Blend Web Mix

Two days of conferences, discoveries and exchanges for everyone and on all subjects around the Web. This objectivity and diversity allows it to offer two diametrically opposed conferences during the first day.

Conference 1: Peerocracy

Arak Balkan's first conference on the theme of Peerocracy skillfully covers the ownership of personal data and its uses in our society. The speaker masters his subject brilliantly. He explains and denounces the data capitalism of our era and does not fail to link it to the big question of the exponential growth of our society. He uses many examples to illustrate his point and explores with us solutions to escape this spiral: peerocracy, a fairer and more ethical model of society.

The day therefore begins with dreams of a utopian society. Faint hope, however, for this humanity which quietly adjusts its glasses to see the wall towards which it is heading.

After a day of conferences, hunger begins to make itself felt when the closing conference of this first day of Blend begins.

And here is the drama.

Conference 2: the innovations of the giant Ali Baba on the Chinese market

This conference is presented by Laura Pho Duc. It propels us into the innovations implemented by Ali Baba in the Chinese market. It mercilessly and empathetically crushes our dreams and hopes, like a giant steamroller set at full speed. We are presented with disproportionate figures that no longer have any meaning, propaganda advertising spots for a society of limitless consumption and perfectly assumed exponential growth. The vocabulary is clear: the “humans” at the center of the morning conference have become the “consumers” of the evening presentation.

It’s aperitif time and we’re recovering as best we can from this dizzying fall. We see before us two possible futures for our society.

Spoiler alert : one of them sees the wall and looks for solutions to slow down; the other ignores him and steps on the accelerator. Let's take a step back from everything.

Why such an electroshock?

The post-conference discussions don't lie: we've fallen from a height, and that gives us a boost. Ali Baba's presentation demonstrates impressive concepts in terms of technique, marketing and service. Enough to make stars shine in the eyes of any e-retailer. Except that it’s ultimately “only” the same thing as Amazon, just bigger, stronger. Ali Baba is surprising for us Europeans. They do what they want in a more flexible, larger and less regulated market. But is it normal to be shocked by Ali Baba and to naively participate in Amazon's business? The vision of capitalism demonstrated here is not that unknown. It should therefore not really surprise, except in its exponential dimension.

What do Ali Baba, Amazon, or others like them bring to our society?

Ali Baba fully embraces it: turnover for her and ever more targeted and accessible products for consumers. An objective easily transposable to other companies/businesses in a capitalist society.

It is easy to point the finger at Ali Baba (and others) because his impact is disproportionate and goes far beyond us. We can also talk about impact on personal data as environmental, societal impact, etc. We can easily see the big bad guy in black armor with a cape and worrying breathing. The problem is that pointing to a visible and identifiable cause does not solve the problem. It is acting against this “system” at our level that will have an impact.

Everyone’s actions?

I am not fundamentally committed to the causes of our time. However, I am increasingly asking myself the question of what my actions bring to the community. Are my actions as a webmaker and as a human bringing good, or are they unconsciously contributing to the decline of our own species? So what should we do as an individual? Memories of the Aral conference give us solutions to act at our level, and begin to move away from this model of society.

The message behind the programming?

For those who are still wondering: the scheduling of these two conferences at the antipodes in opening and closing was deliberate. (information confirmed by a member of the editorial committee)

We can say that the objective was to objectively present two different visions of our society. But is this really the case? After these last elements of reflection, I no longer have the impression that Ali Baba's post-conference awareness was intended. There are conferences that alert and explain our ethical and moral responsibilities as webmakers. What is less common is to make us realize these responsibilities without actually citing, demonstrating or explaining them. The emotional lift caused by the two conferences took care of that well.

VOD of the Aral conference: https://youtu.be/Ztji5I3zvPE