Thoughts from an online event called From Optimizing for Engagement to Nurturing Awareness organised by Center for Humane Technology with Aden van Noppen and Randy Fernando.
For the first time in my life I tuned in to an (online) event that started with mindfulness meditation. “Not bad”, I thought.
The main speakers Aden van Noppen and Randy Fernando discussed the relationship between our wellbeing and technology, often referencing spiritual practices. I myself for a long time have longed for recognising the spiritual aspect of our lives as something natural and inherent so I observe with curiosity how more and more people notice the link and find it important to bring the spiritual aspect into everything we do.
At the beginning of the session we were asked to imagine technology “worthy of the human spirit” and what a world with such technology would look like.
Some of the images mentioned by Aden include technology that shifts us from anxiety to ease, from greed to generosity, that puts us closer together, instead of setting us apart. A world where people creating the tech are as diverse as people using it and where our shared well-being is more important than profit.
One reasonable and basic step to that vision would be to start by doing no harm, something we cannot say we’re doing right now. A lot of times, because we prefer doing what’s profitable.
Individual mindfulness is important yet it is not enough. We need more connection between the inner work we do and the outer work we put out. Oftentimes we have rich inner lives but struggle to align that with what we do in the world. It’s not an easy task, yet if we want to make a difference and create technology “worthy of the human spirit”, caring about our well-being rather than profit, it’s going to be necessary.
The mindfulness/ meditation practices we talk about isn’t about spacing out and numbing oneself to problems as that would be spiritual bypassing. On the contrary, it’s about gaining more clarity as to what needs to be done.
Not every technologist has to have that spiritual or psychological knowledge allowing them to build products enhancing our well-being. We need to, however, bring people who have that expertise into the process. We need to invite psychologists, sociologists, and spiritual teachers.
As long as we value rushing over anything else will have products built on anxiety.
As an ending remark, a reminder that life is about journey, not about destination. Our world now and what we expect from technology is mostly about convenience and shortening the journey in order to get to the destination as fast as possible. We live in a destination-focused, a result-focused way and, according to Randy, it’s not a good way to live.
Aden van Noppen is a founder of Mobius, check out what they do here: https://mobi.us.org/
