Now the good news . . . I do have -- what I call -- Part 1 3/4 to the series (I would have called it Part 1 1/2, but that wasn't as original).
During the early part of the 1980's, I was an elementary school student. Like most kids, I watched hours and hours of television. Unlike a lot of my peers, however, I occasionally watched high-brow 'educational' programs on the local public television channel.
Located somewhere between Doctor Who, Masterpiece Theatre, and Big Bird, was a program that I am still fond of. It was a documentary that explored the role that a few, seemingly minor events played in shaping our world.
On one of these episodes, the English narrator started off by telling the viewer how Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. At that point in the program, the invention of the printing press seemed like an important, if somewhat boring, improvement to our daily lives. After all, before the printing press, most people had to rely on their faulty memories to store knowledge since only an elite few knew how to read and write. The printing press provided a good way to pass on knowledge whether it was in the form of a book or a village newspaper. But to most people at that time, the printing press seemed like a nice tool to do everyday things a little better than before -- nothing less and nothing more. How can something that simply puts ink on paper -- albeit in a better way -- cause any sort of dramatic change?
Later on in the program, the audience finds out that Gutenberg used his press to print a copy of the Bible -- something that was reserved for clergymen and kings prior to the printing press. Now lay-people could read the Bible for themselves. Later on, Martin Luther rebelled against the Catholic church and persuaded many that a person could interpret the Bible in a way that contradicted the edicts of the Catholic Church -- something that couldn't have happened without a readily available Bible. Moreover, Luther and other Protestants could now get there message across to the masses by printing leaflets and essays on their printing presses. So, the narrator argued, the invention of the printing press led to the Protestant Reformation -- an event that forever changed the balance of power and the organization of Western civilization.
The moral of the story is this: Inventions can lead to an improvement in the functioning of our society, but it can also dramatically change the nature of the society in which the invention is introduced. So whenever I hear a techno-pundit talk about how the 'Information Superhighway' or the 'Computer Age' will improve the things we do and want to do everyday, I remember the story of the printing press. I remember that technology doesn't just improve our daily lives, but that it also changes the very nature of our lives.
So, what are the dramatic changes we can expect from the 'Digital Revolution?' In my opinion, the answer lies in Stewart Brand's now famous statement: "Information wants to be free." Specifically, the dramatic changes can be understood by exploring the double-entendre inherent in the word "free."
One of the meanings that the word "free" can have is 'the absence of cost.' Of course, the old cliche from economics is that "there is no such thing as a free lunch." Therefore, no one is likely to argue that the Internet is or will be completely free. However, if we take a less rigid view and say that the cost of information is being driven toward zero over time, we can use the word "free" to answer an important question: Will the Internet be hindered by its own success?
Forbes ASAP contributor, George Gilder, has tackled the oft repeated notion of "a tragedy of the commons" happening on the Internet (Forbes ASAP, 12/4/95). Those who doubt the continued success of the Internet -- the backbone of the 'Digital Revolution' -- point to Garret Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons."
To see why someone would use the "the Tragedy of the Commons" as a model for the Internet, we can use farm land as an example. When a few farmers plant on land that does not have restrictions on who may use it (i.e., a Public Good in Economics), there is a great deal of benefits (to both the farmers and those who depend on them) and very little cost. However, since there are no restrictions on who can benefit from the land, more and more farmers are likely to farm on the land. As more and more farmers use the "commons," there is less marginal benefits (benefits for each unit of land) and there is increasing marginal costs (costs for each unit of land). Seeing an analogy in "the Tragedy of the Commons" that might occur in other Public Goods -- like lands or a fishing holes, doubters have predicted that the Internet -- essentially a Public Good -- will also suffer the same tragic fate.
Like George Gilder, however, I disagree with the doubters. Why? Because the Internet is a different kind of Public Good then farm land or a fishing hole. As the Classical economist, David Ricardo, pointed out, "commons" like lands or fishing holes have increasing costs and decreasing value inherent in them when there are little restrictions on there use. However, as George Gilder pointed out, the Internet -- via Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law -- has increasing value. As for costs, we have to remember that "information wants to be free." One could argue, philosophically, that information inherently has costs that approach zero -- i.e., it "wants" to be free.
We don't have to resort to head-in-the-cloud philosophy or neo-hippie-isms to support the view that information and its most prominent digital manifestation -- the Internet -- has decreasing costs over time. Both George Gilder -- via the "law of the microcosm" and his optimism about the future availability of bandwidth (Forbes ASAP, 8/26/96) -- and Andrew Grove -- by pointing out the incredibly efficient ways in which the Internet sorts out the data transmitted through it (Forbes, 9/23/96) -- believe that the Internet is a win-win proposition: lower costs and higher values.
Another criticism of the Digital Revolution is that we have to give up privacy and personal freedoms in exchange for living in cyberspace. While these criticisms have some merit, we should not ignore the freedoms that we gain because of the explosion in information and technology.
One of the freedoms that we gain via the digitalizing of America is that we will be tied less and less to the daily grind of large cities. This 'de-urbanization' of America (and the World) started -- not with the computer or the Internet -- but with the car. As people began to own reliable cars and drive on improved roadways, many Americans felt less of a need to deal with the increasing problems of major cities. Thanks to the car, many chose to live in the suburbs. The catch was that these people would have to make a long commute to there work. As Garret Hardin might have pointed out, "the Tragedy of the Commons" set in on America's highways -- eventually slowing traffic to an annoying crawl.
The possible solution to this roadblock to de-urbanization is in the second way we can interpret Stewart Brand's "free": freedom. If "information wants to be free" in the sense that it seeks some sort of 'liberation,' then it is natural to expect that people will find ways -- including technology -- to accomplish that important goal. With the computer, improved telephony, and the Internet, information faces less and less barriers. How does this free people from their dependence on cities? If our economy is increasingly based on information rather than heavy industry and information is not bound to the office but can go to wherever it is needed, it is not hard to imagine a day when working in a major metropolitan area is as antiquarian as working on the farm.
We can speculate further by saying that the liberating nature of digitalized information can free us from the yoke of centralized governments and economies. I have great hope that totalitarian socialism as well as the Fabian schemes of recent memory -- both of which the economist, Friedrich Hayek, warned us against -- will disappear with the growing importance of the Digital Revolution.
Finally, even though we speak of a 'revolution' when we think of the Internet and the Digital Age, the idea of a 'reformation' -- a major change in ideas and institutions, but at the same time incorporating some of the things that had existed before -- might be better suited to understanding these exciting times. But whether or not we call it a "Digital Revolution" or a "Digital Reformation," it is my sincere hope that information doesn't just "want" to be free but that it will help "make" us free.
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