Back from the Digital Be-In

I just returned from a slightly jarring trip to San Francisco to attend the 14th Digital Be-In. With very few expectations and even less idea what I was getting into, Sarah and I flew down for a weekend "be-ing" with our Bay area friends. What we found at the Be-In was an eclectic collection of Bay area burners and what I'll call "evolution activists." These are the people promoting the idea that we as humans must evolve our consciousness in order to survive as a species. Many of these folks are looking to the emerging social technologies with great expectation. Evolving towards a greater capacity for group decision making and collective consciousness seems to be where these folks want to see us head.

David Ulansey delivered the most sobering of messages in his talk around the coming explosion in species extinction. He points to overwhelming scientific evidence that up to half of the Earth's species will be extinct within 100 years, entirely due to humans. Ugh. On the bright side, David is certain we individually have the capacity to change this course by making different choices.

We walked away from the event with heads spinning and feet hurting from so much standing and dancing. We also walked away with issue zero of a new magazine called Evolver. I can't believe someone is publishing a glossy, professional, fairly well written magazine covering the consciousness evolution/tribal dance/hooping/burning man sub-culture I so adore! Hell, the premier issue even has a multipage article on Seattle's own Oracle Gatherings.