(This is a draft – will return to later today)
… that made me think of Wirearchy this morning.
1. Joe Trippi’s new book is out. It’s titled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Democracy, The Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything”
2. Dan Gillmor’s new book is also out, titled “We the Media”.
3. I have not yet read either book. However, I have been following the writings and perspectives of each of these men, and I am aware of the premises and themes of each book.
Both books are in essence about the early experiences and impacts of interconnectedness and processes such as blogging – grass roots, bottom-up activities – that are bringing large and fundamental changes to established systems and mechanisms of governance of human affairs.
The conditions that have created these impacts are not going away. As is my wont, I keep thinking about the ongoing and cumulative effects will play out, and I am reminded of two quotes I have used in the introduction of the concept of wirearchy:
The speed at which we innovate far outstrips the speed with which we integrate
We tend to overestimate the impacts of change in the short term due to details and practicalities, and underestimate the impacts of change in the long term due to interconnected and compounding effects.
I don’t think that the impacts of ubiquitous interconnectedness and social processes such as blogging and hyperlinking of information can be controlled in the conventional sense of control of the outcomes, unless there is a significant form of Brazil-the-movie regulation of not only the medium but of the societies we live in. And this will require some form of public consent, I imagine.
Let’s look back ten years, and forward ten years.
Ten years ago the browser was just beginning to nose into our collective awareness, and little of the type of information publishing was happening that we are now experiencing as increasingly common.
Ten years from now, the substrate (broadband) will be much more common and cheaply available. The devices will be smaller, more portable, easier to use and less expensive. People everywhere will be much more adapted to connecting, conversing and acting through interconnected networks.
How can hierarchies that are relatively static, narrow at the top and dependent on just a few people for interpretation and direction maintain effectiveness in the face of an ongoing Amazon-like river of contiunuously flowing information ?
It seems to me that no matter what steps are taken to ensure some form of order and predictive control, there will need to be clear recognition that power and authority are not vested only in the few who currently have power and control.
Yes, our current systems have all been designed and built to enable order and stability. It has often been noted that humans are pack animals, and pack animals establish hierarchies. I believe that this is true, and yet we are the animals that are blessed and cursed with both consciousness and language (other animals may be – this is another subject – but as yet we don’t understand them and in general we humans dominatethe other animal forms, and so our will has prevailed).
Democracy, for example, is usually couched in terms such as power for and by the people. And this power depends for and by the people depends upon information flows and (till now) some degree of transparency.
As the title of Joe Trippi’s book suggests, there is too much evidence that current conditions are one-way … top down … and “overthrow” is not too extreme a term to use. Those who have and seek to maintain power today are not used to, and do not like, the new conditions.
The transparency offered by interconnectedness and the archival capabilities of data bases herald different forms of governance, two-way and/or many-way flows of power and authority that are launched from purposeful grouips of people armed with information, brains and intentions.
In such conditions, when we are potentially connected to any one, it will become supremely important to be connected to ones’ self and to be able to address , if not answer, how ought I (and by association we) to live ?
We are moving , i think towards a dynamic flow of power and authority based on knowledge, credibility, trust and a focus on outcomes, enabled by interconnected people and technology.
And as some wag has put it, sociology always trumps technology. And the new conditions we have only recently entered will create some very new sociology, a field which has been relatively obscure for the past 30 or 40 years at least.
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