The Network Community

First, a pair of observations are offered to set up our discussion:

Observation One (Thought Experiment, previously shared in MM 12/6/21 Ego Is The Enemy):

It's a pre-dawn morning and you're lying quietly in bed. There's virtually no sensory input, no sound. The mind is clearer in that darkness than it ever is during the day as your thoughts survey your universe in the manner and scope of your choosing.

Then the perspective changes. You are now on the outside looking in and realize that this survey of infinite vastness is nothing more than an illusion produced by three pounds of wetware. Is there any doubt you are, at that point, lord of your skull-sized kingdom? Upon awakening, your kingdom reconnects with the "real" world.

Observation Two:

A recent visit to the homestead of (honorary club member) Bob Davis gave rise to an epiphany of sorts. Behind his farmhouse is an encampment. The encampment consists of a heavy canvas tent, a cot, a complement of cooking elements, an extensive vegetable garden with drying boxes and other intimate connections to the natural world . . . and . . . . and the total absence of ties to so-called modernity (other than, perhaps, the sound of a distant airplane). Many nights, most any season, Bob elects to forgo the traditional comforts of his farmhouse to call this his home -- home, both literally and figuratively.

And, of course, the visit to this encampment featured Bob himself. Bob and I have engaged in numerous discussion subjects over the years. On this particular visit we chatted about the subject of fly fishing, including Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler, describing the seventeenth century fishing techniques featuring a simple stick with hair tied to the end as the lure. The point here is that the setting, the man, and our discussion had an uncanny effect -- it was like living within a centuries-back diorama. That experience -- fifteen minutes out of town -- was profoundly grounding, transporting me to another time and place, back to the earth itself. The meditative spell was broken only hours later by the jolt of an intrusive cell phone call.

From the experience a question arose about to what stimuli does one's "skull-sized kingdom" respond? The connections established that day were of the senses -- sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch (among others) -- that evoked some sort of visceral response suggesting a communion with nature. Questions that flow from that revolve around the extent to which communal-type connections might be established beyond the traditional bodily senses e.g. with what?, with whom?, what type?, how many? After all, another name for a web of interconnected communal connections might be community.

Enter Balaji Srinivasan and his view on the way in which technology could foster the reorientation of society from the traditional nation state to the so-called Network State (reference MM 9/19/22 The Network State) i.e. : "a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world, and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from preexisting states." Backing off from that hyper-ventilating ambition, we will limit our discussion to whether/how we see technology might play a part, if at all, in expanding (our) community beyond the metes and bounds of Highland proper today.

Taking a page from Balaji's grand vision, we might first cut back to the basics with simple information sharing i.e. the Weekly. Information aside, view that publication in terms of an invitation or even solicitation on the part of the club and/or members to champion a cause (one example that comes immediately to mind is Roger Briggs's Planet Project). Further steps in the Balaji vision would include certain futuristic components such as virtual reality enhancements to define community (e.g. the google-glass type customized images) . . . .

. . . . pant . . pant . . . but at this embryonic stage it might be meaningful to at least start to explore ways in which our respective skull-sized kingdoms might intersect as we rapidly intersect with the future.