 No pressure? Sure. Good afternoon everyone. It is so lovely to see you all here and it's certainly an honour not only to have this opportunity to talk to you, but to close the final Gogo Ruko ever. Yeah, that's cool, that's cool. So yes, the name of this talk is The Golden Age of the Internet, and look, I admit it's a touch pretentious, but before I get carried away sharing my own ideas on this topic, I'm curious on what your thoughts are. So, quick show of hands. Who thinks the Golden Age of the Internet has already passed us by? There's a few of you, mostly over this side, okay. Who thinks we're in the middle of it right now? These are the glorious days of our industry, also on this side. Okay. And who believes that it's not yet here? That's certainly interesting and I'm keen to see if I'll change anybody's mind by the time I'm done. Now, while I'm up here, I would like to recognise that this land, that is the city of San Francisco, was once the domain of the Yelamu people, who are a tribe of Native American, aloney. I'm sorry if I've got any of the pronunciation wrong there. European colonisation did not give the Yelamu much of a chance, sadly. Disease and hostilities wiped most of the tribe out in a couple of generations. Now, I mentioned the Yelamu because this is something we do often, maybe not often enough, in Australia. That is, we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which meetings and events take place as a sign of respect and humility. But it's also quite a grounding recognition of history. And yes, in case you were wondering, European colonisation was just as brutal in Australia. And Aboriginal Australians are still far too often treated as second-class citizens. Now, I've given this presentation once before. I hope it's not a faux pas to admit that. And it was in Australia on the land of the Camaragal people of the Aeora Nation. And when I was preparing, I found out that the Camaragal had the extraordinary privilege of extracting a tooth from everyone in the other tribes that shared the area. So they certainly had great sway over these other tribes. But within their own tribe, it was the Kuraji, the clever people in their tongue, who were held in highest esteem. The Kuraji were masters of not one but many skills. A Kuraji was a doctor, a priest, a spiritualist, a sorcerer, and a politician. That is, all of those things at once. That's an amazing amount of influence. Almost, not quite, but almost as much influence as we hold, right? We, the designers and developers who shaped the web, because civilisation, as we know it, relies on the internet and thus on the apps and the tools that we build. At the end of the day, just between you and me, we are the digital royalty. We are the digital Kuraji. Without us, society would fall apart. We hold the key to the greatest communications tool humankind has arguably ever produced. And as we step back and we admire what we've done, let's be honest, there is much to admire. And we count the hours we've spent slaving away, the bugs we've fixed, the servers we've tweaked. It's pretty obvious, right? With us in charge of the bits and the pixels, how could the internet be anything but a beacon of intelligence, wit and compassion? A light on the hill to help guide the unkempt masses towards a society of fairness and reason. Why are you laughing? Look, okay, there's some cynics in the room. That's fine. I admit it, it's not perfect. But nothing is, right? So let's just put aside the trolls, hack and use, spam, 4chan, Reddit, those sites that still use plain text passwords, and every single comment thread ever, or Internet Explorer almost goes without saying. PayPal, can't forget PayPal. And then there's Google's quest for well domination. Apple's quest for well domination. Facebook's quest for well domination. And the NSA's quest for well domination, yeah. Okay, it's pretty bad. To be honest, I'm really hoping that this isn't the golden age and that there are far greater things ahead because, wow, if this is it, we really screwed up. I don't think we've lived up to the potential of what's possible online. Sometimes it even feels like we're moving backwards. But where do we go wrong? We pride ourselves on our eagerness to follow best practices, to be agile, to, I'm sorry, this is really embarrassing. You see, it might be my fault. Look, I was in a rush. We had a deadline to meet and I didn't write any tests for the project we shipped last week. I'm sorry. Let the team down. Probably didn't help that I was using MySQL instead of Postgres either. What was I thinking? Wait, I don't think it's just me though. Because I think it's possible that we missed an industry that really needs disruption. Where were you guys on that? And why did we not add gamification to all the apps? No, really, though. Where did we go wrong? Mike Montero, someone I'm sure at least a few of you are familiar with, tweeted the following at the end of last year. He says, enough. In 2014, we take back the Internet. We take back what was ours. Perhaps Mike's tweet hints at the problem. We lost control. We've got all the skills, all the technical know-how, and yet we let the suits, the telcos, the advertisers, the marketers, the governments, the entrepreneurs make the critical decisions. And they let us astray. So as Mike says, we need to take back that control. That means we're behind