Everybody wants to be Elon Musk but the way post-industrial unregulated capitalism works leads to a handful of Musks and their corporate entities controlling, well, pretty much everything, and fierce competition among the masses for scarce resources. AKA feudalism.
The era of the middle-class was a blip on the historical radar. Feudalism ruled supreme for thousands of years and couldn't be clearer that we are currently backsliding into an era of "digital feudalism".
It's not like Google, to name the obvious example, is really hiding their intentions. Larry Page just a few weeks ago said he thinks government is becoming more irrelevant and "outdated" and nobody even blinked. Well who's going to replace the outdated dinosaur government? The writing is on the wall. Anyone who seriously believes in the pipe dream of a libertarian utopia is a deluded fool. The innocently named "Internet of Things" is bringing the big SV players into every corner of every home and it's not about controlling your toaster with a smartphone, but it most certainly is about control. How exactly things will play out is impossible to predict - I mean a 2010 podcast of academics and students discussing Facebook Twitter and MySpace sounds quaint and old-fashioned - but history shows what happens when power is concentrated in a few hands. And the USSR was supposed to be a Utopia too...
Personally I quite enjoy living in tumultuous times but it's worth remembering the Chinese saying "may you live in interesting times" was used as a curse ;-) Don't be evil, now!
The era of the middle-class was a blip on the historical radar. Feudalism ruled supreme for thousands of years and couldn't be clearer that we are currently backsliding into an era of "digital feudalism".
It's not like Google, to name the obvious example, is really hiding their intentions. Larry Page just a few weeks ago said he thinks government is becoming more irrelevant and "outdated" and nobody even blinked. Well who's going to replace the outdated dinosaur government? The writing is on the wall. Anyone who seriously believes in the pipe dream of a libertarian utopia is a deluded fool. The innocently named "Internet of Things" is bringing the big SV players into every corner of every home and it's not about controlling your toaster with a smartphone, but it most certainly is about control. How exactly things will play out is impossible to predict - I mean a 2010 podcast of academics and students discussing Facebook Twitter and MySpace sounds quaint and old-fashioned - but history shows what happens when power is concentrated in a few hands. And the USSR was supposed to be a Utopia too...
Personally I quite enjoy living in tumultuous times but it's worth remembering the Chinese saying "may you live in interesting times" was used as a curse ;-) Don't be evil, now!