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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
"So you may be our last best hope for peace," begins Rushkoff, looking at the dream of what people thought the internet could be, and at what it became instead. It was the psychedelic idea, the idea that something would become real if we imagined it. "Internet culture was reality hacking." In the beginning people thought it was impossible, that this internet thing would go away, like CB radio. Today the objection is that it's too hard, that programming is too difficult. And this resistance to creating it ourselves has resulted in the wrong people being in charge. "Angel investors, business plans... is that hacker talk?" So, says Rushkoff, "I've been stumping for 'programming' as a basic literacy." No so much to teach people how to be great programmers, but to teach them that it exists, that things are programmed, how (and why) they are designed, so they can at least understand the biases of digital technology. I'm liking this talk a lot.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 9:56 p.m.

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