#2 – We are too smart, they can’t censor the Net, even if they tried.
It’s simply a question of infrastructure. The Malaysian Internet Exchange (MyIX) was built on the pretext of saving the country huge amounts of money being wasted on local traffic being routed via international exchanges. Read it another way: the government doesn’t have full control over local ISPs. Many of the privately owned ISPs establish direct connections to foreign ISPs. MyIX routes all incoming and outgoing traffic via one central switch. And what does a switch do, primarily?
#3 – The Matrix is just a movie.
The sum of all our knowledge created and shared everyday is feeding and building the Machine. See how the Machine is Us/ing Us.
#4 – Alternative media will kill mainstream media.
The only thing that will kill mainstream media is mainstream media itself, due to ignorance on information theory (that is, how people consume information today). And alternative media won’t deliver on its promise until we begin to understand that the internet really isn’t an alternative at all. It exists as an independent platform, requiring a unique model to thrive. Information snacking. Remember this the next time you upload a 1000 word blog entry on who-screwd-over-who-to-get-what-favours. No one gives a damn to read your theses, at least not the most valuable demography. Mainstream media, should, if they’re smart enough, engage with bloggers to act as foot soldiers on the cyber frontiers. They break the news, mainstream media helps it get, well, mainstream. It’s a model that allows both parties to thrive. And all the buzz about new media and the mushrooming of online news channels? Tough. None of them are making serious money in this part of the world. The only ones to survive will be those investing in the future, willing to bootstrap for two years, at the very least, while the infrastructure catches up.
#5 – The Internet will save us from all forms of bureaucracy. On the internet, every human being is equal and there are no borders.
That was the promise of the internet. The cyberpunks had a mantra: On the information highway, borders are just speed bumps. But some very powerful people would like to see it broken. Ultimately, the internet may divide us more than geographical borders do currently.
hyper-capitalism
Bill Gates refers to it as creative capitalism. C.K. Prahalad calls it BOP Markets (Bottom of the Pyramid).
4 billion people live on less than $2 per day. The thinking is simply that creating products that serve the poorest people (as opposed to ignoring them since the easiest assumption is that they have no purchasing power) would over time elevate them to middle-class, and with that all the benefits that capitalism has to offer. On the whole it seems to be rooted in good intentions: creating value for the poor and giving them equal access to the global economy.
I cant say I’ve spent too much time researching this, but there seems to me one major cause for concern shockingly omitted in all current dscussions: resources.
Where will the global economy find the resources to support an additional 4 billion consumers? Can the earth sustain our consumption habits anymore?
Im not saying we should continue to ignore the under-served, but I think we also need to balance the spending habits of the filthy rich. If the poor is to gain access to the markets, then the rich must be willing to scale back its consumption. But this is unlikely to happen, leading to hyper-capitalism.
Ironically, the current economic crisis may just aid such a scenario. The middle class will spend less, the rich will continue spending to protect their lifestyles, and the markets will turn to the poor to tap the huge potential ($2/day x 4 billion x 365 days; you do the math).
