Cooperation in Everything

In all areas of my life — as a self-employed music teacher and musician, social entrepreneur, scholar, activist, parent, and more —  the most defining element is the issue of how my individual actions fit into larger social context. This relates to everything from my embrace of participative music to my embrace of free/libre/open culture and technology. The dilemmas around effective cooperation or lack thereof frame nearly every topic.

William "Salt" Hale, the Community Director of my non-profit startup Snowdrift.coop, heard me give a pithy and personal explanation of these things in a lightning talk at SeaGL last year, and he requested a video of it. So, with help from my student, friend, and fellow Snowdrift.coop volunteer Athan Spathas, I recorded that spiel and several others about the ways that cooperation and coordination matter in so many areas of life. Athan prompted me with a range of topics, and I explained how they all connect to these social issues.

Link for hosted videos: https://archive.org/details/AaronWolf-SocialDilemmas

I don't have answers to everything, I just know some things about the nature of the problems. But that's a good place to start. Too many people today believe a strange individualism that denies the fundamentally social nature of these issues. So, I hope these perspectives provide some value and insights or at least a moment of entertainment.

I may record more such videos given enough requests, and I'll do what I can to answer questions or provide more references and related links if I can find time.