I've been an "innovation professional" for the last 30 years, playing very diverse roles (as discussed in my introduceyourself post). I am old enough to have met a guy who had worked with Einstein, and young enough to (try and) keep up with some of today's hottest innovations, namely decentralized ledgers, DAOs, and all that
I believe I have been witnessing over my life span a hugely important, historical shift with regard to the impact of innovation on politics and society at large.
In short: innovation used to be "centralizing", i.e. something that further increased the power and influence of strong centralized entities (governments, large companies, etc). But things began to change since the advent of the Web in the mid-90s and subsequent Open Source initiatives and policies. Nowadays, many disruptive innovations are clearly acting as "decentralizing" forces!
Let me substantiate this a bit:
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Before 1995 (or so)
Innovation has always been a game changer/driver for society. In the pre-Web era, societal impact was typically delivered through:
Automation in the workplace: shifting dangerous, repetitive and tiring jobs from men to machines and later robots.
Access to new energy sources: increasing the availability of e.g. heating, transport, illumination and other essential services.
New, more powerful weapons: increasing a country’s political influence and wealth.
Improved, access to information: enabling people to communicate with each other and to learn about things and facts far from them/their culture.
Large, powerful political/economic entities owned (or controlled) the infrastructure where innovation was produced and deployed (factories, networks, etc). As a consequence, citizens were experiencing the societal impact of innovation in a passive way. Basically, they played no active role in shaping innovation or steering its impact on society.
As an example in relation to items 2 and 3 above, consider nuclear energy. Harnessing its power, both for civilian and military applications, was a highly centralized and centralizing task, because of the huge costs associated to the deployment of plants, maintenance, safety, etc. Also, the know-how associated to it was treated as a state secret, with severe penalties for unauthorized disclosures.
In relation to item 4, consider access to information before the advent of the Web. In principle, television and international telecommunications would help people “decentralize” their mind by learning about things far from them. In reality, decentralization was to a large extent an illusion, because central entities would control either the very sources of information (e.g. TV stations) or the telecommunications infrastructure, so that they could exert control e.g. by setting the prices of international phone calls.
After 1995
Web 1.0 was the beginning of the decentralization of information sources on a global scale. Suddenly, a fast-growing community of skilled individuals could set up a website, generate content and make it visible worldwide. This was something like a sudden proliferation of TV channels broadcasting globally. Still, ordinary people would not be able to generate web content themselves. They just had wider (passive) access to an increasing body of information.
On the telecommunications side, Skype was a turning point: a centralized structure enabling free, p2p communications. Not bad for a start…
True decentralization started with Web 2.0, when virtually anybody could be a content provider, i.e. an innovation shaper. Moreover, social networks, Twitter in particular, became a trusted source of real-time, uncensored information from war zones and crisis areas (the 2011 Arab Spring is a good example).
Decentralizing information sources has an obvious political impact: centralized organizations can no longer afford to lie!
Decentralization also affects the energy landscape. Renewable energy sources, in particular solar and wind power, are “decentralizing” by nature! That’s because small, household-scale installations are possible and viable, and also because to a large extent the energy can be used where it is produced, reducing people’s dependence on large, centralized power grid infrastructures…
Ok, I will not talk about Web 3.0 because I feel that virtually anybody in this community knows more than me about it Let me just emphasize that now technological innovation has come to the point when it can create and empower truly decentralized entities.
Bitcoin, which I guess could be regarded as the very first DAO, is decentralizing access to financial resources and services. Money is power, so once money is fully decentralized, it’s hard to imagine how traditional, centralized power structures can survive. So, the time may be ripe to invent brand new (decentralized?) political structures and empower them with the new technologies.
Your call, guys
“Decentralization has, not only an administrative value, but also a civic dimension, since it increases the opportunities for citizens to take interest in public affairs; it makes them get accustomed to using freedom. And from the accumulation of these local, active, persnickety freedoms, is born the most efficient counterweight against the claims of the central government, even if it were supported by an impersonal, collective will.” (A.de Tocqueville)
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