[At-Large] Unsubscribe me please

Karl Auerbach karl at cavebear.com
Mon Feb 20 21:11:47 UTC 2017


This is an interesting thread.  However, it tends to express solutions 
that are all based on technology.

It has been my experience that technical means of communication work 
best when they are punctuated by actual face-to-face meetings.  Now, I 
do not mean grand and glorious jet-setting meetings but, rather, 
informal, self-organized get-togethers of people in two's, three's, ... 
even a dozen.

This kind of face-to-face this is important.  It is pretty amazing what 
people can do when they get past the friction and propensity to 
misconstrue that comes with electronic communications.

So whatever might be done electronically, I suggest that people consider 
meet one another for coffee of a beer and just chat.  Just possibly that 
chat might give rise to a solution to some hard problem.  Or it might 
create an understanding that lets us step back from the tensions of 
electronic communications and say to ourselves - "I have met that 
person, I know that he/she is intelligent and well intentioned.   
Perhaps our disagreement arises out of misunderstanding one another's 
words rather than something of irreconcilable substance."

For example, any one of us could put up a flag - as a tweet or an email 
or facebook post - and say something like "Hey, folks, I'm happy to meet 
with anyone in the area for coffee or lunch, just drop me a note a xxxx 
and let's see if we can get together."

I realize that this is not a useful option for those of us who are not 
in population centers, on islands, or others who would find informal, 
largely unfocused, small meetings to be expensive or inconvenient.  But 
consider that in our new era that we might look for several, 
overlapping, sometimes informal means of interaction rather than some 
single all-encompassing engine.

         --karl--



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