Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Web optimists and pessimists



At the Technology Liberation Front Adam Thierer suggests a way of categorizing some of the books that shape the current internet debate: those that see it as a force of good, and those that don't.

Many Net optimists have a tendency to paint an excessively rosy picture of the transformative nature of the Net. In the extreme, the optimists seem to imply that the Net is somehow remaking man, altering human nature, and changing the economy only for the better. Among the Net optimists, there’s often a lot of romanticized talk of collective action / intelligence overcoming all barriers to knowledge or progress, and so on.



Check out the full details here.


It's a great primer to the debate.

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