The term "digital settler" is problematic for at least two reasons, and we should discourage its use. Firstly it is already in use to describe a completely different phenomenon: someone on "the digital personality spectrum between digital natives and digital immigrants." <https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/digital-settler/46463#>
Secondly, and more importantly, the term settler is laden with colonial connotations which make it extremely distasteful to cultures that have suffered colonisation.
A much better alternative is "digital neighbours". This is the term that I apply to people who move to Barbados to live for at least a year while they work remotely.
I enjoyed reading this piece, thank you. I've also been very busy with digital nomadism over the last 12 months, especially as a cultural phenomenon in our changing world. However, it looks to me now as though a vast, ongoing shift of global power is inevitable, and that it will be super-hard to predict how this will land. It just seems like, increasingly, "the centre cannot hold," and so we will all, nomads included, be swept along with the tide of change.
Cheers. Yes, an amazing poem, that one. It feels to me super-prophetic to these times.
I think Yeats drew the symbolism from his time in Kabbalah. They have this thing where the middle column of the normally stable tree of life splits in two. It creates a world situation where everyone is drawn into polarised situations.
Cool, thank you. It is an interesting area for me, the whole cultural intersection created by DNism. What I see is that a lot of articles seem to come down to this whole "we must be more caring" kinda thing, where nomads have to volunteer for local NGOs, learn to speak Spanish and Georgian and try to not just hang in Starbucks. I've suggested similar myself. But I'm no longer sure that this is a solution. I don't have a complete handle on it, but there is something in this quasi-European really trying-to-care approach that is for me just so fake and colonialist and possibly even worse than just being drunk and annoying on Kuta beach. Like turning local communities into some kind of museum, that everyone has to act really caring about, or something like that.
I've just spent 8 months living in Tbilisi and I do see how people live and are. And whilst imposing Western modernism via NGOs and nomads is to me pretty colonialist, and there's an underlying arrogance in it that I really don't like, I think it's also okay that change happens in these communities. Just it has to be a natural, organic and esp decentralised process, rather than this top-down European pseudo-caring BS.
The term "digital settler" is problematic for at least two reasons, and we should discourage its use. Firstly it is already in use to describe a completely different phenomenon: someone on "the digital personality spectrum between digital natives and digital immigrants." <https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/digital-settler/46463#>
Secondly, and more importantly, the term settler is laden with colonial connotations which make it extremely distasteful to cultures that have suffered colonisation.
A much better alternative is "digital neighbours". This is the term that I apply to people who move to Barbados to live for at least a year while they work remotely.
Thank you for this. I agree that the term is problematic and would propose "digital immigrant."
I enjoyed reading this piece, thank you. I've also been very busy with digital nomadism over the last 12 months, especially as a cultural phenomenon in our changing world. However, it looks to me now as though a vast, ongoing shift of global power is inevitable, and that it will be super-hard to predict how this will land. It just seems like, increasingly, "the centre cannot hold," and so we will all, nomads included, be swept along with the tide of change.
I think you’re right. And nice Yeats quote! Thank you for reading
Cheers. Yes, an amazing poem, that one. It feels to me super-prophetic to these times.
I think Yeats drew the symbolism from his time in Kabbalah. They have this thing where the middle column of the normally stable tree of life splits in two. It creates a world situation where everyone is drawn into polarised situations.
This is really interesting. I wrote a piece about how this decade resembles the 1920s called "The Roaming 20s" https://markoayling.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-roaming-20s
Cool, thank you. It is an interesting area for me, the whole cultural intersection created by DNism. What I see is that a lot of articles seem to come down to this whole "we must be more caring" kinda thing, where nomads have to volunteer for local NGOs, learn to speak Spanish and Georgian and try to not just hang in Starbucks. I've suggested similar myself. But I'm no longer sure that this is a solution. I don't have a complete handle on it, but there is something in this quasi-European really trying-to-care approach that is for me just so fake and colonialist and possibly even worse than just being drunk and annoying on Kuta beach. Like turning local communities into some kind of museum, that everyone has to act really caring about, or something like that.
I've just spent 8 months living in Tbilisi and I do see how people live and are. And whilst imposing Western modernism via NGOs and nomads is to me pretty colonialist, and there's an underlying arrogance in it that I really don't like, I think it's also okay that change happens in these communities. Just it has to be a natural, organic and esp decentralised process, rather than this top-down European pseudo-caring BS.
Fate is the wild card in the game of life; chance makes some choices for us.
Ten million empty homes! That's astonishing. And 100% yes to throw away the bucket list. Congrats on a very informative, thought-provoking series.
Thank you so much for reading!