Eli Pariser is one of my heroes. There are many reasons, but the most operative one is for writing The Filter Bubble in time for me to source it in The Intention Economy. The former came out in 2011 and the latter in 2012. Both were ahead of their time, which is either now or soon.
One thing I cited from The Filter Bubble was a subchapter that Eli titled “A Bad Theory of You.” Those five words nailed what the whole surveillance fecosystem was already based on back then. That was before it got worse, then much worse. And is now it’s more personalized than ever, thanks to Big AI.
But that’s not what Eli is coming here (Indiana, the National Football Champion University) to talk about this Thursday. (Though I’m sure it’ll come up.) The title of his talk is What Might “Public Parks of the Internet” Look Like?
This is one of the outcomes that Eli and his team at New_ Public are working toward. You can find out more at that link, at the New Public Substack, and with what they’re doing with Roundabout. Eli will also give us a tour of some local public spaces already forming on the Net through that work.
I wanted Eli for our After Analog series—
—because New_ Public is working to bring something that works in the natural world into the digital one. Which is not easy. For one thing, we’ve had the analog world since the Big Bang, and we’ve had the digital one for decades at most—and it will be with us for millennia to come. It ain’t civilized yet, and won’t be until it has public spaces.
Please come. If you can’t make it to Room 008 in Ballantine Hall at IU, you can also register here to attend online. The Zoom link will appear there soon.
Not quite finally, my thanks to the Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School for co-organizing the whole Beyond the Web series, now in its fourth year here. It’s not quite a local public park yet, but it’s coming closer.
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