The Next Social Revolution?

Cryofan writes "In a recent interview, Howard Rheingold (author of Smart Mobs) discussed the possibility of a 'new economic system' born of 'unconscious cooperation' embodied by such technologies as Google links and Amazon lists, Wikipedia, wireless devices using unlicensed spectrum, Web logs, and open-source software. Rheingold speculates that 'the technology of the Internet, reputation systems, online communities, mobile devices...may make some new economic system possible....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.' However, Rheingold is worried that established companies with business models that are threatened by these new technologies could 'quash such nascent innovations as file-sharing -- and potentially put the U.S. at risk of falling behind the rest of the world.'"

Comments

Re:Communism failed?

[bman08]

I can think of lots, but not the way you're looking at it. Communism works on farms and art colonies and the hippies made it work a few times/places. It's like town hall democracy, it doesn't scale past a few thousand people without big problems.

The New World Order

[PingPongBoy]

Ultimately the Illuminati will rule the world but to reach this goal they are creating a constant state of war filled with blood sacrifice.

Farfetched you say? Keep listening to late night radio and these events will be brought to fruition, probably by the brainwashed, who listen to too much late night radio.

There are rumors of the coming of the antichrist, who is described as speaking all languages and bringing solutions to mankind's problems.

So you say capitalism will triumph? How about a deepening of the ice age or the increased heat of the sun followed much later by its death?

Closer to home, I guess it's all up to the whims of the government. Lies and corruption in government and business make us worry about any kind of social direction. A greater connectedness of the Internet and wireless gadgets brings more ability to produce as well as more chances to be victimized. It's going to be fun times.

My suggestion: open source as much technology as possible, both hardware and software. Complete knowledge should be disseminated in order to build and improve a foundation of understanding and trust. This will bring about a more level playing field. I believe in "every man/woman for himself/herself" but taking advantage of technology to collaborate and realize common beneficial goals is hypothesized to be quite desirable with side effects of friendliness and unity.