Weave - A Technology Ecology

Author

Aaron Gabriel Neyer
March 12, 2024

Welcome to the Weave. We are Woven Web, a community in active exploration around the intersectionality of technology, society, nature, and self; seeking to bring people together to engage in meaningful dialogue and foster genuine coherence in our community in Boulder and beyond.

In this Weave:

  • Reflections on our trust inquiry

  • Weaving Words - A technology ecology

  • Coming up in the community

Reflections on our trust inquiry

Last Thursday, elevent people gathered together at Myco Cafe to inquire together into trust. What is trust? How is it built or discovered? How is it earned or gained? What is the dynamic between trusting ourselves and trusting each other? How does discernment factor into trust? What is the relationship between trust and adaptability?

We decided to play with the format a bit more this week, and Sonia and Andrew paired up to bring more improv elements into our inquiry process, a natural fit given how much trust plays into our ability to improvise. It was a delightful exploration that had folks leaving with new curiosities, insights, and resources; and hopefully is playing a part in us cultivating a community that has a more healthy and wise relationship with trust.

Weaving Words - A technology ecology

In today’s world, nature and technology have fallen out of balance. With technology, we drill oil wells, we chop down forests, and we pollute the air we breath; we also distract ourselves through tiktok and instagram reels, keeping ourselves satiated as we pull our attention away from the suffering of the world, and with it, the beauty. If we are to bring balance, we have to explore our relationship with technology, and our perception of technology and nature. Our use of technology validates our perception that technology and nature are at odds and are incompatible, and this worldview further inhibits our capacity to act to change the situation and facilitate new technology solutions that support life on this planet.

I’m writing from the Little Lama cafe at Naropa, where I regularly co-work with friends. I’ve started to relate to this place as a sort of sit-spot, a term I learned from studying ecopsychology to point to a place we regularly return to for sitting meditation practice, as we build a relationship with a changing place and the changing beings that inhabit it. With 4 walls as the container and myself typing at a laptop on a desk, all crafted by humans, this sit-spot is one that involves much “technology” and yet the technology in this case is facilitating the flow of living.

Fields such as permaculture and biomimicry have emerged to explore how we can learn from nature to develop systems that support nature. In software systems, we see a lot of technology that learns from nature, especially in networking, and with modern AI methods such as neural networks. And in recent years, the conversation has been evolving around how to more fully apply living systems principles to software, and therefore build software systems that act in more harmony with the rest of life. The web3 ecosystem demonstrates some of this, through movements such as greenpill.network, as well as emergent technologies such as holochain.

With Woven Web, I'm excited to explore this from a few different angles. One way is to dive into conversation around some of these technology solutions described above, and we'll be touching on that in our next event this Thursday (see next section). And another way is applying an ecological view to our building of technology, by emphasizing collaboration and seeking to build as part of a larger ecology, transcending our existing pattern of trying to build in isolation and obsessing over competition. I'm particularly excited about this in Boulder, as there are open questions emerging around the future of Boulder's tech startup ecosystem, and I think we can play a part in helping to facilitate that future being one that embodies a much deeper and more connected sense of technology and relationship.

Coming Up in Community

This Thursday (3/14) at 530pm, we'll be having a Synergizing Systems event, exploring different views and technologies around the future of the internet. Does it look more distributed and decentralized? Does it look like blockchain, or holochain, or solid, or something else? Does it involve open data protocols? Does AI play a meaningful role in its emergence? We'd love to know what you think and what you're tracking. We’re going to try hosting this as a hybrid event, so if you get snowed in, or you’re not in Boulder, you can still join. Details on event page.

Next Tuesday (3/19) evening we're going to have game night at MycoCafe. There may still be some improv and connection games, but the greater emphasis will be on board games. This also syncs up with the 1st and 3rd Tuesday chess night that is now hosted at MycoCafe, so if you want to play chess or other games, come join us at Myco.

Fostering a more connected technological ecosystem involves looking fresh at how we do business. On Friday April 12th, at 8am, Woven Web will be co-creating an event with Mindful Your Business, Changing Work Collective, and Conscious Entrepreneurs Summit; seeking to bring together folks interested in a more mindful and connected way of doing business. Save the date and grab your ticket now (WW code for 20% off).

Thanks for tuning in. Reply to this email and let us know what you’re thinking and how you’d like to engage with community. And forward this email to someone who you’d like to participate more in community with!

See you in the web,

~ aaron gabriel & woven web