Yet in these same cities people meet in places, and have the positive experiences we often define as being human. Consider how many of these are currently possible to have through the Internet, and how likely that is to change if social presence and shared spatial awareness are deliverable remotely.
The greatest institutions, large and small (schools, libraries, churches, etc) all orbit the constraints of physical coproximity. If even a modest set of these experiences can have a true digital analog that replicated it decoupled from physical copresence, the opportunity for these kinds of institutions to form at a whole higher level, across great tribal boundaries, seems high.
It’s hard or impossible to make specific, concrete predictions on a ten year timeline. But my view is that the 20’s will see a radical departure from physical copresence mitigating human activity, and we will all agree that this change happened in 2030. I hope that people capitalizing on it build good social systems to bring out the best in people and replicate what we have learned from our best institutions and examples of positive human gathering.
I guess what I'm saying is that many people had that exact same hope, for the same reason, 20 years ago -- and that hope ended up being extremely wrong; the exact opposite of what actually happened.
Of course we cannot extrapolate. Noone can know. But are there any specific reasons why the ongoing tide of political, ideological, social polarization would suddenly turn around?
You say "across great tribal boundaries". To me, physical proximity seems to be the main thing left now that still counteracts tribal boundaries.
Can you provide examples/scenarios perhaps?
As my counter-example, I just moved out to the country-side. As a result, I start to now see different opinions in my Facebook feed from when I lived in a city, simply due to Facebook-friending new people due to physical proximity. Due to this influx of "random" impulses in my Facebook feed, I think am likely to have less polarized views politically (I can see different friends arguing both sides of a topic) than if physical proximity didn't play a role in who I friended.
The greatest institutions, large and small (schools, libraries, churches, etc) all orbit the constraints of physical coproximity. If even a modest set of these experiences can have a true digital analog that replicated it decoupled from physical copresence, the opportunity for these kinds of institutions to form at a whole higher level, across great tribal boundaries, seems high.
It’s hard or impossible to make specific, concrete predictions on a ten year timeline. But my view is that the 20’s will see a radical departure from physical copresence mitigating human activity, and we will all agree that this change happened in 2030. I hope that people capitalizing on it build good social systems to bring out the best in people and replicate what we have learned from our best institutions and examples of positive human gathering.