At 5:41 PM +0000 7/17/00, matthew gream wrote:
>
>1) Manuel Castells 'The Information Age', and in particular 'The end
>of the Millenium' and the rise of the 4th world, and the continuing
>globalisation of society to produce global cultural layer that sits
>alongside local layers. Actually, I recommend that everyone with an
>interest in what is happening to the world should read this book -
>Manuel is becoming increasingly lauded for his work, and has
>produced other interesting works. I find part of the problem with
>the cypherpunks, extropians, transhumanists and other online
>entities is that sometimes they are too focused on the digital
>world, and have little understanding of ground level reality.
I hope you're not speaking of the folks I interact with, as they
mostly have a good handle on how things work. It's true that some of
the folks on any of these mailing lists are like the people Randy
Newman described in one of his songs: "working in book shops..." That
is, they talk about Jupiter-sized brains and downloading into silicon
while working behind the counter at Borders. This is to be expected.
(I wrote an essay in the early 90s on this: "Rapture of the Future,"
about how reading about all the Amazing New Things makes the mundane
world of EPLDs and Python code look just too mundane to bother with.
I'm very glad I had no distractions of mailing lists, the Web,
newsgroups, etc. when I was in my professional career years.)
But as for knowing about the Third and Fourth Worlds, shanty towns,
beggars, etc., who cares about these places? (And they can be seen
easily enough: visit Tijuana or any similar place, or go drop by any
of America's inner-city Turd World ghettoes. One will see the
consequences of goofing off in school, of having a culture which
embraces scams and laziness, and where economic incentives by local
gubment favor welfare over startups. The sooner these billions simply
die off, the better.)
>2) Neal Stephenson 'Snow Crash', and in particular the mass media
>'fodder' of the United States. (me: which in some ways represents 'a
>new age' working class: they are forced by lifestyle and financial
>status just as much as their lack of enlightenment (and lack of
>desire for it!) to be subservient to mass-produced food, music and
>other junk that churns the stock options of the upper class elites.
>The question is that if a continuing gap grows, and the divisive
>effects of genetics proceeds forward, then they do truly become
>fodder for the bobos. What happens when the bobos are
>technologically sufficient not to need the fodder ?)
The gap is growing daily, even accelerating. To some libertarians,
this is heresy. But it's true, and there are good
economic/evolutionary reasons why this should not be surprising to
anyone.
Examples abound in every field. To pick one, look at writers. There
are many more writers in America (and the first world) than ever
before. Shown in statistics on how many people claim to be writers
(on tax forms), writing classes, software, and just the sheer output
visible on the Web. Yet the skewing between those writers who earn
tens of millions of dollars and the vast bulk who earn less than $500
a year from their writing is telling. The "disintermediation" effects
<insert blather about a "geodesic writing economy" as desired> may be
very real, but the effect of widespread distribution of words is that
Tom Clancy, Stephen King, and that Rowling woman ("Harry Potter") can
earn tens of millions a year while even most _published_ novels never
make any reasonable profit.
Some call this the "best seller" effect. Economists look to "flash
crowd" and "winner take all" explanations. Several books have covered
this recently.
Ditto for software. A top programmer is worth a huge amount of money.
A so-so programmer may actually be worth a negative amount, in that
he slows down a team or generates defective code.
(And with the rise of new programming tools, it might be argued that
much of modern programming is having lower-skilled people wiring
together the higher-level tools, modules, and libraries of more
gifted programmers.)
As automated tools are used even more, expect these gaps to widen.
My favorite example of this widening gap, when I used to attend lots
of nanotechnology discussions, was of Hollywood. In most ways it
exactly resembled the "culture of abundance" that nanotech
enthusiasts were always talking about: readily-replicated products,
little consumption of raw materials, heavy dependence on human talent
for designs and product ideas.
And the effect in Hollywood is as I described above: the top
producers, directors, actors, and other support people are in very
heavy demand and command incredible compensation. Lesser talents make
an "adequate" living. Then there's a huge pool of people trying to
"break into the business." And like those lesser writers I described
above, most are barely making enough money to pay their annual SAG
dues. Many drop out completely (consult the www.imdb.com data base
for some interesting timelines).
The effect of crypto anarchy will be, I think, to widen the gap even
further. For reasons hinted at above, and discussed many times over
the years. Cf. the Cyphernomicon for additional discussion.
--Tim May
--
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
