The Web’s Mixed Bag

The fact is, our modern world is full of specifically technological contradictions — case in point, is this very site. Our site is about green living, and yet it does use a non-green thing (the Internet is not entirely green as far as we’ve heard) to promote that.

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Mixing Green and Gray

So, it seems to be our lot as moderns, with a planet teetering on

of various kinds (some we can’t even expect), we’ll have to distinguish between the ways to use technology, and ways to limit or avoid it.

Not that technology is bad — there will always be a techno-solution for something, however, we want to stick to solutions that remain within the human scale of living. Our brains are still geared for hands and legs.

For most of us, aside from green habits and investments, an ecologically sound lifestyle will revolve around doing as much as we possible can by hand. The technologies we use, including the Web and mobile devices, are here to stay, no doubt — it is smply up to us to decide how much we buy-in to a convenience lifestyle.

Apart from any romanticism about all things home-made or hand-crafted as opposed to machine-made and store-bought objects, the simple exercise of doign things with our hands seems to make a big difference in quality of life. A connection is made in that way, which reveals so many ways we can reduce-reuse-recycle.

Tactile Internet

In addition to giving simple people the chance to publish as if they were professional writers or magazine editors, the Web offers so many forms of content — from DIY-project YouTube videos to online courses to info-graphics and so on — that it really skirts the line at times between offline and online.

The contradictions are there again, at every turn: although we don’t want our kids squandering their time online, frittering away homework time on Facebook — but, there are many excellent educational games for kids on the Web at the same time as it provides adults with new casino sites to play.