exploring these concepts more and more, and in the New Year expect to see a lot more writing on this. I've been talking to lots of people who are legitimately exploring ways to turn today's innovation into something a lot more promising than it is, and it has me more excited than I've been in a while. And that's even with all of the nonsense happening among policy makers and regulators around the world. Even as they do whatever it is that they do, actual innovators are heads down working on creating a better world.

More specific to what's been happening here at Techdirt and the Copia Institute, we've been engaged in a number of different policy discussions to try to prevent governments from making things worse. The Copia Institute officially launched our Copia Gaming initiative (and we've been really busy on that front so stay tuned for a bunch of exciting announcements). We've also got some fun changes for Techdirt itself in store -- including a big one that has been over two years in the making, but where we finally see some light at the end of a tunnel.

This year, we also took all third-party ads off the site as well as all Google tracking (at some point next week, we'll do our annual stats review -- but for the first time without using Google Analytics, since that's gone). Of course, that also means that we're more reliant than ever on having our community support us, so please consider supporting the work we do if you can. A few months back, we finally moved on from our own homemade "Insider Chat" and launched the Techdirt Insider Discord, which has been tremendous fun -- and we've got more planned for that too.

On that note, my final paragraph of these final posts of the year is always about thanking all of you, the community here at Techdirt, for making this all worthwhile. I started Techdirt over twenty years ago as a fun project that allowed me to work out some of my own thoughts on the intersection of technology, innovation, business, and civil liberties, and over the years it's grown, and I still am amazed each day that anyone pays any attention at all, let alone contributes to the discussions we have here. The community -- of which you reading this are a key part -- is integral to what makes Techdirt so much fun for me. You challenge me, make me think, introduce me to new ideas, help me explore impossibly challenging subjects, and just generally push me and the rest of Techdirt to be better. So thank you, once again, for making Techdirt such a special and wonderful place where we can share and discuss all of these ideas. I look forward to whatever happens as we enter 2022.

Filed Under: new year's, new year's message, optimism, predictions

New Year's Message: Make The World A Better Place

from the it-can-always-get-better dept

It's tricky to figure out how to start this post this year, of all years. As long-time readers are aware, ever since 2008, my final post of the year was a reflection on optimism. It started, in 2008, in the midst of a few fights to create a better internet at the time, in which two separate people had expressed to me what they believed to be a contradiction: I am unfailingly optimistic about the potential for innovation to make the world better, and yet I often appeared (to them, at least), to be so angry about the state of the world and the efforts various people were involved in to impede the internet. And thus started the tradition of writing a post about how important it was to stay happy and optimistic, even in the face of so many challenges to that optimism. Whatever anger or frustration people sense from me has never been in opposition to that optimism, but directed at how that optimistic vision may be delayed or limited by short-sighted thinking. If you'd like to look over the history of these posts, here's the full list:

• 2008: On Staying Happy
• 2009: Creativity, Innovation And Happiness
• 2010: From Pessimism To Optimism... And The Power Of Innovation
• 2011: From Optimism And Innovation... To The Power To Make A Difference
• 2012: Innovation, Optimism And Opportunity: All Coming Together To Make Real Change
• 2013: Optimism On The Cusp Of Big Changes
• 2014: Change, Innovation And Optimism, Despite Challenges
• 2015: Keep Moving Forward
• 2016: No One Said It Would Be Easy...
• 2017: Keep On Believing
• 2018: Do Something Different
• 2019: Opportunities Come From Unexpected Places

Of course, 2020 has been a different kind of year by pretty much any measure imaginable. You already know that we're still in the midst of a massive pandemic that has taken the lives of nearly 2 million people worldwide, and 350,000 in the US alone. All of our lives have been changed in the last nine or ten months. At the same time, one of the key issues we talk about and advocate for here on Techdirt — keeping an open internet thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Act — has been under attack (as began in earnest last year) to the point that today, as I write this, it is front page news, with both the outgoing President and the President-elect saying complete and utter nonsense about it, and the Senate Majority Leader basically using the open internet as a key poison pill in his effort to deny Americans the relief they so desperately need.

Needless to say, it's been an exhausting (and frustrating and stressful) year all around.

And that doesn't even mention that over the summer we had to take all ads off our site, after Google's ad moderators found our stories (including about Google, Section 230, and content moderation) "dangerous and derogatory." That has represented a financial hit for us that we are still dealing with. And that doesn't even touch on a few other projects that we had lined up that all were (hopefully temporarily) put on hold due to the pandemic, or how many of us have experienced personal tragedies this year, outside of work, that don't even warrant a mention here. I know that it's been probably the most difficult year of most people's lives.

But, again, the point of this final post of the year is to the good things, the opportunities, and the reasons to remain optimistic, even in the midst of so many challenges. And, there is much to be optimistic about. Obviously, the COVID-19 vaccines were created in truly astounding, record-breaking time, in part due to the combination of new technologies and innovations and open information sharing (we'll have another post on that soon...). While many of us will be waiting months until we can get the vaccine, we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, and we're getting there thanks to the promise of innovation.

We've also discovered just how much technology, the internet, and innovation have been able to help so many people make it through the pandemic. The ability of so much of the economy to shift, practically overnight, to a work-from-home setting thanks to the internet and a variety of technologies is quite astounding. Obviously there are many jobs that couldn't make the shift, and many companies -- often small businesses -- that have struggled to make it through, but it is hard to overstate just how important the open internet has been to making the impact of the pandemic significantly less bad for a huge number of people. Even for people who don't work from home, things like online shopping, telemedicine, video conferencing and more have made it possible for people to remain widely in contact with the outside world, without putting themselves and others at risk.

