by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor/ Publisher

Deprivation, not having what you need can be horrible. But it's not tragedy. Tragedy is not using what you have, not realizing that you already have what you need.

My apartment is shockingly bright. It's pure white: ceilings, walls, doors, kitchen cabinets and even floors. On top of this, it is flooded by sunlight. My window to square foot ratio is dramatic. These windows would be sufficient for rooms four or five times as large. Even after I hung up paintings and wall hangings, the place was still visually startling.

When I moved in, two months ago, at the start of September, I left almost all of my many plants outside on the sunny patio or inside on the shady stairwell leading up to my second-floor apartment. The stair landing outside my apartment was its own garden.

My friend Veronica, visiting my new abode for the first time the other day, complimented me on how I had advanced in life. (My old place really was a slum.) She admired the way the plants decorated the stairway, and then suggested that I bring them into the apartment.

This I have done with marvelous effect. The plants add life to the place, as well as color, softness and interest. The greening of my apartment illustrates my point about deprivation and tragedy. I had what I needed to improve my living situation, but I wasn't making use of it. I walked by the plants on my way up and down the stairs every day without recognizing them as part of the solution.

I just returned from a month up in New Orleans where, surrounded by three bodies of water: Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, humidity is a problem. (They say there, "It's not the heat, it's the stupidity.") Down here it the dryness.

But our Bajio also used to have a more humid climate. Our now semi-desert region was, not that long ago, covered in forest. But, as before natural gas became available people cooked with charcoal, when the population grew, our predecessors cut the forest down to make charcoal to cook their food.

Cooking with charcoal took its toll in the United States as well. But there deforestation was primarily driven by Carnegie's need for ties for his railroad. Whole forests were cut down. It was vast, much vaster than what I know. But I do know, only because I lived there, that the whole State of Vermont was denuded.

This deforestation was exacerbated, because the big problem with wooden railroad ties is that, lying on the ground, they rot quickly and have to be replaced. More ties were needed. More forests had to be cut down.

Then, some clever person got the idea of dipping the new ties in creosote, the heavy, greasy component of petroleum, before they were put in place. The bacteria and mold that eat wood when it's left on the ground, don't like creosote. Problem solved. Even the forests, at least in Vermont, grew back. (Wooden telephone poles are still treated with creosote.)

This heavy, thick component of petroleum is produced by separating off the oil's light component. Only a byproduct of the refining process, this light component was for a long time not good for much.

But that all changed when Henry Ford needed something to run the horseless carriages that he was mass-producing. At that point, petroleum's light component, gasoline, became the product and creosote the byproduct.

The internet, like petroleum, has two sides, heavy and light. One side is heavy and thick. Here we do things online that we used to do in the real world: we send instant messages instead of letters; we get news from news sites instead of newspapers; we pay bills electronically; we video conference; we don't buy "dirty" magazines anymore...

The other side of the internet is light and revolutionary, life-changing. The biggest part of this truly new online phenomenon is that we join platforms where we self-publish. Posting our content on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tic Tok, etc. is the fuel, the gasoline, the exciting, high-octane, revolutionary side of the internet. Online communities (social media networks are basically social clubs), for better or worse, are changing society. What we need, for better, not worse, is better social media.

The problem is that our Big Tech overlords manipulate our need for community, substituting pseudo-friends and synthetic belonging for the real things. Lokkal's solution is to present the real thing online. When the online community reflects the actual, local community it will be like the infinite regression when two mirrors face each other. We will achieve a singularity. Consciousness will change.

People love selfies, seeing themselves up online: "Hey, Mom, that's me up on the juke-box!" People will also love seeing their community online. We need to replace the internet's hyper-individualism with community sensibility. We need a non-profit alternative to the internet's crass, addictive commercialism.

Lokkal is local internet, local social media, where local residents can publish about their local community. Think of it like Facebook or Instagram, but just for San Miguel (at least for now). We the local people can present our city to the planet better than Google. We know more about San Miguel than does the artificial intelligence. Collectively we can make a better search engine (database) for local mezcal, chocolate, sports, fashion, etc. than Google can remotely, with all of their AI and money. Local curation is key, boots on the ground. Like gasoline once was, Collective Human Intelligence is an under-utilized resource.

"Better than Google" sounds sustainable to me. Keeping the money, the advertising dollars, circulating locally, preventing Big Tech from extracting our wealth, will strengthen the local economy. When you need to keep the wolves away from the door, money really does make you happy. And the other pillar of Lokkal's local internet, building better community, will solve the social ills that money can't.

Natural gas was always under the ground. My plants were in the stairwell since I moved in. The answer is already in reach. Just a small group of us, publishing what we love about San Miguel, curating our local passion, will spearhead the next revolution. We have the information and the power. Let's use it. If you want to change the world, San Miguel is a good place to start. You've got my number.

If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, our local social network, the community online and off, Atención robustly reborn for the digital age.

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