positive vibes only: bring back the WWW and make it 10x BIGGER!
With the last four years, my first 48 years, and the last 12 months especially weighing heavily, I'm trying to reorient my thinking to positive vibes only.
This week's pitch for a great thing we can still do is what happens when I write out the bad stuff that's happening and then edit it out. Mostly. <emoji monkey covering mouth, blushing>
I owe my livelihood to the World Wide Web.
Not because I was especially clever, but because I came of age when the Internet was connecting people and knocking down walls.
The Web re-connected us, and those new links spurred a tremendous change in how we relate to one another, in how we do business, and in how we get along.
The secret sauce? It's made out of people.
What made the Web revolutionary is the part we often leave out: it was "WORLD WIDE".
Or, better yet, worlds wide.
The Internet connects people not just between nations but within them.
Look at online dating. It's truly revolutionary.
Why has the Web had such a tremendous impact on society?
Because, fundamentally, we are social beings!
We are the Web. The Web is us.
The genius of the Internet is that the more people participate, the more each participant gets out of it.
This is a Big Deal. The Internet is as dynamic as it is democratic.
And yet, we still organize our lives according to myths that deny our reality.
The Natural Order of Things: winners and losers.
Some people choose to believe that the Earth is flat.
In the reality based community, we've known about the spherical shape of the Earth for 7,000 years!
We knew the Earth was round some 6,900 years prior to launching satellites into space; from observing and thinking about the world around us.
Some people choose to believe there have to be losers for there to be winners.
This, too, is easily disproved by observing and thinking about the world around us.
For example, when information flows freely, buyer and seller are better off than before their transaction. No losers needed.
Yet despite these documented advantages, much of America's politics are guided by the myth of winners and losers; and its underlying theology: that only certain kinds of people, call them elites or God's People, can be trusted with power.
Or, more importantly, that only certain kinds of people can be trusted with money.
Again, all available evidence says contrary: e.g., direct transfers work, the more people have opportunities, the better our economy performs for all.
To deny reality, we rely on fantasies where imaginary beings (animals, spirits) reign supreme.
In matters of domestic power (the economy) we tell ourselves it's natural order for there to be a top dog.
Just like the alphas that run the pack!
Except, of course, real wolf packs don't have alpha pairs. It's a debunked myth.
We literally make up fantasy wolves to make ourselves feel better about doing it wrong IRL.
We literally make up stories about how bad poor people are so that when bad things happen to them, because we are doing it wrong, we can say: "Who cares! They had it coming."
These aren't fringe views nor are they the credo of only one party.
They're pervasive and implicit in what we "take for granted," as true or necessary.
Look at our love of sharks and whales.
From a surface view, at a distance, we see dominance winning.
"Bigger is better."
And, yes, to date, the main beneficiaries of "distro at scale" appear to be the old players who control the already marketed IP and access to enough capital to produce more complex products and then market them broadly.
But long term success is not a function of dominance, but rather mutual benefit.
Consider the much admired shark, out of the tank and in the wild.
How can you determine which sharks are the best at "sharking"?
Is it by looking for the "killer instinct" in their eyes? Perhaps, how their tail swings? Its propulsive power or singular focus?
No, the easiest way to find the "best" sharks is to look for the ones with the most remoras. 
Some 3.5 billion years ago, the processes of life began on this planet and ever since then life has optimized for harmony.
Adaptation is a process of forging symbiotic relationships.
Exchanges with two winners and no losers.
We, too, have adapted. In fits and starts, with dead ends and giant leaps.
But unlike the remora, we make our sharks and whales.
We can make much better vehicles for our livelihoods by being more inclusive.
Any one person can be smarter than another, but a hundred people will be smarter than any one.
The wisdom of the crowd is directly related to the size and the diversity of the crowd.
The more, different, the healthier.
But what about the "bad people"?
A few weeks ago I showed you this map of our "airborne toxic events", dark clouds of misinformation:
Yes, it looks scary!
But this image was from a study about how deleting troll accounts improved the ecosystem!
It's a BFD that eliminating known troll Donald J. Trump from Twitter improved the ratio of information to disinformation.
Remember "Bush Lied, People Died?"
The way we prevent more people dying is to make people pay for lying.
Politically, this will take longer. (The reasons why require a separate discussion.)
But a well regulated information marketplace is possible right now.
And it's essential that we get it right because if we want a more democratic and dynamic society we need more Internet, not less.
An immodest proposal
If the Web was as good as it was because of how many people were on it, the only way to make it truly GREAT is to make it bigger.
We should provide FREE BROADBAND TO EVERY US RESIDENT.
Free. Everywhere. From coast to coast.
It's the Federal Freeway Project of our age. (Except this one helps fight climate change.)
Look at this image.
Can you imagine the wondrous multiplier effects this would have on the American Spirit?
People have! It's a great deal.
But how will we pay for it? The correct answer is easy: we'll borrow it.
And then it will pay for itself, because seeding the Internet cost $125 million... and it created how much value? Lol.
(See also: the already cited highway system. Or the UC system! The CUNY system!)
That's the boring but correct answer.
Here's a more poetic one: Whale Falls!
Thank you for accompanying me this far down!
Always, I love to hear from you!
P.S.
Someday soon, I'd like us to talk about the way we depend on home ownership to create capital. Incentivizing voters to reject more housing, because it decreases their capital, has created a hellscape; segregation, precarity, pandemics, climate change. The catastrophe of homelessness. We are doing it wrong.
FOOTNOTE
A more immodest proposal: the USA should provide "FREE WIFI" to everyone in the world who wants it. That would be the Voice of America for the 21st century. Yes, I'm aware of the sovereignty issues. That's a feature, not a bug.
P.P.S.
I cut this out of an earlier draft but, it speaks to me still. And perhaps it will resonate with you.
In the recent and excellent Bee Gees documentary, Andy Gibb shares his family's belief that songs exist in culture and we pull them towards us.
He's right.
None of us choose the bodies we're born into, nor where, when, etc. But we do choose how well we connect.
In some ways, the Bee Gees doc is about arbitrage – black music, white packaging – but their genius was in their ability to connect with each other and, thus, with all of us.
What keeps us disconnected?
Myths like racism and xenophobia. Myths about the economy being a fixed number of jobs.
"They're going to take our jobs" is almost always "They're going to make more jobs".
Unless the "they" are from Harvard Business School.
(Sorry D! and others. But also, not sorry!)