John Naughton had a remarkably thoughtful and useful piece in the Observer this weekend, Everything you need to know about the internet. He covers what he deems the nine essential truths you have to understand about life online, and while that may be overreaching, he certainly makes nine good points. My favorite was this:
As an analytical framework, economics can come unstuck when dealing with the net. Because while economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources, the online world is distinguished by abundance. Similarly, ecology (the study of natural systems) specialises in abundance, and it can be useful to look at what’s happening in the media through the eyes of an ecologist.
I’m used to talking about the web as ecosystem but it’s useful to think of the ecosystem model in relation to our tendency to reduce everything to economics. You don’t want to miss Naughton’s other nine points, so be sure to read the whole article. It’s going to the top of my list of recommended reading for people who want to get their minds around this whole Internet thing.
Bucky Fuller, in “Nine Chains to the Moon,” made the point that the Soviet Union, a country of scarce resources, chose Communism, which assumes resources are abundant, while the US, a country of rich and plentiful resources, chose Capitalism, which assumes resources are scarce. So the Soviets were forced to create artificial abundance and otherwise hack their own system, while the US was forced to create artificial scarcities. Of the two, scarcity is the easiest to fake, which is part of why the US outlasted the Soviet Union.
Perhaps the most interesting part is how clearly Fuller saw this when the book was written (it was published in 1938).
Bucky Fuller, in “Nine Chains to the Moon,” made the point that the Soviet Union, a country of scarce resources, chose Communism, which assumes resources are abundant, while the US, a country of rich and plentiful resources, chose Capitalism, which assumes resources are scarce. So the Soviets were forced to create artificial abundance and otherwise hack their own system, while the US was forced to create artificial scarcities. Of the two, scarcity is the easiest to fake, which is part of why the US outlasted the Soviet Union.
Perhaps the most interesting part is how clearly Fuller saw this when the book was written (it was published in 1938).