To: Thinkingallowed@bbc.co.uk |
||||
Dear Laurie,
Your discussion of the Internet's
future effect on government and democracy assumed that it would
be within the context of the existing political, social and
economic order and the power structures of our representative
form of party-political democracy, when in fact it has the
potential to transform EVERYTHING, by facilitating individual
and group SELF-ORGANIZATION and a participatory,
grass-roots form of democracy, in which party politics
and centralized government, as we know them today, will have no
role to play, and in which the rat race of mass,
media-controlled, producer-consumer society will be no more.
The necessary, open-source software,
as far as I know, has not yet been written, but once it is and
becomes available, it will be possible for individuals (those
who want to) to self-organize into groups, and groups into
larger groups, and for individuals and groups to interact at
every level. Instead of individuals being told, more-or-less,
who they are, where they belong, and what their rights and
obligations are (especially in respect to employers and the
state; thus the on-going debate about "British identity"), they
will decide for themselves. If they don't like a group they are
in (and they can be in many), they can join (or, with others,
can newly found) another.
The Internet will facilitate ANARCHY
in its most positive senses, enabling those of us who want to,
to escape for the first time since the very beginnings of
civilisation, the clutches of those who would rule over or
exploit us.
I haven't worked any
of the details,
but the direction in which we
will soon be heading, I hope, is clear enough and makes me very
optimistic for the future. It is the only way that we are going
to create a more just, humane and above all sustainable society.
|
||||
c