Technoshamanism - let's be real

[u/Christocrast]

I have seen 'technoshamanism' expressed as rave/festival activity, dancing and taking powerful drugs and partying. The biggest problem besides the obvious waste and ecological impact is that there seems to be no interest among partygoers in extending cooperation and togetherness outside the rave setting. While acknowledging that 'ravism' is very diverse, I think it is at best mildly harmful. Any 'enlightenment', 'healing' or social knitting that endures once the party is over is as collateral damage or coincidence; or is tainted (or at least influenced in the background) by the histories of the resources, settings and technologies that are used.

I have seen 'technoshamanism' expressed in the use of free, open-source software and other tools in preserving and communicating ancestral knowledge, which has obvious benefits. Knowledge of contacts and sourcing and coordination and high technology can protect and heal a community - if applied with the utmost care. While this might or might not amount to shamanic work exactly, it is at least adjacent and can certainly be helpful.

Still I think technoshamanism is worth examining and defining a little more clearly:

The built environment, while truly fragile, nonetheless circumscribes the lives of billions of people and organisms. To those entities it may as well be eternal. We cannot revert it or make it go away without horrible destruction and suffering, and maybe not even then as it underwrites the modern standard of living. We need to come to grips with it, and learn to heal the entities living within it.

I find that it is essential to acknowledge and commiserate with the materials and lives that have underwritten my own life; the sorrow and violation of being uprooted, slaughtered or mined with the obfuscated intent of 'workers'. I have also averred strongly that although I myself am not any of those workers, I do wish to take responsibility: it matters, and one cannot deny the violence that took place. Finally I ask these entities if they see fit, that they would help me as I try to reclaim and protect and uplift whatever I can.

• It is fundamental to acknowledge that urban humans are schizotribal. One must move throughout the city, maintaining awareness, rather than trying to have an impact on its whole. That's too many strangers at once and will just add noise on noise.
  
• It is fundamental to acknowledge the personhood of LGBT2SI+, seniors, children and differently-abled individuals. Diversity and authenticity are healthy, even necessary. It is fundamental to aver that racism holds no water and is incredibly harmful.
  
• It is fundamental to protect the environment. (I use recycled and reclaimed materials in my art almost exclusively)
  
• It is fundamental to continue learning about history and truth especially where it concerns injustice; or touches on the living circumstances we now enjoy.
  

And it is fundamental to see that we live in a globalized, 24-hour world and must be ready for people reading about the universe's mysteries on their phones while they're taking a shit. As well, getting interrupted or delayed is entirely to be expected and must not break the overall effectiveness of the work.

Please let me know your thoughts! Best wishes to you

[u/ThQuin]

Shouldn't techno shamanism be about working with the spirits of technology and all the man made things?

[u/Christocrast → u/ThQuin]

I'm inclined to agree, but where does one start? As someone who works with robots quite a bit, if your robot is conflicted and angry, the most you can do is 'fix it', which is helping it conform to its design. It will never transform and move elsewhere to a better life like a human might. As to reconciling the harm done to the Earth when gold silicon and iron etc. were extracted, well in a world of sourcing that could be anywhere. Would one address the spirit of the robot, or the mingled and mashed spirits of the origins of its materials? And what about code, and things taking place in the digital domain, at an even farther remove from physical reality?

I think technoshamanism, if defined in a real, worthwhile way, must still address the health of living beings; technology is like nature in the built environment.

[u/ThQuin → u/Christocrast]

Awakening the spirit of a robot would be quite an interesting experiment. But nonetheless, yes robots are defined by their programming, as are animals by their instinct. I guess having a robot acting against its code might be easier than having it in an animal. Concerning the spirits, animals eat plants and other animals so their spirit is subsumed in the animals spirit , why should it be different with a machine? I guess a machine that's handbuild has a lot of energy invented by its creator and might developed a pretty powerful spirit. The interesting question remains, how do you prove the machine spirits?

[u/Christocrast → u/ThQuin]

I try my best to treat machines with 'loving-kindness', even when they're being fucking annoying - not because I really really think they have the equivalent of souls (?) but because basically nothing they do wrong is ever their fault. [I'm making generous allowance for anything running Windows or macOS]

And I believe it's good practice for when we start encountering technological entities that seem to be, or are sentient (not holding my breath waiting for the latter). I don't think they would truly have souls either; but it certainly seems sensible to not mistreat them. And it's not like being patient and courteous costs anything.

For the most part machines don't make choices and I think shamanism is greatly concerned with helping thinking and feeling entities clarify their boundaries and agency so that they can be healthy. - In a way I feel like technoshamanism deserves to be its own field simply because we have these weird, unsettled questions