aka Ken Smith: Semaphore & cairn

Semaphore is better than social media because it's based on a better agreement. If you've signed on for semaphore duty, you've agreed to pass messages along to the next station, and you've probably agreed to run down the hill with certain kinds of messages and inform the town council of the news. With social media, we haven't agreed to do anything with a message at all, not even to read it.#

Cairns -- you know, a cairn, a stack of small rocks -- are better than social media because they are based on a better agreement. If you accept the philosophy of cairns, you sign on to help mend a damaged marker that people need to travel safely, sometimes in dangerous conditions. With social media, we haven't agreed to do anything when we come across a damaged message.#

With cairns, you sign on to help guide and protect people you will never meet. With semaphore, you sign on for regular duty, for showing up, for knowing when a message is important and knowing how to take a message seriously. With social media, we've sign on much of the time only for our own amusement.#

My students and I once sent a message by semaphore around the perimeter of a very large university building in just over four seconds. We had prepared the network and we each knew our duty. Many people have helped maintain cairns in every territory on the planet, and most have probably felt how uplifting it is to do something worthwhile without nagging yourself at every moment about return on investment and quid pro quo.#