Governable Spaces: Solve for democracy on the internet and our outer politics becomes a lot more sane - with Nathan Schneider

The Western world is in a crisis of democracy - but we learn a lot of our principles from the ways we interact online and the internet is essentially a feudal space that gives absolute power to a few and robs the many of agency.  Nathan Schneidersuggests that if we were able to shape a more liquid democracy online, our experience of generative interactions would spill over into the outer world. Has to be worth a try, right?  So how do we do it? As we spend increasing amounts of our time, energy and emotional bandwidth online, so we are increasingly exposed to what passes for democracy online.  And then we internalise the inherent autocracy and are at risk of exporting this to the real world.  So what can we do to change things? What's democracy for in the first place and how can we experiment with increasing the scope and scale of agency and accountability so that we can build trust in the processes that define our lives.   Nathan Schneider is a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Media Economies Design Lab and the Masters program in Media and Public Engagement. The book that drew me here is 'Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for online life',  - which you can buy as a paper copy, but you can also download for free.  He has also written 'Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that is Shaping the Next Economy', 'Thank you Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Movement' and God in Proof, the Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet.  He's edited other books about crypto and co-ops, writes numerous articles and his blog posts are essential reading. He serves on the boards of Metagov, Start.coop, and Waging Nonviolence. Follow his work on social media at @ntnsndr or at his websiteIn essence, discovering Nathan has been like discovering the well of life... He's deeply enmeshed in that liminal space where the best of human technologies meet the leading edge of digital technologies and he brings to it the sense of deep wonder, humility and humour that I've only otherwise met in meditators or contemplative mystics.   I feel I only scratched the surface of his thinking in this conversation and would dearly like to go back for a second round, but only after I've re-read everything he's written - and dived into some of the online spaces.   In the meantime, as a taste of what's possible, please do enjoy this podcast. Nathan's website https://nathanschneider.info/Governable Spaces https://nathanschneider.info/books/governable-spaces/Everything for Everyone https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/Thank you, Anarchy https://nathanschneider.info/books/thank-you-anarchy/University of Colorado Media Economies Design Lab https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/MetaGov https://metagov.org/

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Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone - it is never coming back. We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine, and by doing so, create a future we would be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn. What happens if we commit to a world based on the values we care about: compassion, courage, integrity? What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves (so we have to do the inner work of healing individually and collectively), between ourselves and each other (so we have to do the outer work of relearning how to build generative communities) and between ourselves and the Web of Life (so we have to reclaim our birthright as conscious nodes in the web of life)? We can do this - and every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being. We have all the answers, we just lack the visions to weave them into a future that works. We can make this happen. We will. Join us. Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come. If we're going to emerge into a just, equitable - and above all regenerative - future, we need to get to know the people who are already living, working, thinking and believing at the leading edge of inter-becoming transformation. Accidental Gods exists to bring these voices to the world so that we can work together to lay the foundations of a world we'd be proud to leave to the generations that come after us. We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system. Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future. Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life Find Manda's Thrutopian novel, Any Human Power here: https://mandascott.co.uk Find Manda on BlueSky @mandascott.bsky.social On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandascottauthor/ On FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/MandaScottAuthor