Hunter/Gatherers to Digital Natives:

Innovation is the future. Where information is controlled there will be less innovation, slower development and falling behind those who do not control information.

I have talked before (Chapter 1 – Hunter/Gatherers to Agriculture) about we humans started as completely I-adapted Hunter/Gatherers, with the invention of scarcity, followed by the invention of agriculture, we switched our adaptation to M-adaptation.

Now we are becoming more I-adapted but will probably never let go of material goods. This looks like signs of a synthesis.

Kinect Hackers Are Changing the Future of Robotics Wired Magazine | Wired.com

Within weeks of [Kinect]‘s release, YouTube was filled with videos of Kinect-enabled robots. A group from UC Berkeley strapped a Kinect to a quadrotor a small helicopter withh four propellers enabling it to fly autonomously around a room. ….. Willow Garage, … sells a $500 open source robotics kit that incorporates the Kinect. (The previous non-Kinect version cost $280,000.)…. None of these projects were sanctioned by Microsoft…. Yet the company’s official response to all this activity has gone from hostility to acceptance to vigorous support…. More companies are beginning to adopt the Microsoft approach. Motorola recently announc[ed] that future [Android phones] will be easier to modify. Sony Ericsson has a web page devoted to helping hackers unlock its phones. In May, Google released its Android Open Accessory Development Kit….

James Fallows in What’s Up in China: Hint, It’s Not War With the U.S. observes a number of trends that make war with China unlikely: Rebellion in Wukan, the possibility of an economic slow down, and the mistranslating of China’s president Hu Jintao’s remarks on military preparedness.

In addition, on the likelihood that China will outstrip the West in computing innovation, Tricia Wang is quoted as saying:

The three things holding China’s computing industry from creating disruptive innovation is the
1. ) lack of trust between individuals, groups, and institutions,
2. ) lack of organizations that foster creativity and community, and
3. ) lack of common myth among technologists, engineers, and programmers.

I would agree and add an observation from previous information revolutions. The existing elite is never as innovative as those who are information literate and “hungry”. Or put another way, in an information revolution nothing fails like success. The context with the greatest depth of information will win. In China, as in previous repressive regimes, the members of the existing elite (political, economic, or technological elite) have a vested interest in controlling information access to those they trust. Hence, it is only those who are likely to subscribe to the ‘party line’ who have access.

This is similar to Spain during the information revolution following the printing press where the press was controlled. Only books approved by the Roman Catholic Church were published. there was an active black market but only the upper classes – members of the elite – could take advantage of it. Therefore, the commons did not learn to read and so did not innovate.

In the Protestant countries the press was associated with reading the Bible so common folk did learn to read. It was these people, literate craftsmen, that invented new ways of producing goods (organizational, economic, and technological) which led to capitalism and the wealth and dominance of the West. (see Chapter IX)

By limiting information access China is choosing the way of Spain not the way of Holland and England.

Storagepipe kindly made of my thinking on information. It can be seen here I’m really excited!

The paper it came from is available here.

The introduction to this part starts with a challenge issued by my sister to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights today looking through the lens of information revolutions.

What has become clear in the discussion of information revolutions is that the United States has been in the forefront of innovation. The founding documents of the United States are consistent, with what is intrinsic to winning information revolutions. The challenge is not in the documents it is in how they are interpreted and how seriously they are taken.

The introduction discusses, how, in this new world of information, what – perhaps – in the past was moral but not always perceived as practical has become vital, practical and essential. Before, the United States could often coast on “lip service” to these principles, buffered by its great wealth and its relatively greater freedoms. Now, investment in current success may stand in the way of winning in this information revolution.

The introduction concludes that that the only way we can maintain some semblance of past international political and economic preeminence is to let go of the conviction that the United States is and must be the first among nations.

In short, it’s time to take the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the principles that animate these documents, as seriously as profit maximization and security

The digital revolution, like the electric information revolution has technological waves – mainframes, personal computers, and the internet. Like the telegraph, mainframes needed specialists to operate it. Personal computers brought computers to common folk. And, the internet, like the telephone, is interactive and is becoming available to all. Like the electric information revolution, each technological wave has its own first and second phase. Currently much of the world is in the middle of the second phase of the personal computer and at the end of the first phase of the internet.

This is also the latest information revolution, and since it is still in progress, it is necessary to know what choices are important for those who would be winners.

As the book looks forward it is like a weaver with the vision to teach his sons to read but not like someone creating new ways of managing production. The Digital Natives or Generation G (for generosity) – those who have never lived in a world without the internet are the people to watch.

This part will bring together what can be observed, and what about those observations fits with what has happened in previous information revolutions.

This part of the book investigates how trains, telegraph, and telephone changed the way people organize themselves.

The electric information revolution had two major technological periods: trains and telegraph, followed by telephone. The first wave of technology – trains and telegraph – was controlled by an elite: specialists were necessary to operate it. The second wave of technology – telephone – made instant communication available to common folk. Each technological wave had two phases. During the first phase, people used the technology to make what they already did more efficient. During the second, people changed the way they organized, being able to take the technology for granted.

The electric information revolution introduced people to new ways of thinking about business organizations, political organization, and even family organization, which in turn affected how people think about themselves as individuals.

It presented people with a new metaphor for thinking about the world: continuous flow and constrained hierarchy, that was inspired by the continuous flow of electricity through a switching network.

It changed the way buildings were built, cities were structured, and children were educated. It made the modern nation-state possible and necessary.

Identifying winners and losers:

• The information intensive North won the Civil War in the United States.
• The United States was the economic ‘winner’ with respect to England and Europe.
• Business organizations that were professionally managed were ‘winners’ compared to those using ‘natural management’.

This part is about the print information revolution. The press has had a greater affect on the way people think, and do things, and the lives and status of women and children than anything since the invention of scarcity and agriculture. It was made possible by the breaking of the tripartite elite.

It presents an informal model of how information revolutions work giving us a way to think about all other information.

A new theory of the origins of capitalism is presented; we owe capitalism to the printing press. Countries with information freedom innovated and invented capitalism. Thus, capitalism originated in Holland and England rather than in Spain, Italy, Byzantium, Islam, China, or Korea. Thus, Holland and England and the Protestant countries ‘won’ economic and political dominance. Spain and the Catholic Countries lost.

The economic dynamic shown in the model and its application gives the rule for all subsequent information revolutions – the context with the freest information wins.

This part of the book presents an entirely new perspective on the fall of Rome – that Rome became ungovernable because the government had reached the information limit of writing and the tripartite elite form of organization.

As a consequence of the fall of Rome, information ownership and control changed.
The winners in this information revolution were the common people, the Church, and local chieftains and kings. The losers were the educated elite and, except for Church, the tripartite elite.