The False Prophecy of Hyperconnection
There is a horrible story in the book “Googled” by Ken Auletta. There is this panel at Davos in 1998, and a couple of executives at Google are there, along a few pseudo-intellectuals of the digerati like Mary Meeker and Esther Dyson. At the end of their speech where they talk about how blah blah amazing the world is going to be, the only one who stands up and says no this is bullshit, the web isn’t about serving the individual, and letting them be whatever or have whomever choosing what can happen to them, it’s about serving society, is the ambassador from IRAN. I felt sick the rest of the day about how right he was, above all these supposed experts, so long ago.<p>I looked it up and it’s page 331 in the paperback for the full story, or just look for the only page-mention of “Esther Dyson” in the index.