A few common thoughts on social change. Within a moribund social organization, power elites do become entrenched. They also tend to become complacent, over-confidant and reactionary. There are sources of change that have a significant and eventually overwhelming impact on existing power.
The change agent that interests me for its openness and apparent value-neutrality is technology. New technology can both disrupt existing power balances and allow new kinds of power to be created. Agility in the adoption of new technology and the creative development of skills in the use of new technology typically create new power subcultures that have their own elites, early adopters and early followers.
As a disruptive technology becomes mainstreamed, it and those people skilled in the technology become co-opted by existing power groups. The cycles for the creation, deployment and mainstreaming of new technology appear to be speeding up.
A disruptive technology allows the creation of new types of social and communication structures, practices and knowledge. The communication practices that evolve will not necessarily be value-neutral wrt to their use by new and existing power elites.
Out of curiosity we could look for example at recent disruptive technologies like cell phones, email, social network web servers, wikis, etc and ask how as they become mainstreamed they are being co-opted and which new power elites have emerged. An entirely different technology to look at would be new classes of pharmaceuticals and the power struggle to control distribution of these.
It doesn't seem to be the case that people change their political beliefs and perhaps affiliations when they interact with new technologies. However the radical changes in the economics of social interactions may enable new political aggregations of people with alternative common interests to emerge.
The change agent that interests me for its openness and apparent value-neutrality is technology. New technology can both disrupt existing power balances and allow new kinds of power to be created. Agility in the adoption of new technology and the creative development of skills in the use of new technology typically create new power subcultures that have their own elites, early adopters and early followers.
As a disruptive technology becomes mainstreamed, it and those people skilled in the technology become co-opted by existing power groups. The cycles for the creation, deployment and mainstreaming of new technology appear to be speeding up.
A disruptive technology allows the creation of new types of social and communication structures, practices and knowledge. The communication practices that evolve will not necessarily be value-neutral wrt to their use by new and existing power elites.
Out of curiosity we could look for example at recent disruptive technologies like cell phones, email, social network web servers, wikis, etc and ask how as they become mainstreamed they are being co-opted and which new power elites have emerged. An entirely different technology to look at would be new classes of pharmaceuticals and the power struggle to control distribution of these.
It doesn't seem to be the case that people change their political beliefs and perhaps affiliations when they interact with new technologies. However the radical changes in the economics of social interactions may enable new political aggregations of people with alternative common interests to emerge.