Aaron posts an interesting scenario, which raises the question, what are teachers really teaching? Is the purpose of Web 2.0 (or of school, of an education system) to maintain a steady stream of the corect quantity of manual workers, managers, and elites? Or is it about helping (young) people find and create meaning in their lives.

Aaron, like the presenter I observed today (more later), sees beyond the “student” to “the human being”, who needs to enjoy, to express, and to be doing something meaningful.

I think much of the present discussion around Web 2.0 is less about the technology itself than it is about the aims and priorities of the people who use it. Will Web 2.0 be used in the service of mankind, for the benefit of people’s deepest needs, i.e. needs which are beyond ego? Will it be used in the service of the genuine human desire for freedom? Or will it be used for motives of ego, for the benefit of created needs, manufactured needs? Used to further enslave people in ever more ingenious ways, ways which are so clever, those enslaved actually believe they are free?

First, a need for the watch was created; then they give you the watch and say, “Here! You need this.” Thanks… 🙁

So which will it be? Humanity’s track record is, to be brutal, not good. Yet I lean towards being foolishly optimistic, while at the same time educating myself as to what the various forces are that to keep people enslaved, forces which exist both outside and inside of myself.

“Man is born free, and yet is everywhere in chains”. (JJ Rousseau)

More bloggers discuss Web 2.0 over Skype and a wiki:
* Darren Kuropatwa – dkuropatwa
* Ewan McIntosh
* Miguel Guhlin – mguhlin
* Wesley Fryer – wfryer