the eight bowl because we've let it go already. If we look back through history to the smart minds behind other global communication tools like writing, and we can see that the people who came up with that fought to maintain control from the very beginning. See, some of the first people to write, and for whom writing was their job, were the scribes of ancient Egypt. To some extent they were the true power behind the Pharaoh's throne. See, not only were they entrusted to write everything down in a culture where most others couldn't even read, the scribes dictated how monuments were built. Egypt has a few of those. And they literally wrote the history books of that civilization. With that in mind, it's probably no great surprise that there was a God of scribes thought. We get DHH, we get Steve Jobs, they got a proper God who was also the God of knowledge and wisdom. I'm sure that's just a coincidence though. Mind you, having a God watching out for you doesn't help that much in the long run. See, the plebs figured out how to read, and it was only a matter of time until they figured out how to write as well. And to rub salt in the wounds, granted many, many years later, along came Johannes Gutenberg and his printing press. And suddenly publishing books became far too common. Not that the fight was over though, oh no. See, in Turkey, you were put to death if you published a book about religion, any religion. In Germany, they didn't let the Jews print anything, maybe that's not a surprise. And the Pope made a law that the Catholic Church had to approve every single book before they could be published. Don't think that one really caught on though. And look, now that I think about it a little more, okay, maybe this control approach isn't the best way to go about it. Especially when by and large in our wonderful industry, usually opt for sharing information, sharing skills, rather than keeping our cards close to our chest. If we take the opposite approach, if we share everything, if we teach everyone how to code, will that fix the internet? Probably not. Look, I think everyone understanding a bit of code, even if it's just knowing how to write HTML, would be a great thing, definitely. But at the end of the day, code is not the source of our problems. The issue is how people behave online. Mind you, it's not like people behave all that wonderfully offline either. Where the hell did that go wrong? The philosopher, AC Grayling, has noted that we've had a breakdown of civility in society. In his words, that is, a breakdown of the mutual tolerance and respect that allows room in a complex, plural society for individuals to live their own lives in peace. And he is not referring to the internet. He believes that this is an issue we are, that civilized society is facing on a broad level. Civilized society. If you're wondering, I'm sure you are, civility comes from the Latin civis. As do the English words, citizen and civilization. It's almost like the human races deliberately mocking the idea of civilization. Now, I'm jumping from quote to quote here. This one is from Francois Guiseau. I'm sure you all know him. He was a French historian and statesman, and he described civilization as the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit. Both abundance of daily necessities and esteem for human refinement. I love that definition, and I love the idealism that it reaches for, the elevation of the human spirit, the esteem for human refinement. Sadly, many of those we consider to be leaders aren't particularly civil. Certainly the politicians in charge of my country aren't worthy role models, and maybe that's the same here. The Ruby community as well has plenty of hotheads who speak before they think. Perhaps civilization doesn't yet truly exist. At least that would give us a bit of an excuse for not being civil to each other. It would certainly explain a lot about societies that currently stand. Words are fickle-bait beasts. Let's not get carried away, especially when we're talking about the English language. Maybe we should allow for different ideas of what civilization is. Let's consider a different word, democracy. I'm sure we all sat down together. We'd be on roughly the same page of what democracy is, but I'm fairly certain that would not include the same definition for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Wait, they've got Democratic in the name. It must be South Korea, right? No, it's not. Sorry. But didn't the ancient Greeks have it all figured out when they first came up with this idea of democracy? Oh, they had some good ideas. I'll give them that, but the Greeks were far from perfect. See, it was only the free men who could vote, not women. God, why would you do that? And not slaves, because yes, the Greeks had plenty of slaves. The Greeks also had a nasty habit of going to war on nearby cities and countries to force democracy upon them. It doesn't remind me of any modern powers, hey? Perhaps the common thread between these masters of their domains, writing, publishing, democracy, is how they got things wrong. They were insular, protective, self-important, and most definitely aggressive. So we can learn not so much from how they got things right, but how they screwed things up. And if we're going to avoid some of these same problems, we don't want to be so narrow-minded, then our greatest tool is