Our Comrade the Electron

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Our Comrade the Electron by MACIEJ CEGLOWSKI

"We put so much care into making the Internet resilient from technical failures, but make no effort to make it resilient to political failure. We treat freedom and the rule of law like inexhaustible natural resources, rather than the fragile and precious treasures that they are.

And now, of course, it's time to make the Internet of Things, where we will connect everything to everything else, and build cool apps on top, and nothing can possibly go wrong."

Highly recommend you read this very poignant essay. Predicting how society, culture and governments will respond to technological change is nearly impossible.

Our Broken Social Contract - NYTimes.com

Mr. Edsall aptly captures the arguments that underlie the talking points of today's political class.

Unfortunately, we have no consensus about how to resolve this looming crisis principally because we have no agreement on the root causes.  It's in neither political party's interest to solve the problem because they would lose leverage and power by agreement on the factors that are driving the decline in values, income and the common good.

We have become mired in the narcissistic "What's in it for me?" approach to life and unwilling to embrace the 'common good,' assuming we could agree on what that is in today's world.

At bottom, we have the lost the 'glue' that binds a healthy society together.

Our Broken Social Contract - NYTimes.com:
"If these trends continue, and most evidence suggests they will, one of the central ironies of the Obama years will be that a Democratic administration committed to pushing back against the unjust distribution of resources and to the promotion of morally cohesive communities will in fact have overseen an eight-year period of social disintegration, inequality and rising self-preoccupation."

I strongly recommend reading the commentary by David Brooks, The Solitary Leaker, in the New York Times dated June 10, 2013. Brooks provides thoughtful insights into why Snowden acted as he did and the deeper societal problems spotlighted by his actions.