Supernova Summary Day 1: Distributed Concepts Expand Beyond Technology

from the thinking-outside-the-echo-box dept

So, we promised a short summary of Supernova, and since there are plenty of bloggers and sites covering the conference, we tried to pick through everything and come up with a slightly different take on things. Certainly, there was a lot of things being talked about that get discussed over and over (and over and over) again at every one of these conferences and which shows up on the same old blogs with the same old arguments. It would have been nice to cut out some of that fat, but mixed in with all of this was an idea that not everyone seems to be picking up on: the power of all of this "decentralization" isn't just focused on the technology world, but expands well beyond that. While many of the conversations were focused on technology, it's time we started looking beyond the nuts and bolts of decentralization and towards how it will actually impact real lives. Thomas Malone got that process started with his keynote talking about how decentralization makes massive changes to the way humans organize, and how truly powerful that concept really is. Unfortunately, instead of diving more into those concepts, many of the discussions went back to the nuts and bolts (and arguing over what shape the nuts and bolts should be -- of if we really need nuts and bolts at all). Still, a few conversations went beyond this issue and focused on more important aspects of decentralization. The final panel of the day, on "fighting distributed wars," (which was described by more than a few people as "depressing") showed how terrorists now understand network theory, and it's about time those who are fighting terrorists realize that they, too, can learn from ways that technologists learn how to build resilient, redundant networks in the fight against terrorism. That, in many ways, is a powerful lesson of decentralization that looks at how we can apply technology concepts to the broader world that really impacts peoples' lives on a daily basis.
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  1. identicon
    dorpus, 25 Jun 2004 @ 8:26am

    Rabble Tyranny

    What if decentralizing trends give more power to the people, so that the ignorant rabble have more power to oppress people or opinions that they don't like? The more technology we have, the more vicious tricks that can be played on others.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    John Dowdell, 25 Jun 2004 @ 1:16pm

    decentralize how far?

    Did you hear anyone talking that "decentralization" rap as it applied to homeschooling vs union schools, or depoliticizing marriage contracts, or other stuff outside the little weblog world?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Mike (profile), 25 Jun 2004 @ 10:28pm

    Re: decentralize how far?

    Unfortunately... not enough. As I mentioned, it was still a little too focused inwardly.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2007 @ 2:08pm

    tooolong:@

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2007 @ 2:10pm

    yah deff

    link to this | view in thread ]


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