diversity. Now, I know diversity is turning into a bit of a buzzword lately, but it is an excellent indicator of a healthy and resilient ecosystem. Nature has had this figured out for, well, ever, I guess. In coral reefs, in rainforests, and I'm borrowing the words of Lena Reinhardt here, diversity is the default. It ensures the stability, long-term existence, and prosperity of entire cultures. The Yelamu understood this as so many people who work on the land do. They helped foster the diverse flora, plant life, on which they depended. They put the effort in. We need to do the same. Let's be clear though. If you are welcoming people from all different walks of life to come together and think in the same way, that's not diversity. You want different perspectives. You want different ways of thinking. A culture doesn't grow just by talking to itself. Okay, diversity. Sounds like a fine goal to aim towards. You're all cool if I locked that one in. If only it was that easy though. See, we have a problem. We are in an industry that has a history of thinking alike a little too often in bubbles of our own creation, especially in this part of the world. When we're talking of bubbles, we're generally referring to situations where companies are valued well beyond what is sensible, and we end up with a rather separate and unstable reality. I hate to break it to you, but we're in a bit of a bubble right now. It's actually far bigger than the ones focused on startups. I call this bubble meritocracy. For those of you not familiar with the term, meritocracy is this ideal that everyone is on equal footing, so we can be judged on our merits alone. It's not true. Unsurprisingly, it is claimed to be true and effective and fair by white men, aka the majority. Personally, I wonder if meritocracy is like communism, in that it only works in theory. Or at least it's a more subtle form of the aristocracy. Less about your family tree, but still strongly tied up in the privilege that you grow up with. Now it's often hard to spot that privilege when you're within the bubble. I know it's taken me a good while to realize how amazingly privileged I am. I'm up here on a stage on the other side of the world. When you've got some idea of this position you're in, it can be difficult. It can be awkward to talk about it. I do feel a little awkward addressing these issues here on stage, but I'm sure there's a tiny violin somewhere playing just for me. I'm also sure that anyone who's not inherited such privilege is rightly rolling their eyes. See, with great privilege comes great responsibility. The onus is on those of us who are comfortable in our industry to reduce the barriers for others, to work towards reducing the advantage of privilege, to seek out diversity. By and large, we with privilege have got greater opportunities to have such an impact. Still, diversity alone will not save us. We're going to need some help. Another fine target, well look, you could call it servant leadership, you could call it humility, or you could just call it a realisation that you are not the most important person in the room. Let's take right here, right now, as an example, believe it or not, I am not the most important person in this room. I know, comes as a shock. Yes, I'm on the stage, and yes, I have a microphone, and yes, I can talk all I want. And maybe I will. The longer I fill a buster, the longer Goga Ruko lasts, right? But if it's not something useful and engaging to you, then I'm not only wasting my time, I'm wasting yours as well. And this can feel a little counter to how society generally works, perhaps because we equate figures of authority with importance, and they're not the same thing. But if we do have some authority, and we are teaching, then how the student learns best is far more important than how we wish to teach. If we want a diverse community of Rubyists, I'll go out on a limb here, suggest that we do, then we need to be better at approaching interested newcomers in ways that work for them. It's kind of like the difference between sitting in your office and saying, hey, my door's always open, come by anytime, and actually going out and chatting to people in locations that suit them. Environments where they feel comfortable. One trick I'm sure many of you are familiar with that is always worth keeping in mind is when somebody comes to you with a problem, and it's technical in nature, so they have their computer, you do not want to touch their computer. You don't want to touch their keyboard or mouse. You want to talk them through the problem. You want to help them solve the problem, because that way they are learning. And this is really hard. I'm terrible at this. I just want to get in there and fix it, and maybe that's more a reflection of how I'm rather impatient, but we should keep that in mind. We do have a fantastic model for servant leadership already, and that's pair programming. Two people on even footing having to share the one machine. Both are students as well as teachers, because even though one pair may have a greater amount of technical knowledge, they are still a student as well. They are learning how to express that knowledge. They're learning how to empathize with their pair, and they are also learning how to generally be better at relating to others. All extremely useful skills. And while I am talking about teaching others