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Last weekend was the first ATmosphere Conference in Seattle, during which Bluesky CEO Jay Graber gave a short speech about "the power of belief, and the role it plays in shaping technology". The entire speech can be viewed here, and I can recommend watching it in its entirety, as it is only 7 minutes. I've been thinking about what Graber said over the last few days, and want to reflect on it some more.
Graber opens with a reference to John Perry Barlow's 'Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' from the mid 1990s. The declaration is a prime example of the techno-libertarian thinking and optimism from that time period, which criticises governments and warns them to stay away from the internet. Graber quotes Barlow's final sentences, which state: "We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before."
Graber then reflects on how she grew up with the optimism from that time period, and how she gradually became more pessimistic over time. She is acutely aware of the negative societal impacts that the internet and its giant platforms have wrought, as evidenced by her "Mundus sine Caesaribus" shirt she was wearing. She asks: "So if the platforms where we communicate consolidate in just the hands of a few people, what's going to happen to everything else?"
In 2015, Graber met with Barlow, and boldly asked him if he had been naive, with his declaration. If he had not seen if the internet could be used to surveil and control. Barlow's answer is that he knew this was a possibility, but that his job was to inspire, to get people to believe in the positive vision that the internet could be. This is the same position that Graber takes for herself in this speech, inspiring other developers to build a better future, a world without Caesars.
But the argument that Graber brings to the table left me unsatisfied. The positive vision of the mid 1990s did not come to pass, even though the belief that the internet would change everything for the better was widespread. So what makes this time different? Graber's answer is that "the AT Protocol is what's fundamentally different". But if that were to be true, the implication of that is that the reason that Barlow's vision did not come to be was nothing more than a technical error in how the internet was designed. It suggests that if there were good open social protocols in the 2000s that allow people to own their identity and freely communicate, the walled garden and its tech oligarchs would not have happened.
Determining the what-if's of history is an impossibility, but it seems to me that the ethics and worldviews that are embedded in our technology have played a major part as well in leading us to the current state of the internet. The world and internet as it is today is shaped by technological affordances, but just as much as choices made by individuals. As David Graeber said (and got quoted elsewhere during the conference): "The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently."
We could have had another internet today if people, and society as a whole, had decided to make it so. That goes the same for today: an open protocol will help bend the technological trajectory of the internet to a place where Caesars are less likely, but getting to such a place requires people to make the choices to get there. Graber says she is here to "open up a door, so people can see another world is possible, and so that developers like you can go build it".
Remaking the social internet into a better place requires a vision that a better world is possible, is the core of Graber's argument. But Barlow also teaches us that a positive vision is not enough; a great utopian visions for the internet have so far ended in a world of oligarchy. So what else is needed beyond a vision? Graber herself offers a glimpse of an answer at the end of her speech, saying: "we need a democratic foundation for our digital society." My sense is that building (digital) democratic foundations is at the core of what's needed to avoid an online world without tyranny. A vision for better digital spaces might just have to start with that democratic foundation, more than a focus on what a specific protocol might allow us to build.
