A wired world does not a flat world make.
The world is becoming increasingly wired. More and more remote regions of the world are getting online or at least gaining access to a town, local village, van or someone on a Blackberry who is. To add to that younger generations are connecting in a truer way than their parents and grandparents ever did and have the potential to do so with those connections not being mired by outdated prejudices, policies, politics and wars that have are fought fueled by egos rather than what makes sense eco.
What still prevents the world from being flat - with equality of opportunity and the possibility of fair and honest competition-- is that the powerful, greedy, entitled, special interested find ways to not compete fairly. Instead they hedge their bets, gain a competitive edge and create barriers to entry through lies, linguistic gymnastics, innuendo, manipulation and even more unseemly practices.
Chief Justice Louis Brandeis said that "sunlight is the greatest disinfectant." Until utter transparency becomes not just the law of all lands, but the values that all peoples practice in their daily behavior, the world will continue to be under the sway of the entitled, the unworthy and the nefarious.
I hope for all our sake the disinfection happens sooner than later, because if you haven't noticed Mother Nature has been firing warning salvos to mankind that she can't hold on forever.
always increased speed and quantity -
but never
qualtiy...
--
Even if our current dire situation enables more people to see the light (indeed, I think it already has), we still have the problem of mass propaganda that's so brilliant, so overt yet so subtle, that stalin would be envious.
Imagine, the propagandists now are managing to take justified populist outrage and turn it that outrage on other citizens (those 'greedy' homeowners) rather than the criminals on wall street and government who engineered this mess. People are believing this! Imagine.
The sides are talking past each other, and, thanks to the speed and access of the net, it's practically happening in real time. Before, the interaction was restricted by the access to the facts and the forum for discussion.
Now, you can twitter a concept, and set up a place for a group to meet for further action.
Welcome to the Wild, Wild West. : )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNecuzcvqC8&feature=related
In fact, it will perish well before there will be 30 billion mouths to feed. At about 6.4 billion, we're already at or above the carrying capacity of the planet to sustain itself.
Or maybe you haven't noticed.
Hillary Clinton just announced we would tolerate human rights violations in China in exchange for economic and climate cooperation.
Obama is refusing to support Senator Leahy's efforts to expose Bushie crimes.
I'm afraid a Democratic admin didn't lead to the changes we seek.
All the small donations in the last election didn't offset the big donors... just moved them out of the headlines.
I don't want us to become like China.
Pretending establishes a fake line in the sand... one that all the boyscouts think is real... and therefore one the judges and politicians must pay lip service to.
It sucks, but really is much better than draconian China.