What did the internet promise us?
Did it promise global collaboration and progress--or a global invasion of privacy?
Did it offer deeper relationships--or loneliness, anxiety, and depression?
Did it promise better-informed decisions through big data--or bias at scale?
Did it promise unity--or fuel sensationalism and hate?
The internet has become the most powerful force of societal influence.
Technology has one central aim: to scale human effort.
But what happens when the consequences of scale outpace our ability to steward them?
How do we ensure that our digital lives bend toward what is good, true, and beautiful?
On October 16, 1963, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned these words from a jail cell in Birmingham:
“Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”
Dr. King’s words remind us: Tension isn’t new.
What’s dangerous is when it goes unnoticed, ignored, or misdiagnosed.
And make no mistake: the internet is full of tension.
It’s an endless scroll of contradiction--brilliant and broken.
Clickbait beside deep truth. Outrage beside beauty.
A space where wisdom and noise live side by side.
It’s been said, “There’s a lot more gray we need to wrestle with in order to find the truth.” That’s the purpose of this publication.
In a pivotal cultural moment, we believe there’s an invitation for all of us:
To bring the tensions to light. To hold them honestly.
To wrestle with them bravely.
To live meaningfully in the gray.
Because even here--especially here.
There’s hope beyond the gray.
Eric Brown
Co-Founder, Whiteboard
