Citizens were asked to take over responsibilities that were previously handled by the state, and participants would “recognize problems only insofar as technology can operationalize and solve them.”

Many movements have become somewhat unsta-ble and decentralized. This instability allows for fluidity and moments where cultures become complicit in neoliberalism and globalization. This complicit exploitation is espe-cially visible when we consider the relationship between maker publics and technolo-gies. In buying, creating, and re-purposing technologies, hacker and maker groups engage capitalist enterprises that span the globe.

To put Giddens in conversation with Morozov, the threat of civic hackers is not that they naively employ “solution-ism.” Quite to the contrary, they debate ethics of technology design, seek collabora-tions with local organizations, and attempt to re-think how government services might be more sensitive to resident needs.

“It’s more complicated than that.” No kidding. You could nail a list of caveats to any sentence in this essay. But the complexity of these problems is no excuse for inaction. It’s an invitation to read more, learn more, come to understand the situation, figure out what you can build, and go build it. That’s why this essay has 400 hyperlinks. It’s meant as a jumping-off point. Jump off it. There’s one overarching caveat. This essay employed the rhetoric of “problem-solving” throughout. I was trained as an engineer; engineers solve problems. But, at least for the next century, the “problem” of climate change will not be “solved” — it can only be “managed”. This is a long game. One more reason to be thinking about tools, infrastructure, and foundations. The next generation has some hard work ahead of them.