I took part at an event held last week in the same building as the Clearleft office. It was called Debating the Digital Economy Act …except it wasn’t really a debate. Everyone was in agreement that the legislation is dreadful and that the way it has been rushed through parliament was a travesty.
Nonetheless, it was still a valuable gathering. Instead of debating on the pros and cons of something that has no redeeming qualities, we tried to tackle the issue of what we can do about it.
One of the best points of the night came from Pete who pointed out how important it was that we de-geekify the discussion lest we get brushed aside as pitchfork-wielding digerati.
The event began with opening remarks from each of the white, middle-aged panelists. My own remarks were definitely on the geeky side: a long-zoom perspective entitled Fear is the Mind-killer. You can read it now or add it to Instapaper to read later.
I made an audio recording of my opening remarks. You can listen to it now or you can huffduff it to listen to it later.
It’s licensed under a Creative Commons attribution license. Do with it as you wish.