The future is here, but unevenly distributed.
December 31, 2014 6:35 AM Subscribe
Peter Diamandis on Global Citizenship
Peter Diamandis asks, "Besides your passport, what defines your nationality these days?" According to him, technology is rapidly eroding national borders by disrupting and dematerializing language, currency, and residence.
However, Peter Diamandis might be a bit late to the party. National borders have been all but irrelevant to the capitalist class for decades now. Wealth is a universal passport recognized by all states, and has been for centuries.
The problem is that this privilege has not been extended to the working classes yet. Even if Diamandis is right about technology disrupting language, currency, and residence, still isn't an easy matter for people without access to massive amounts of wealth to simply pick up stakes and look for a better situation elsewhere if their home country sucks.
As William Gibson once wrote, the future is here, but unevenly distributed. The death or irrelevance of the nation-state might be upon us, but it won't be workers who benefit unless they get their shit together and rediscover solidarity.
In the meantime, expect conservative Protestants in the US to start carping about "one world government" and the "New World Order" again, as if it were the 1980s all over again.
Peter Diamandis asks, "Besides your passport, what defines your nationality these days?" According to him, technology is rapidly eroding national borders by disrupting and dematerializing language, currency, and residence.
However, Peter Diamandis might be a bit late to the party. National borders have been all but irrelevant to the capitalist class for decades now. Wealth is a universal passport recognized by all states, and has been for centuries.
The problem is that this privilege has not been extended to the working classes yet. Even if Diamandis is right about technology disrupting language, currency, and residence, still isn't an easy matter for people without access to massive amounts of wealth to simply pick up stakes and look for a better situation elsewhere if their home country sucks.
As William Gibson once wrote, the future is here, but unevenly distributed. The death or irrelevance of the nation-state might be upon us, but it won't be workers who benefit unless they get their shit together and rediscover solidarity.
In the meantime, expect conservative Protestants in the US to start carping about "one world government" and the "New World Order" again, as if it were the 1980s all over again.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry to be a stickler for protocol but this would probably go over a lot better here without the editorializing language. -- goodnewsfortheinsane
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How can Diamandis seriously say that bitcoin is a valid response to the "Ruble crisis" and that people looking for stability are flocking to bitcoin when over the last year bit coin must (not done the numbers but its like -200% or something right?) have lost more value year on year than any currency not in a hyper-inflationary spiral.
How can you say things like " fully immersive, high fidelity, virtual worlds." in 2014 with a straight face - Secondlife called it wants its decade old marketing slogan back.
p.s editorialising below the fold is generally frowned on I think.
posted by Another Fine Product From The Nonsense Factory at 6:47 AM on December 31, 2014