This is incredible. And it should be celebrated. Imagine just how much worse the pandemic would have been without the modern internet.

It has also given us some opportunities to branch out and experiment in new ways. While we had been running various live events and experiments, the pandemic gave us a chance to figure out how to convert our event games to an online format -- allowing us to run our election disinformation simulation game multiple times over the summer and fall, and then to create the Copia Gaming Hour as a place to experiment with more gaming concepts and ideas. It also resulted in us running an amazing online brainstorming game with the World Economic Forum just a few weeks ago (I'll have more on that in a future post as well).

We've also found some other interesting ways to experiment with new technologies, including Coil and the web monetization protocol, which I think is one of the most interesting new innovations online these days. As always, we'd certainly appreciate any support you can give us. Techdirt remains one of the only remaining truly independent media properties out there. Nearly everyone else is owned by some giant company. And having to lose ads for half a year hasn't been great. And while we've been excited to see new media models, such as Substack, show up for independent creators, much of that relies on a paywall, which is something we're not interested in doing ourselves. I know it's been a tough year for everyone, but if you're able to, please consider supporting Techdirt.

And, of course, we're not even close to done experimenting. We've been working on a wide range of interesting things behind the scenes to improve this site and the experience for users -- some of which are pretty close to being rolled out (and which I think many of our long term community members will find very exciting too). We've also got some other, slightly longer-term projects cooking, and I'm excited to be digging in on all of those.

I'm less excited about the fact that heading into the new year we're still going to be spending way too much time fighting back against bad policy ideas. Section 230 is still going to be under attack, even after the new administration takes over (Section 230, like copyright, remains an area where there is bipartisan horribleness). Speaking of copyright, that's back on the docket as well, with Senator Tillis's absolutely insane ideas regarding copyright reform. But it will be important that we fight to move things in the right direction.

I know that lots of people have been looking forward to the end of 2020 because, well, just look around. Of course, I've also seen a few people note that many looked forward to the end of 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019... and the following year was often, in many ways, even worse. It is absolutely true that "things can always get worse." And we should be concerned that even with things looking up in some ways, we're still not out of this mess. Things can get worse. But, the optimism is that they can also get better. And I've dedicated my life to trying to help people understand how it can be better, and to encourage them to help fight to make it better.

So as we move into 2021, I hope that you're all ready to fight to help bring about this better, more optimistic world. We sure could use it.

Finally, my final paragraph of the final post every year is dedicated to again thanking all of you for making this worthwhile. It really is the community of folks here that makes Techdirt what it is. It's the interactions and the discussions and the debates held on Techdirt and across the wider internet that make all this worth doing. It challenges us, makes us think, and always pushes us to continue to be better ourselves. So thank you, once again, for making Techdirt such a special and wonderful place where we can share and discuss all of these ideas. I look forward to what you'll have to say in 2021.

Filed Under: 2020, 2021, covid, innovation, new year's, optimism, technology

New Year's Message: From Optimism And Innovation... To The Power To Make A Difference

from the things-are-happening dept

For the past few years, we've had a bit of a New Year's tradition here at Techdirt. The "final" post I put up for the year is a discussion on, well, awesomeness. Three years ago, it was "on staying happy", in response to people complaining that reading Techdirt made them upset, and wondering how I kept writing for it. I noted that there were so many more reasons to be happy and optimistic than pessimistic -- because even as there were some who fought against innovation, just look at how many amazing things happened anyway, in spite of the forces trying to hold back progress. The happiness comes from the conviction that innovation and opportunity always win out, even if it takes longer than it should.

Two years ago, I expanded on that to discuss the power of innovation and creativity to build out that optimism. I talked about a bunch of examples of folks who totally understood the power of what was happening thanks to innovation, and were embracing the tools creatively -- and spreading joy, even as others chose to freak out and complain.

Last year, the discussion was, once again, about why we should be both optimistic about the power of innovation, but frustrated about that which got in the way of its progress. You'll notice this is a running theme. Be happy about the power of change, but be frustrated that the rate of such change isn't as rapid as it should be.

This year has proven to be really quite an incredible one for those of us who believe in the power of innovation and who, while frustrated with the pace and with those who seek to block it, believe that over time you can't stop that innovation. The key element this year: the power of large groups of people to make use of the technology to start to say, "No!" to those who have sought to hold back progress. Of course, not all of these efforts will succeed, but the ability of people to speak up and actually make a difference is being seen all over the world these days -- and that power is only going to grow, not shrink. And that's something to be tremendously optimistic and happy about.

For years, when I'd complain about this or that industry seeking to impede progress, some critics would argue, "well, why don't you go change things!" In the past, you could only change things by becoming powerful -- and for most individuals, that was impossible. But what we've seen (over the last year especially) is that a new wave of change can spread by individuals coming together and doing something amazing as a group. It's tremendously inspiring in all sorts of ways, and I can't wait to see how more and more people learn to harness communication technologies and new services to make very real differences in the world that were impossible to even imagine just a few years ago.

We live in an exciting time, full of amazing opportunities. We can (and should) worry about those who fear where things are going and seek to impede this journey, but we should also be comfortable in the knowledge that we know how this story goes. Innovation and opportunity find a way. Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who makes up the Techdirt community. We've grown quite a bit in the last year (our traffic has doubled in just the last six months). Beyond covering some amazing stories, we've had some fascinating and educational discussions and experiences. We've been working hard to do more for the community -- including new stories, new tools and new services, many of which we'll start to roll out in the next few months, so stay tuned. But, most of all, from all of us who do this all day, every day, it's been a real pleasure having this ongoing discussion each and every day.

Filed Under: innovation, making a difference, new year's, optimism