Power Is Not To The People

Since the internet took off there have been many who believed that by freeing people from traditional communication, media and publishing agencies there was the opportunity for true freedom of speech and association on an international basis.

Bruce Schneier, a leading security expert and consultant who runs his own security blog is becoming less sure about this and more that the various state powers have other ideas and we might just finish up with less rather than more.

He is working on a new book that asks these questions and his blog indicates the issues he hopes to address.  In this he says:

Quote:

I believe society is headed down a dangerous path, and that we, as members of society, need to make some hard choices about what sort of world we want to live in.

If we maintain our current trajectory, the future does not look good. It's not clear if we have the social or political will to address the intertwined issues of power, security, and technology, or even have the conversations necessary to understand the decisions we need to make.

Writing about topics like this is what I do best, and I hope that a book on this topic will have a positive effect on the discourse.

Unquote.

The full blog item is here and is short:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/04/what_ive_been_t.html

Meanwhile others have been talking about the “Walmartisation” of the US economy and that is not good news either.

Naked Capitalism has an article:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/more-on-devolution-and-the-walmartization-of-our-economy.html

Put the two together and it seems that happy days will not be here again and if we do not like it then given the way our political systems work we will just have to accept it.

Or else.