Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge.
Interpretation
New technologies can change how people interact and organize politically.
This quote by Howard Rheingold suggests that advancements in technology fundamentally alter the mechanisms through which people can gather, communicate, and mobilize for political purposes. When technology allows for faster and more efficient organization, it paves the way for innovative political movements and structures that were previously unimaginable, reshaping societal dynamics and influencing governance.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion on social media's impact on political campaigns.
Technological defeatism - a belief that, since a given technology is here to stay, there's nothing we can do about it other than get on with it and simply adjust our norms - is a persistent feature of social thought about technology. We'll come to pay for it very dearly.
Overregulation stifles creativity. It smothers innovation. It gives dinosaurs a veto over the future. It wastes the extraordinary opportunity for a democratic creativity that digital technology enables.
Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.
We loved cars until the '70s or so. Then they became appliances. They turned into motorized cup holders. Most of it has to do with urban sprawl. What began as pleasure ends up in necessity, as so many things do.
In a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face. That is a rather startling thing to say, but it is our conclusion.
We think Android is very, very fragmented, and becoming more fragmented by the day. And as you know, Apple strives for the integrated model so that the user isn't forced to be the systems integrator.
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