in quite specific terms, don't forget that there are many ways in which we teach others implicitly through how we behave, through the code we share, and through the apps we build. The issues we are dealing with reach well beyond our industry, so they need to be considered across everything we do. I realize I'm getting a little preachy here, and I'm also well aware that none of this is groundbreaking. It feels a little obvious, but I'm hoping that expressing the obvious helps us to strengthen these ideas in our minds, because the most important part is to be aware. The more we talk about such issues, the more deeply they become ingrained in our consciousness, and then hopefully our behavior should in turn be more mindful. Also the more we talk about these issues, then the chance of them being forgotten, of being hidden, becomes smaller. And the only way things are going to get better is if we have the courage and honesty to discuss, debate, and then definitely act. Speaking of taking action, let's return to that tweet from Mike Montero. Now, I've had the pleasure of seeing Mike speak before, and he's impassioned, and he's intelligent, and I love his vibe generally and in this tweet. But the more I think about what he's saying here, the less I like the actual message. Taking back control implies an us versus them battle. You're either with us or you're against us, and that we, developers and designers, are the rightful owners of the internet. Look, yes, our skills, our passions, means that we are laying the foundations for a lot of what happens online. But the internet is for everyone, not just the technically savvy privileged few. In some ways, it's the digital commons. It's a shared space where anyone can contribute, where anyone can take part. So I think we need to remove ourselves from our pedestals of bits and pixels and work together to level the playing field. Perhaps I could give you some examples of how these ideas and principles translate into how we should write Ruby code. But I won't for three reasons. Firstly, look, it would be trite and simplistic. Secondly, we have this nasty habit of latching on to examples without actually thinking things through. And really, we're dealing with something far bigger anyway. But if we do look around, there are people who are tackling these issues and doing a fantastic job at it. We've seen the wonderfully successful Rails Girls and Rails Bridge and Black Girls Code events and many others of this sort. And then we have Rubyists like Ash Dryden and Sven Fuchs and so many others stirring up discussion around ensuring conferences are safe and friendly places for everyone. Chad Fowler is another person I'm sure many of you know. And he has been encouraging developers to practice empathy, which is such an invaluable skill. If you haven't read his blog post about it, you definitely should. And they may be less familiar to most of you, but Maxine Sharon is based in Sydney, Australia, and works on the conference web directions. And she has put so much effort into making sure not only is a superb event, but also has a superb and wonderful and diverse lineup. And she's been doing this for 10 years. And there are so many other conference organisers putting in similarly excellent and sustained efforts in this area. And that certainly includes the team here at Goga Ruko. These are the people responsible for making our industry more diverse, more civil, more humble. And we are in their depth. But that was a list of people and events, not code. But the code we write is secondary at best. See programming languages change, best practices change, browsers certainly change. But I don't think what we truly value in people, in society, in communities changes much at all. Okay. Let's return to the questions I posed back at the start. Let's see if anybody's minds has changed. Who thinks the golden age has been and gone? It's done, it's dusted, it's kaput. And still a couple of rebels up there. Who thinks that these are the glory days of our industry right now? Another one or two. Okay. And who thinks we're not there yet? It's still to come. Okay. I'm really hoping that those of you who had your hands up in that last group are right. Because that means I'm right. And we could just wait and see. Except it's not going to happen if we don't step up. So if we're all agree that this is a fine target, then let's keep having these discussions. And let's keep turning these discussions into action. I may have been exaggerating earlier regarding how much influence we have, but only slightly. I certainly wasn't kidding about the responsibility that comes with our skills and privilege. We truly are the digital Karaji. So let's lead by example. Let's do our best to bring civility, diversity and humility into how we code, how the apps we build behave, and how we ourselves behave. When the golden age of the internet does arrive, let's make sure it is a shining example of the best of humanity. That it is civil, that it is diverse, and that it is humble. Or I could just steal those wonderful words from Guizot, that it provides the attainment of both material well being and the elevation of the human spirit. And has both abundance of daily necessities and esteem for human refinement. Thank you, everyone. It's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you so much to the organizers of Guggaruka.