thank you for the kind thought, solar, and for creating the venue.

thinking about this tribe reminds me of the oft-quoted Marshall McLuhan, and "The Medium is the Massage". this is a revolutionary book even today, and it was published in 1967. in it, McLuhan writes, "The wheel...is an extension of the foot. The book...is an extension of the eye. Clothing, an extension of the skin. Electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system." he goes on to say that media, by altering our environment, alters the way in which we perceive the world. these physical extensions are extensions of human faculties, physical or psychic.

taking McLuhan a step further, i believe that the electronic interconnectedness - that we almost take for granted today - is an extension of culture, the collective conscious. speeding memes as fast as you can click. email, im, cell phones, sms, blogs, online diaries, social networking, and on and on are all tools that are the extensions the psychic realm of our tribes, our new bazaar, where we meet. i strongly believe that as with most technology, there will be unintended consequences of our use of these tools, this interconnectedness. and don't ever forget the kids that are growing up with this stuff.

this idea was what resolved the issue of what to write on my arm in binary. i decided on Change, because technology has become the basis for many of the changes in my life, and for those around me. never before has it been possible to simultaneously stimulate so many parts of your brain, and interact with so many people. i think of each node in our brains powering us, intertwined with what we see and who we become - nodes on the network. this network then become vastly powerful, a giant connection machine. perpetuating synchronicity.

people falling in love and getting married straight from the chat room. burning man and so many other important events these days could not exist in their current glory without email. the antiwar marches of last year would not have existed in such magnitude without electronic communication. 1500 moveon.org anti-bush ads submitted. there are many other examples, large and small.

my feeling is that this is becoming a basis for a new society. what this will look like, i don't know. i am glad i get to live a taste of it some here in san francisco, and online here with you. we train our brains that we need others, we need to be connected and we have the ability now to be connected all the time.

so technology as religion? i am not sure. i am surely a believer in the future that all this is bringing on. and i know for sure that the best is yet to come.

teiwaz