Howard Rheingold: "Changes"
This Week's Guest: Howard Rheingold
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
When Howard Rheingold was on our podcast last year, he offered a holistic view of how history weaves technology, the human mind, and society together. Given all that is happening with the coronavirus and the state of daily life right now, we decided to invite Howard back onto the podcast to ask him for his perspective on this moment in history.
Seeing as Howard was the one to coin the term “virtual community” many years ago, we asked him for his thoughts on the current profusion of online learning and online communities. He shares his predictions for how our world might change for the long-term—from conferences to learning to human cooperation—even after this virus is long gone. Enjoy hearing from this man who is a champion of hope, community, and the belief that we’re all in this together.
Show Notes
BOOKS AND LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Howard’s first appearance on Stayin’ Alive in Tech, named “People Got To Be Free”
Petr Kropotkin’s work Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Howard’s article Mutual Aid & Social Capital: The Power of Communities, Networks
Wikipedia article for the organization theory Mutual Aid
Howard’s book The Virtual Community (1993)
Howard’s article on Growing online greenspace for healthy society & mutual aid
More than 100 interviews with innovators in digital media & learning
More About Our Guest
Independent Instigator & Observer
Howard Rheingold is a writer, speaker, and teacher, known for his specialties on the cultural, social, and political implications of modern communication media, such as the Internet, mobile telephony, and virtual communities (a term he is credited with inventing).
Howard’s earliest books were Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Amplifiers (1984), Virtual Reality (1991), and The Virtual Community (1993).
In 1994, Howard was one of the principal architects and the first Executive Editor of HotWired.
Howard was a winner in MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning competition and used the award to work with a developer to create a free and open source social media classroom.
Online courses at Rheingold U and