23 Jan 12
Thus in the transition to the global brain we will see both trends operating simultaneously at different levels. On the one hand, we are seeing a vast increase in the variety of kinds of activities and information available to individuals. This does not just facilitate human freedom, it effectively is human freedom in the sense of there being an increasing variety of possible states of human experience and actions. But on the other hand, constraints are introduced from the global level through economic and technological processes, and “canalization” and self-organizing around norms, protocols, and economic structures. One can start to see this already as the IT landscape evolves and forces of centralization e.g. doom MySpace while crowning Facebook. Note that this is not new specifically to the GB in the sense of the penetration of global IT, but rather is a general feature of social evolution greatly exaggerated by the GB experience.— Cliff Joslyn on the Global Brain
