It shapes new codes of behavior that move each organism and institution – family, neighborhood, church group, company, government, nation – inexorably beyond the materialistÕs obsession with energy, money and control. Turning the economics of mass production inside out, new information technologies are driving the financial costs of diversity – both product and personal – down toward zero, “demassifying” our institutions and our culture. Accelerating demassification creates the potential for vastly increased human freedom. It spells the death of the central institutional paradigm of modern life, the bureaucratic organization.
Predictor: Dyson, Esther
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of the Fall 1994, New Perspectives Quarterly article “Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age,” by social critics Esther Dyson, George Gilder, Jay Keyworth and Alvin Toffler. They write: ÒThe Third Wave has profound implications for the nature and meaning of property, of the marketplace, of community and of individual freedom. As it emerges, it shapes new codes of behavior that move each organism and institution – family, neighborhood, church group, company, government, nation – inexorably beyond the materialistÕs obsession with energy, money and control. Turning the economics of mass production inside out, new information technologies are driving the financial costs of diversity – both in product and personal – down toward zero, ÔdemassifyingÕ our institutions and our culture. Accelerating demassification creates the potential for vastly increased human freedom. It spells the death of the central institutional paradigm of modern life, the bureaucratic organization. Governments, including the American government, are the last great redoubt of bureaucratic power on the face of the planet, and for them the coming change will be profound and probably traumatic.Ó
Biography:Esther Dyson was founding editor of Release 1.0 and a consultant and expert on computing and high-tech applications. She served as the president of EDventure Holdings. She founded the PC Forum, an annual conference and industry event. She had the highest profile of the women of technology in the 1990s. (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 48
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne