"The desire for technological progress to be evolutionary is blind utopianism at best and violently authoritarian at worst."
Ryan Griffis on
cyberspace, ideology and the "Gift Economy": Critiques of the "cyberlibertarianism" of the high-tech industry have spelled out the paradox that is the dominant ideology of the Wired world. The desire for "free markets" from the neo-liberal, high-tech sector has been criticized for taking from the commons, but not giving back.
In tandem with this "cyberselfishness," some camps put forward theories of anarchy and information as a naturally open system. Unlike the traditional libertarians, who believe in traditional methods for keeping the market "free" and "competitive," proponents of open-source movements prophesize the (natural) death of copyright law. The restriction of information through legislative methods is an anachronism that stands in the way of the natural, unimpeded flow of technical progress.
If, as some maintain, "the most significant difference between political thought inside the digerati and outside it is that in the networked society, anarchism is a viable political philosophy":
What does a "viable political philosophy" mean when it is dependent on the acceptance of a technological superstructure that, for most, cannot be separated from the dominant economic infrastructure? And how viable is a politic that is confined to a technological dream state that is not, nor can be, universally enjoyed?
I dunno. But I don't think
Kurzweil is the answer I'm looking for.
