Time has an interesting nod of recognition this week to what we are seeing happen in cyberworld, manifesting in places like moveon.org and even sciforums. I think the article far undervalues the significance of what is hapening. But mainstream is beginning to hear the faint vibration before the ROAR. Howard Rheingold is credited in Day of the Smart Mobs with coining the SM term: "Large, geographically dispersed groups connected only by thin threads of communications technology..."(author Chris Taylor's words) "The music industry has already been transformed - if not mortally wounded - by mobs of music pirates. Government institutions may be relatively impervious to smart-mob technology, but they are probably not immune." In my opinion, megagovernments (and their corporate masters) have far more to fear from technology now than we humans do. This is the beginning of a sea change, my friends.
You me be right. I hope so. The problem is that information-technology is largely unavailable to lower-income people who are the ones most hurt by the governments policies. I can't think of any examples of online petitions or initiatives having any real effect. But this could very well change in the near future.
Communications technology will rapidly become insanely cheap and plentiful. Hooked into the next quantum leap of the internet, Integrated with the next quantum leap in interfaces, and it's beyond what we can imagine present tense. You can't visit the most remote inhabited places on Earth today, without seeing plastic bowls from China. Virtually everyone will have technology that enables globe-spanning personal and multipersonal relationships in the future. As the technology emerges, people make personal campaigns to spread it thusly. I can instantly credit a Congolese girl 5 CUs because she's authentic and cracks me up, and can really use the credits. I just tell my fingernail to send it to her: (beep). Happiness. Feels good. Can I do something bad to someone? Not without being insane. I would have to trick them, and I never know when nasty tricks might come back on me.(click) Oh-Oh Fast. Multiplied. Not going there. I learned about being naughty to anyone very fast when I first Joined- glad I was warned, but I still had to test the waters. Got a problem? Ask for help.(chime) It's amazing. All this goodwill was bottled up inside humanity just because we couldn't understand each other clearly? Incredible. Anything that doesn't make me happy, well, that's how Public Servants (politicians are old jokes) are kept on thier toes: Like the worldwide InstaPolls. It's too distributed a network for a misanthropic clique to play with the datastream, and there's no use anyway, because we All know when there is a big problem to solve (We actually kinda relish them, they became so rare, it's mostly just SurvivAlerts about some distant asteroid or somesuch)- We agree in Majority how to solve things, I talk to my fingernail, you the roof of your mouth, some just inside their heads (mostly the younger generation), not disorienting if you Acclimate with a strong sense of identity- whatever interfaces people like, some experiment a lot. They are very interesting to talk to. I'm sorta old traditional. Sometimes I conjure "You've Got Mail" when I feel like being a corny fool. I do get nostalgic for politics, half-wishing that George Bush IV and his friends would talk loud and stupid again (snicker) Attack Iraq? How stupid. Beep. (times 8 billion instant "no, that's stupid, jackass" votes) Happiness? Yes, a round of happiness, please, All Around. Sure, my round of World Happiness is a nanomeme, I only can be so creative, you know. But what a stunning, beautiful ocean of Happiness we share- an indescribably stunning tapestry. (beep). Happy now? That question always illicits such an emotional gusher from people who lived in the days of crummy interfaces and unbelievably catastrophic misunderstandings. But that's what evolution is. They say life was mostly pain for most animals back then. It makes me shudder.
I think the biggest impact from this wont be from the "chain mail protests". The sharing of ideas, facts, opinions, will help more people realise whats really happening, whats really going on in their name, this will be especially damaging to America after its years of "Isolatoionist" policies. The news in America is all about America, rarely do you hear anything about the rest of the world, least of all about the darker side *that would be the majority* of so called American "Foreign policy". Hell i think it was 75% of Americans don't even have a passport, America is the world, anywhere they want to go, anythign they want, they get and goto in the states, why do they need a passport. Opening their eyes to the rest of the world will be a good start. But the best part of it i think is the ability for the majority of people to communicate and create and instigate effective sollutions to their problems. For example the massive attacks on Democracy, Human rights and Personal Freedom, the Governments waging war in our name for their own profit and taking more from our pockets to pay for it. This is all going to lead to war and revolution, more and more people are realising the inherent corruption in so much of the system we live under today and that we mean less and less everyday to the point now, even with massive opposition around the world, we as a people are being ignored, passed off as "irrelevant", "Ignorant", being told we have no say in our future just go along with what we tell you or pay the price. Mass Communication will be the field on which a serious opposition to all this can be planted. It may seem extreme to say this now but i think soon it will be at the point where a revolt of tremendous propotions will be in order and a very real, and heart felt possablilty.
