Guy Fawkes Stalks the Boards and Broadband Airwaves ..... EMPty Zones Buffeting Overflows

.... and Server Message Blocks/Temporal Communications Protocols.

"Though there is the customary caveat:

But this does not mean that the new information-driven Internet Age will necessarily assure less inequality."

What it will most definitely assure though, is that there is no more inequality. And it would be most advisable for any who would feel threatened by their unequal or any inequitable positioning in the present, old style hierarchical structure to quickly consider and readjust certain parameters if they have the necessary intelligence genes/memes/means and if not, then quickly buy them in, like yesterday, for the pace of change is expotential and sometimes instantly spontaneous in the new information-driven Internet Age.

For there is a lot of Real Spooky and Cloudy Governance stuff going on behind the Political Scenes to prevent AIdDisasters and SCADA Systems Collapse ....... http://tinyurl.com/spooksville

Daniel Bell....

...is laughing fit to burst.

Hunter-gathering today...

1) Have a few million stashed away

2) Buy your way into parliament through "elections"

3) Sell war and insecurity to the hoi polloi while collecting tickets from the military-security complex

4) ???

5) Profit!!

Rose-tinted glasses

But in a hunter-gatherer society, the alpha male(s) has everything - all the women, first choice of the food, the best tent, etc. He has the highest chance of reproducing and his offspring will be better fed, stronger, more likely to become successful hunters themselves. It perpetuates just as well as property, and leads to at least as much "inequality', that's where kings came from.

Great!

I was shouting at the radio this morning because someone was waffling about the post-industrial society. Without explaining how it would be different or better than the pre-industrial society.

Now we're going to be hunter gatherrs.

Well...

What they're talking about has some merit, but it requires a post-scarcity society to really work that way and we're not there yet. A post-scarcity society is where all the needs have been met: there's enough power, food, medicine, living space et al. that the financial cost of these things becomes trivial to people. So long as these essentials are scarce enough that those without must negotiate for them from those with, you're not going to see a truly egalitarian society. And it's not necessary for the scarcity to be real, it can be artificial. Currently there is a gross disparity in ownership of Wealth worldwide. If that can't be got back from those that have it, inequality will persist.

Paris, because you *can* make money from Internet fame... if you know what you're doing.

@Gaius Not till farming

Actually you are thinking of chimpanzees and gorillas. It was until land ownership that status and kingship came into the picture. If you take a look at primitive hunter-gatherer tribes that were in existence still in the last 200 years... they have marriage customs and tribal law.

It's the modern age that is obsessed with having everything and bullying everyone weaker than you.

Fair?

Pfft! I usually hear "fairness" from people who 1) didn't work hard to get ahead, or 2) politicians courting to those in 1) so they can maximize their power and wealth via taxes and control.

Mine's the one with Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" in the pocket.

Do we really want an egalitarian society?

A free society will inherently become unequal because people are unequal by genetics, and historically evolution drives genetic diversification.

To obtain an egalitarian society you must either use oppression or induce genetically diverse populations to unite.