(Q). Culture of government vs. tools to engage more broadly? (A). Government is concerned with power and authority. So, if a tool cannot be bent to serve those concerns, it is likely to be rejected. Government 1. Public 0. (Q). Radical subjectivity vs. rational decision-making? (A). You have them mixed up. Government is going to win again. Try instead *rational* inter-subjectivity (aka communicative action) and *radical* decision-making. Add the right tools in support of this - add them to the public sphere, not to government - and the result is public participation, etc. Government 1. Public 1. Who is Thomas Purves?

Thomas Purves is a local tech thinker I met during BarCamps in Toronto in 2006/2007; he tweeted his thought pre-ChangeCamp here.

My read of what you've said implies revolution, and maybe I'm a tad conservative/not-radical, but I find that less appealing than evolution. Perhaps the way these things go it would not be as much of a snap-of-a-fingers change, as it will be the gradual re-shuffling of things in government to accommodate a louder, more diverse, and more reactive public sphere (more reactive than the government, likely).

But fundamentally I think there are bridges to be built between what's next and what's here. Perhaps that means people I get in the way. I'm on board with Thomas' follow-up tweet:

@D_Hock: I'm reading #changecamp as an implicit "lets 2.0 the hell out of govnt" Not terrble idea. but careful how you do it, is I'm saying

I think what comes next depends partially on being able to engage meaningfully with the experience of those who don't get what's coming next, not to have them swept aside by having generational shift simply work its magic. edited 15:16, 26 Jan 2009