Just read this at http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/08/this_is_the_revolution.php and it really struck a chord. This is the blog of one of the producers of ‘Outfoxed, btw. Again, YAY for RSS feeds!
Howard Rheingold in an interview with BusinessWeek, blows the lid open on how we change the world.
All these [Google, Amazon lists, Wikipedia, open source, blogs] could dramatically transform not only the way people do business, but economic production altogether. We had markets, then we had capitalism, and socialism was a reaction to industrial-era capitalism. There’s been an assumption that since communism failed, capitalism is triumphant, therefore humans have stopped evolving new systems for economic production.
But I think we’re seeing hints, with all of these examples, that the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices — these are all like those technologies…that made capitalism possible. These may make some new economic system possible.
Seriously folks, this is the Revolution, and America better get with the ballgame, or be left behind:
Never before in history have we been able to see incumbent businesses protect business models based on old technology against creative destruction by new technologies. And they’re doing it by manipulating the political process. The telegraph didn’t prevent the telephone, the railroad didn’t prevent the automobile. But now, because of the immense amounts of money that they’re spending on lobbying and the need for immense amounts of money for media, the political process is being manipulated by incumbents.
…What if China says, “The FCC doesn’t rule us. We’re going to stop assigning frequencies within our borders. We’re going to regulate devices so that they play fair with each other, and we’re going to open up spectrum.” That’s going to make the U.S. an economic and technological backwater.