Politics and Technology, the Establishment will succumb to Decentralization

guerilla Notable Member

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Long read, but excellent stuff (like most of LewRockwell.com).

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north584.html

This revolution is based on two factors: a new technology and unprecedented price competition. There has never been price competition like this in the field of communication. Digits that can be viewed as images â€“ words, pictures, and videos, with audio files thrown in for good measure â€“ are delivered instantaneously on demand (or even without it: spam) without paper, printing costs, or postage costs. The primary limit on communication today is the time cost of reading.

This technological reality is creating nightmares for Establishments in every nation. Why? Because the cost of access to voters is now limited to time and marketing creativity. It is not limited by either space or mass.

This has never happened before in recorded history. For over four centuries, the structure of Establishment rule has rested on one assumption above all others: the high cost of delivering images to large numbers of people. This assumption has become increasingly ludicrous ever since 1996.
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Todayâ€™s Establishments are an unofficial confederation of multiple interlocking directorates. These are self-policed directorates. The designers of this almost 500-year-old piecemeal system have based their control on a single highly specific barrier to entry: the cost of delivering pieces of paper. This barrier is now collapsing.

The last major communications-based revolution in the West began on October 31, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 proposed debate topics onto the door of the church in Wittenberg. He thought he was launching a serious academic debate in Latin. He was in fact launching a social revolution: a change in law, attitudes, and religion.

Luther could not have launched the Protestant Reformation had Gutenberg not invented movable type two generations earlier. The nameless printers who translated Lutherâ€™s 95 theses into German and then mass marketed them were the key to this revolution. By never paying Luther royalties for his writings and pocketing all the profits, they made him the most important person of the sixteenth century. Most historians would put him in the top five or ten men over the last 500 years. But Gutenberg is higher on the list: no Gutenberg = no Luther.

It was impossible for the existing Establishment to stop Luther and his followers at a price they were willing to pay: the systematic destruction of all unregulated printing. Subsequent political rulers recognized the threat and tried to control printers, but, political revolution by revolution, they failed. The cost-effectiveness of printing was too great. The lure of profit for printers was too great. Printers cheated. They broke the law.
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Consider the Internet. The denizens of the World Wide Web have more money than the typical voter. They have more formal education. They also have skills in navigating the Web. They have Google. They have e-mail. They are international.

These people are on the cutting edge of social change. In the way that literate people were on the cutting edge in 1517, so are people who use the Internet as their primary source of information.

In effect, the worldâ€™s Establishments have based their control on their ability to control the flow of information to illiterates â€“ digital illiterates. They are in the condition that the Catholic Church was in back in 1517. The Church controlled the preachers, more or less, through a system of compulsory accreditation and licensing. The state backed up the Church. Most people in Western Europe got their information from preachers in 1517. Then one of the preachers, Drudge-like, got his hands on a lot of printing presses â€“ not directly, but indirectly. The printers built his audience for him. They kept the money; he kept the audience.

Power after 1517 spread to local units of civil government in what we today call Germany. Protestant princes challenged the Catholic Emperor. The Church relied on the Emperor to enforce its system of accreditation and licensing. It rested on a weak reed. The process of decentralization, informed by low-cost pieces of paper, could not be reversed.
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guerilla, Nov 15, 2007 IP

guerilla Notable Member

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Bump, no responses?

For the love of Pete, this is about the internet and politics, which should make it an ideal topic for webmasters at DP.

guerilla, Nov 18, 2007 IP

The Webmaster IdeasOfOne

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guerilla said: ↑

no responses?
...

an ideal topic for webmasters at DP.
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Boring dude,

We Webmasters love topics high on adrenaline, like..
F' Bush.. F' Ron Paul.. Islam Vs. Christianity. Dems sucks.. No no Reps suck... Ohh wait, US SUCKS... No it doesn't, You suck.

You got the point.....

The Webmaster, Nov 19, 2007 IP

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Politics and Technology, the Establishment will succumb to Decentralization

guerilla Notable Member

guerilla Notable Member

The Webmaster IdeasOfOne

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