Web groups versus real groups: Example 2

So the next related thought (want to get all this on paper before I read the next chapter) is What Can't You Do on the Web?

Weinberger falls victim to the phenomenon Jerry Mander talks about in "The Absence of the Sacred" -- the purveyors of a new technology trumpet all of its positive values, meanwhile there is no discussion of how it will negatively affect society. Would we have chosen the automobile or the television if we had a crystal ball and could see all the ways that it would change society? Maybe. But the point is, the debate never occurs. Technological innovation happens and we are just swept along by it. So while the web changes everything, what can't it do.

You can't eat on the web (but you can get recipes or order groceries).
You can't drink on the web (but you can order Absinthe from Europe).
You can't dance on the web (but you can talk with other dancers at swingoutdc.com)
You can't fuck on the web (but you can find a date or find waaaaaaay too much free porn)
You can't hike on the web (but you can find pictures of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area)
You can't create political change on the web (though this may be up for debate)

The list goes on. The point is that the web is and will always be virtual. And it is no replacement for the real world. Human beings need to eat and drink and dance and make love. We need to interact with the real world and, if we want to change our society, we cannot do it purely through signing e-petitions and writing angry blogs.

This is why I found the web so useless for so long. But things are changing. And the place where they are changing is at the margins. Consider the Dean campaign phenomenon: there is no doubt that it would not and could not have happened without the World Wide Web. But what made the meetups so important was that they bridged the gap between the virtual world and the real world. In the virtual world, people connected with each other based on their interests. If this had just led to a lot of e-mailing (as it would have 5 years ago, because the web had not evolved enough yet), it wouldn't have meant much. But these people then decided to take action together in the real world. So 5,000 people showed up in NYC to support Dean months before political ralies ought to be attracting such attention.

The same thing is true of swingoutdc. When I started posting on that site, I found my connections to the DC swing dance community get much thicker. On the dance floor, there was very little conversation -- especially between guys. We didn't talk politics or current events or anything else. The forum let us develop new levels of interaction, as well as providing an excellent organizing tool ("Where is everyone going Saturday night? K2 or Glen Echo?") But the margins were what made it important. If I never went out dancing, swingoutdc would hold basically no value for me. It wouldn't make me a better dancer, it wouldn't build much of a community of friends, it would just be a bunch of strangers arguing back and forth about whatever.

This is where I think the great advances are going to come, and it's where the Sierra Club needs to focus its attention. Virtual tools can transcend traditional barriers of space and time (time because you can respond to a posting at your leisure -- you don't have to be present to take part in the conversation). As such they can be a multiplier for real-world group development. But the most vibrant groups, I think, still will have some basis in the real world.

There are at least two more subjects I'm going to want to cover in this thread. One is the Friendster phenomenon -- many things on the web are only useful if a lot of people are using them -- and the other is existing internet-based political organizing. After that, who knows, maybe I'll find some answers, maybe I'll find some more questions, or maybe I'll move to another topic entirely...