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24 June '08 - 17:04

Stowe Boyd - Reboot 10 interview

"It is not all sunshine and flowers" says Stowe (meaning his talk), and the several problems with recording this interview should have been a warning for me that the editing would not be a walk in the park either. Let's just say that while I am extremly unhappy to release this last interview so late, I am more than grateful that I managed to recover the pieces (and keep most of my hard drive). nuff said.

We start from semi-international conferences via the obligation of web culture to do something for the greater good via "do not switch your brain off" to farmer's markets and the bottom two billion. And even if this sounds strange, it is definitely worth a listen even when reboot is over.

Download MP3 (41 min, 24 MB)

The name of his talk is "Web Culture: Individuality, Belonging, and Scalar freedom":

Free.... Are we? Free to do what, exactly?

I am interested in exploring the conflict between web culture's tribal aspects -- exclusion of the 'others', the power laws, the mob mentality of fads, herd behavior, taboos -- and the value of deep bonds that can potentially transcend race, language, gender, and culture. Freedom cannot be unattachment.

Our web cultural ethos has be be based on something deeper than self-interest. The web brings us a sort of freedom, but we become ensnared in each other at the same time. I want to explore the known universals of human cognition, and pull out some of the threads about the universals of belonging and examine the bright and dark that can arise from that.

It may be that to be free, we have to accept the traps within us, and unsnare ourselves through web discourse and post-national, glocalized identity. We are like a recovering alcoholic: a kind of freedom, but one where any joy is tempered with doubt.

• his reboot page


• his blog


• he is @stoweboyd on twitter

Follow what other twitter users are saying using the tag reboot10 on summize and tweetscan. (make sure to check both, as they are often broken).

[Link for the podcast feed - if you subscribe in itunes, be careful to adapt the settings or you only will get one episode per day!]

Used tags: interviews, preconference_podcast, reboot10, stowe_boyd

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