Only and idiot would assume the Internet could be anything other than totalitarian and deflationary

Networks are Orwellian.  It is their very nature.  So whine all you want, Chris Hedges, but it’s not going to change anything…

Everything proprietary (Microsoft, Oracle, patent-law, copyright-law, etc.) – essentially all specialization and arbitrage deriving from specialization -- is history!

In the end, the network is the computer.  The network is the society (but maybe not democracy – i.e. as Hedges says, a {milder}, capitalistic totalitarianism with Marxist, anti-property, anti-proprietary tendencies).

This is because, quite simply, the network has proven far more efficient than (self-centered, biologically deterministic) human beings ever could.

Thus, commoditization through digitization is undeniable and inevitable.  And frankly, that’s a good thing for the enduring sustainability of this planet.

I mean, isn’t it obvious that deflation (zero/negative growth, as Hedges himself acknowledges, if not advocates) is the only force that can successfully (finally) regulate runaway human population and resource consumption?  And if you didn’t “get this” 20 years ago (as I did), well, then it’s not my fault if today you find yourself a bit out of the loop.

But, again, this/our Orwellian future is not all that bleak IMO – and not nearly as Orwellian (“a boot stomping on a face forever…”) as he imagined it – again, something of a hybrid between (capitalist, proprietary) totalitarianism and (net neutral, egalitarian, copy-left) Marxism.

So… adapt or fail!  The choice is yours.

But I for one rejoice that, finally, Darwinian consequences have emerged to punish humanity’s obvious (individualistic) stupidity.  Viva La Darwin!

“Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell” –Edward Abbey