Makes the Industrial Revolution Seem Trivial

The industrial revolution which began at the end of the 19^th Century and has lasted until the beginning of the 21^st Century fundamentally and radically changed human existence.

It made possible amazing and speedy changes in all forms of everything manmade. It made possible ‘making’ masses of cars, trucks and airplanes—to make all peoples’ lives better, cheaper and easier. It created jobs that could not have previously existed. And, most industrialized people, until very recently, thought they lived in nirvana!

Then, at the tail end of the 20^th Century, the internet arrived. Since then, it has quickly evolved into a process which is attacking the very roots of the 100-year-old industrial revolution.

The internet started out innocently enough simply as a very fast communications network. The advent of the World Wide Web beginning in the 1990s made it an information repository as well as an electronic post office.

In the 20 years since, it has become an omnivorous information, data collection, propaganda, and intelligence system.

And, now we are seeing that process often loosely called ‘social media’ transforming itself under our puzzled eyes into a new system of capitalism through which our whole economic and financial process is being transformed into a totally new way of valuing and transacting everything in our lives.

There was a clear, global need, purpose, goal and planning that led to the industrial revolution.

The information evolution has been largely unplanned – an ad-hoc assemblage of technological advancements, unexpected and largely ungoverned, that have unleashed broad and dangerous new threats (foreign influence, trolls, ransomware), and created a voracious data gathering eco-system where, as Tim Cook famously said, the product is “you.”

The overall result is greater divisions – a dichotomy between the developed and underdeveloped worlds that also exists within nations themselves.

For example, the obvious split in the US between its halves and have nots, the ‘deplored’ and the ‘admired’ etc. which is tearing the USA in half—has been exacerbated by this phenomenon. 

And similar splits are apparent the world over.

So where are we, where can we go, and how do we get there? One idea may be to rescind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which relieves social media and other internet services from responsibility for the content published on their platforms.

We are in ‘never/never’ land and should never have strayed so far.

We must find our way back to ‘together land’.

Together land is the only place where peace and prosperity can coexist happily and forever!!