It wasn’t until nearly the end of this hour-and-a-half video (from 2008, so a bit out of date in places) that I figured a couple of things out.
The main speaker, Jonathan Zittrain, talks about the difference between “sterile” and “generative” technologies. A sterile technology does only what its designers plan for it to do (like CompuServe, which gave you a menu which they controlled of things you could use the service for). A generative technology forms a platform on which people can build anything they want, and this creates tremendous and often completely unexpected value for everyone participating (like the World Wide Web).
The problem is, not everything that some people want is desirable to the other people who are also using the technology, so the success of generative technologies utterly depends on the people of goodwill outnumbering, and collectively outwitting, the people of ill will. And in fact this is the problem of having a society in general.
If I can make a political parallel, sterile technologies are like dictatorships: they may work extremely well, the trains may run on time, medical school may be free, architecture may be magnificent, but only the things the dictator approves of will flourish. Those things will flourish mightily, but if your interests as an individual don’t align with those of the dictator, you’re going to have a bad time.
On the other hand, an open society can generate things that aren’t centrally planned, and because they’re an environment which allows the creation of unplanned benefits for which people don’t have to gain permission, they are going to be more innovative as a consequence of being more free – if for no other reason, just because the interests of many different people are open to being served.
The problem is that an open society is inherently exposed to being taken over by people whose interests don’t coincide with those of most of the society’s members. Only the vigilance of the members against such a takeover – and also against the tendency to prevent such takeovers by attempting to close things up and move towards a sterile, controlled environment – will enable the benefits of openness to continue.
I suspect I’ve just summarized John Stewart Mill.
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