In her keynote, Erin Kissane explores the rare window of opportunity that builders on decentralized networks currently have: the technical foundations across multiple ecosystems are now stable and increasingly interconnected, the userbase has grown, and the costs of prototyping new platforms and tools have plummeted. But the cultural substrate we're building on is more damaged than we're often willing to face up to.
The problem isn't just the presence of misinformation or disinformation, but a broad dissolution of our collective understanding of reality, accelerated by corporate interests and a multi-country slide toward authoritarianism. Those of us working on the social internet can't fix this on our own, but we'll have to be a part of any solution ambitious enough to address the foundational problems.
The natural world — in particular, the structures that enable diverse life to thrive in the more turbulent oceanic zones — offers pathways toward online social systems that anchor our communities in knowledge, make space for big-world sensemaking, and provide meaningful shelter. Come for a spooky earthquake story and cool kelp facts, stay for a bracing dose of pragmatic optimism.