The Internet’s decentralized, cooperative structure has been, ironically, the closest thing to a functioning large-scale anarchist society that human culture has yet seen. Not surprisingly, having tasted such virtual freedom, many participants are reluctant to surrender their elbow room. But that seems to be the direction things are going, with global forces at work that dwarf the self-conceptions or ideological intentions of any one group of individuals. This is the politics of historical currents and technological momentum, not of net-surfing soapboxes.
Predictor: Kinney, Jay
Prediction, in context:For a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Jay Kinney, publisher and editor of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions, writes: ”The Internet’s decentralized, cooperative structure has been, ironically, the closest thing to a functioning large-scale anarchist society that human culture has yet seen. Not surprisingly, having tasted such virtual freedom, many participants are reluctant to surrender their elbow room. But that seems to be the direction things are going, with global forces at work that dwarf the self-conceptions or ideological intentions of any one group of individuals. This is the politics of historical currents and technological momentum, not of net-surfing soapboxes.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: ‘Anarcho-Emergentist-Republicans’: Is There a New Politics Emerging in the Net/Cyberspace/Digital Culture?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.09/netpolitics_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney