Bet on the Block

It is 30 years since the late cultural critic Niel Postman published ‘Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology’ and so prophetically described the development and characteristics of a "Technopoly" – a society in which technology is deified, meaning the culture seeks its authorisation in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology. Aren’t we already in such a society? The question to ask is that are the ills of such a society fast outpacing the benefits? Think of mental health, fake news, FOMO, social media abuse, gadgets galore, impact on personal relationships and so on. A handful of tech giants control the Internet and practice ‘surveillance capitalism’ with the individual at their mercy.

Well, can the year 2022 and beyond accelerate an underlying trend where individuals start taking back control from these big ‘technologies of the past’ – from the bygone era of Web 2.0? This may well happen by adopting additional and different sets of technologies and tools that bring-in a new set of promises.

A promise of a decentralised world where power will no longer reside only in few institutions or #bigtech. A world where individuals may no longer need to depend or blindly #trust strangers but, will be able to truly put their faith in technology that actually ‘does good’ and the ‘right thing’ - respects privacy and protects data and identity. A set of technologies that will not just force but also incentivise enterprises and consumers alike to be transparent and demonstrate all their claims and promises to stakeholders – think #ESG. A world where few authorities can no longer hide behind complexity and will either give up their quest for control or will be forced to share power. The large enterprises themselves will be shaken to the core as new decentralised methods of working and collaborating become mainstream and traditional hierarchies will finally be a thing of the past. Here a generation born native to these technologies will definitely enjoy an upper-hand.

Bet this change to reside in the age of the #blockchain that is already upon us. The technology promises to fundamentally transform the way we think about value, privacy, trust and even democracy among several other societal and interpersonal aspects.

Make no mistake that as the individual gets empowered at the expense of large institutions, legacy social structures, the ‘keepers of traditions’, etc., they will surely come after the individual with the regulatory might and this will create conflict – of ideas, of methods and of first principles. The need to seek clarity of purpose and therefore clarity in communication will be of utmost importance as a new social contract is likely to emerge from this paradigm shift. This may well be the “End of Big” i.e. big government, big media, big corporations and big establishments and bring us back to our communities, to our neighbours and that’s how we will remake the world and build a better future as so predicted by Nicco Mele.

With decentralisation, which was the original promise of the free world wide web, we may move away from Thomas Hobbes and the "digital leviathan" and seek hope in the "general will" of Jean Jacques Rosseau and move from "surveillance capitalism" to "stakeholder capitalism"

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