Clay Shirky, author of books on the effect of the internet and technology on our culture (Here Comes Everybody), has a short essay worth reading in edge.org. Get yourself some coffee and strap in.
It is our misfortune to live through the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race, a misfortune because surplus always breaks more things than scarcity. Scarcity means valuable things become more valuable, a conceptually easy change to integrate. Surplus, on the other hand, means previously valuable things stop being valuable, which freaks people out.
“Freaking people out” like this will lead to the real story of the coming decades, which might not be the tech itself, but the ways that it will drive change in our civilization on every level. A damn-near infinite surplus is good when you consume, but hard to penetrate if you are a producer. Shirky points out that we’re the first generation to have a say in how this ‘shock of inclusion’ plays out, where everyone is a player. A thought-provoking read for a Sunday.
