without thought

Could the internet cure a cold?

Don Tapscott talks about the arguments in his book Wikinomics at ‘Google Talks’. Don raises some very interesting examples of how democracy on the Web can be used to great effect.

Early on in the talk Tapscott lays out the ground map when he says:

“You put a technology revolution with a demographic revolution, you get a social revolution”

He later goes on to apply this model to political democracy. Tapscott talks about the work he was doing with the Clinton administration that could have changed American politics for ever. These ideas suggest a change in humanity. After Gutenberg, the way people thought was changed for ever by the written word. Now the internet has changed the way people think and interact. It’s exciting times.

However, during the industrial revolution there were the Luddites. It will be very interesting to see what form the contemporary version takes (open source saboteurs maybe?).

I found myself having a rather tedious discussion recently with someone who argued that ‘it is important to consider the negative consequences of technology, that it couldn’t all be good’. Perhaps I was talking to an incarnation of a modern day Luddite but this sort of attitude exemplifies the usual sound bites people trot out in the pub. The next step of the argument generally slides into ‘did you know Google are collecting all this information on everybody?’ to which I usually reply ‘I’ve thought about this and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not that important’. Only a narcissist could feel threatened with the concept of shared information.

This rambling text has reminded me of a story my girlfriend told me about someone she knew going to Holland on holiday from France and being shocked at the open nature of some of the Dutch houses who sported no curtains and whos content was left exposed for all to see. This may be a good analogy for Web 2.0. As Tapscott says if you’re going to be seen naked you’d want to be pretty fit and in some way it raises the bar of existence.So how will all of this thinking, this revolution effect humanity? Is it possible that democracy on the internet could cure the common cold?