Community in the Metaverse

We are in the middle of a generation that doesn’t know any different and a generation that doesn’t know any better. We have the acumen to participate but the knowledge that makes us think twice. The inevitability of the digital age is grim, but most of us are asking, at the very least, if anything can be done about it.

My current answer is buried in an idea called technological voluntarism, which upholds that human agency and social choice shape the future of innovation. Think of this as the Union for Digital Natives, over and against the philosophy of technological determinism, which implies our fate is already sealed by Progress with a capital ‘P’.

If technological voluntarism is true, we must participate in the culture because we are the ones who make it, for better or worse. That participation can look like many things. For some, that means a dumb phone, for others, that means using AI to the glory of God.

Whichever way you choose to participate (or not), consider a non-negotiable as you go about your digital life: give more than you receive.

Giving leads to community, but not the same community that was offered by social platforms. Giving implies risk and vulnerability — and potentially failure and loss — instead of selective display of our best selves suffocated by metrics of approval.

To that end, giving does not need to take place on big social platforms. Some say it shouldn’t, others say it can’t.

When you give, you have more empathy for others that are doing the same. This is how creative community is formed.

Giving is fundamentally against everything bad that social platforms have introduced (or made visible, or accelerated) and supports everything good they offer.

Technology, warts and all, is a means to an end. If its participants are, for at least 5% of their overall screen time, choosing to give instead of consume, they themselves are better off at the very least.