The Future Of Ideas

This confusion is leading us to change the environment in ways that will change the prosperity.

Plasticity—the ability of a system to evolve easily in a number of ways—is optimal in a world of uncertainty.

Power runs with ideas that only the crazy would draw into doubt. The “taken for granted” is the test of sanity; “what everyone knows” is the line between us and them.

en years ago,” Guggenheim explains, “if incidental artwork . . . was recognized by a common person,” then you would have to clear its copyright. Today, things are very different. Now “if any piece of artwork is recognizable by anybody . . . then you have to clear the rights of that and pay” to use the work. “[A]lmost every piece of artwork, any piece of furniture, or sculpture, has to be cleared before you can use it.”1

Shapiro saw good and bad in both futures. Too much dis-intermediation, he warned, would interfere with collective governance; some balance was needed. But likewise, efforts to rearchitect the Net to reenable control

marketplace is not a proxy for every domain of social power.

An open code platform keeps a platform honest. And honest, neutral platforms build trust in developers.

And so, from sources unnamed, Baran secured a copy of AT&T's plans—the blueprints for the telecommunications system of the United States.

For much of the twentieth century, it was essentially illegal even to experiment with the telephone system. It was a crime to attach a device to the telephone system that AT&T didn't build or expressly authorize.

For the technology that they (and of course others) sell could enable this generation to do with our culture what generations have done from the very beginning of human society: to take what is our culture; to “rip” it—meaning to copy it; to “mix” it—meaning to reform it however the user wants; and finally, and most important, to “burn” it—to publish it in a way that others can see and hear.9 Digital technology could enable an extraordinary range of ordinary people to become part of a creative process.