Metaviews

Previous to this pandemic, our discourse was neither civil nor consistent. While there was a modest change of tone in the weeks immediately following the shock of this shutdown, I fear we’re rapidly returning to the polarized political environment we lamented not to long ago. There’s even reason to believe it’s becoming worse.

A primary purpose of Metaviews is to create critical distance so that we might see beyond the frame and glimpse the bigger picture, or at least derive insights to inform our sense of what is going on.

It should come as no surprise that the one area of the economy that continues to thrive and prosper is cyber crime. It was booming before, but unlike much of the rest of the economy, that boom has only increased in scale and scope.

In a crisis, our collective commitment to free speech can waiver, and we are more likely to desire the suppression or silencing of views that we disagree with or deem unacceptable.

The last few issues we’ve been exploring themes inspired by, or focused on, democracy, institutions, and social change, all in the context of a high stress situation where anxiety is in great abundance.

Just about every day I experience a moment of significant Internet related frustration. The primary impact is that I avoid video conferencing or producing video, cause my upload speeds are not stable or fast enough. Although avoiding doesn’t mean I don’t do it, but rather I try not to. Which is pointless, since I need to do it more, yet take a look at this salon I did with Mark Jeftovic and Charles Smith, and note how often my video drops out, and how lagged my audio is.