COVER -> MEMOIRS OF THE INFORMATION AGE
That has put me in a unique position to analyse the effects of these technologies as they evolve and reach some unsettling conclusions...
But, and strangely, the most unsettling conclusions I've reached are about human nature, human prejudices, and how the United States and other countries squander their human capital.
These latter conclusions bother me in the extreme.
Even as I watched the victory of Boeing engineers deciding that it was in the best interests of white collar workers to unionize, contemporaneous to the so-called "Battle in Seattle" over globalization, I was reading G21 Alumnus Jeff Winbush's reports from Ohio about the school test-cheating scandal which is now frontpage news at Newsweek and other publications.
What did that report say to me? That we have lost our way.
One of the reasons that the United States technology industry has become so dependent on the H1B visa (the special status we have created to import programmers and other technology professionals from other countries to fill our high-tech job needs) is that our educational system is the clearest sign of societal failure.
We no longer invest in education, we invest in the stock market.
We want things quick and dirty, whenever possible, and hell take the hindmost.
This is not to say that we treat the Indian, Irish, Mexican programmers we bring over here with any respect. They know, and we do, that we have put them into the modern equivalent of indentured servitude.
Talk to an H1B programmer some time, if you live in one of our "Silicon" alleys, valleys, etc. It's like reading the latest installment of NetSlaves. Employers readily tell these workers, "Don't try to apply for another job. I'll pull your visa. What will your family back in [whatever country] do for income then?"
The seduction of myth....
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Not a lot.
Let's look at the dot-coms that are already imploding this year, according to Newsbytes:
- Value America,
- DrKoop.com,
- KBKids.com,
- Quepasa.com,
- Petplace.com,
- Petstore.com,
- CarOrder.com,
- Salon.com,
- TurboLinux.
"Even Amazon.com - viewed as one of the most stable Web companies - is cutting the fat," says Newsbytes.
"PlanetRx.com, Autoweb.com, Buy.com. FontMapper, CDNow, Drugstore.com, Egghead.com, Fogdog.com, Garden.com, HomeGrocer.com and Streamline.com are among those that will run out of money in the next 12 months unless they get more funding," Goldman, Sachs and Co. analyst Anthony Noto said last month, according to the Newsbytes article.
Oh wow, man! What happened?
Let's talk about how there were bad business models and arrogant folks sitting at the top of these companies waiting to cash out and ride away in their Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) at the first opportunity, shall we?
If we look at this issue from that perspective, that brings us back to the the value placed upon human capital in the Information Society and those companies which are supposedly the engines of the global economy.
Do people actually count in these companies? You be the judge.
While the CEOs of various dot-coms and technology companies have appeared before the United States Congress (Bill Gates, Scott MacNealy, and Larry Ellison immediately come to mind) to lament the lack of investment in education by the government, one is tempted to ask how much any of these people have invested or worked to improve the educational system themselves? Two of the three men listed are among the richest individuals on the planet. Ellison is working very hard to outstrip Gates in this category by the time next FORTUNE magazine list of the richest men on Earth is printed.
But, as referenced above, the bubble is already imploding.
The World Wide Web is no longer the Wild, Wild Web. It's becoming domesticated. The desktop hegemony is also coming to an end as developers look to Web, set-top boxes and other appliances as means of delivering e-mail, news feeds, weather, Web sites, DVDs, MP3s, and other forms of information.
And the scramble has begun to see to who will left standing when this shake-out is over.
It has even become questionable whether Linux might not be outstripped by either the next flavor of the Macintosh or Be OS when one looks down the road five years hence. What is certainly clear is that Operating Systems are losing relevance.
IF Microsoft becomes two companies, if Open Source becomes the lay of the land, are also almost unimportant issues for the future of technology as we move toward bio-chips and nano-machines.
How we handle these, and deploy them, with what controls --- those are now the salient questions.
Do we allow nano-chips, some of them with genetic material, to self-replicate?
Under what circumstances?
These are the questions, This Writer predicts, which will try humanity's soul.
TAKE THE RISK OF INVOLVEMENT.
or make it.
Welcome To the Future.