Chapter 7: The Power of the Mobile Many.
Netwar: January 20, 2001
"Go to 2ERSA, wear blk." More than one million residents of Manila received this SMS text message and assembled to bring down the government of President Joseph Estrada. It was non-violent ... no shots were fired. "Netwar is an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists--ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side--use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age ... The know how to swarm and disperse, penetrate and disrupt, as well as elude and evade. The tactics they use range from battles of ideas to acts of sabotage--and many tactics involve the Internet." (162).
Smart mob technology can benefit or destroy a society.
Chapter 8: Always-On Panopticon or Cooperation Amplifer?
"Maybe you should refuse it." Is this a healthy response? "It's not just how we use the technology that concerns us. We're also concerned about what kind of people we become when we use it." (185).
Three kinds of potential threats are:
1. Threats to liberty - survellience by most merchants who use our information to design their sales pitches.
2. Threats to quality of life - possible deterioration of communities as the conveniences wear on our sanity.
3. Threats to human dignity - stress on interpersonal relationships - less humane behaviors. "If pervasive computation devices and anthropomorphic software agents lead people to confuse machines with humans, will people grow less friendly, less trusting, less prepared to cooperate with one another?" (193).
Will our lives become Panopticons ("all-seeing places") of the 19th century - inmates with no privacy? OR Will these new technologies cause societies to reorganize at a higher level of cooperations? We are presently in the midst of finding out.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
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