Different “In”

Tim O’Reilly once said that once he read about open source, he immediately understood its implications, the gigantic changes it would cause in software world.

Then, he spent the next 10 years trying to convince everyone.

He would repeat the same message, with different examples, hoping that someone, anyone, his next audience would get it.

It is the same with our message. Once technology’s effects social structure is understood, the conclusions are quite serious, just as with open source, it requires a shift in thinking. Some do not grasp this readily, which reminds me Feynman’s comment about teaching quantum mechanics, he said that “everyone seems to have a different ‘in’” – a way to connect their thinking to the new mad world of unpredictable movement. Feynman and O’Reilly’s solution for providing the new explanation seems to be the same: repeat the message with different examples hoping that one of them provides an “in”.

BTW, ppl surely appreciate technology, they understand their new shiny, cell phone is good, and in a level, important to them. What most do not understand is how widespread cell phone utilization could form the basis of a new social order, or how the factory formed the basis of the previous one for capitalists and socialists alike. Or how standardizing components on the assembly line would cause standardization in schools, and how reemergence of de-facto standards in today’s world can be traced right back to recent changes in tech.