My first venture into the blogosphere began a few months ago with the initial version of the ’son blog. In that iteration, I tried to write about some of my hobbies: reading spy fiction, designing web pages, and discussing consumer health informatics. Each of these evoke passionate feelings inside me; however, I am not certain that any of these passions are very generative. I’ve decided that blogging about my other significant passion, anti-social-hierarchism (also known as social anarchism), would be much more constructive.
I’m an amateur geek, so I’ve decided that the best way for me to promote social anarchy is to discuss technologies that chip away at social hierarchy. Wikis are an excellent example of anti-elitist technologies. An ideal (in the Platonic sense of the word ideal) wiki has no hierarchy of user privileges. In other words, an ideal wiki permits any user to modify its content as he or she sees fit. It is my belief that the more we use technologies like wikis (and blogs for that matter), the closer we will get to social anarchy. I abandoned politics because the essence of politics is power (i.e., uneven distribution of influence across a population). It seemed paradoxical to use political methods to achieve social anarchy. Technology, on the other hand, is not inherently rooted in power. It is true that technology can be harnessed to achieve power, but it can also be employed to build equity. This is my goal: use technology to rid us of social hierarchy.
Happy reading!
