: I was wondering if any of you have taken current (and future) technology into account when deciding your blueprints for the future? Taking into account that alot of ideologies that move back and forward were penned before the "communications revolution", and while alot of it is fundamentally true, are they relevant?As Barry would say, the fact that people are getting screwed from a longer distance doesn't mean they're not being screwed any more.
(except he'd probably phrase it slightly differently).
I say this as someone who has been connected to the net for 8 years now (I remember the 'net before it was a graphical medium!); the recent history of the Internet has shown nothing as much as the existing capitalist companies engaging in colonialism; lacking a new country to invade, they just decided to try and invade the 'net and exploit it. There's no noticeable change in power relationships.
(Except the geek one; a geek in real life is usually a scrawny wimp; here, we are the masters and the magicians; as sundry companies found out last week.)
As to 'the 'net revolution', my money's on the South Sea Bubble...
: Dont take this as a stab at any particular ideology, but surely computers/telecommunications must be figured into your equations.
They can be useful; as the existence of McSpotlight demonstrates; the message can go to a larger selection of people than ever before. Of course, the flip side is also true; you can be tracked and traced as never before.
It's a technology; it is inherently neither good nor bad; where used to free people it can be liberating; where used to propel the existing capitalist status quo it is entirely the opposite.
: I realise that the majority of the worlds population cannot afford computers etc, and that they are all produced by evil corporations, so dont bother with that angle.
Not everyone can afford books; that doesn't render books inherently bad.
Where the wealth division is bad is that it reinforces the class divide; the educated and wealthy classes will receive a better education and have access to more learning materials than the lower classes. This isn't per se the fault of the book.
: I just want to hear how you think present and future technologies will fit into society under a different regime, for surely it has a large bearing on what will work and what wont.
Well, to be perfectly frank, unless we as a species clean up our act PDQ, we quite probably don't have a high-tech future. Computers, books and heavy industry are wonderful things in the right hands for the good of all, but when precious natural resources are consumed to make Happy Meal toys we are frittering away energy we can ill afford to lose.
Farinata.
