(Just a side note before I start: this is going to be a very long post and I appreciate the patience of anyone who manages to trek through it to the end!)
Let’s start by saying that I am amused by Levy’s way of structuring the article. He talks about three aspects for the development of collective intelligence: cyberdemocracy (power), information capitalism (wealth), and grace (arts/spirituality). As Levy himself states, “the structure which is the slowest to change and the hardest to move is that which relates to power”, followed by “the intermediary layer, that of wealth”, and the arts and spirituality layer is the easiest to change. Yet it is very interesting that the three topics are arranged not from the easiest to the most difficult, but the exact opposite. Of course, this can be explained by the fact that cyberdemocracy is the most significant point Levy wants to make, but let us look at the first sentence under the Theory of Information Capitalism section: “Once peace and one worldwide, democratic law has been established, then…” It thus suggests that cyberdemocracy has to take place first; information capitalism and grace can then follow. As the power layer is the slowest to change and hardest to move among all three layers, needing it to develop first means extreme difficulty for any development of collective intelligence. Since a stable political environment is the foundation for economy and culture development, it makes sense that cyberdemocracy needs to happen first. To me this paradox raises doubt over the possibility of cyberdemocracy.
Speaking of cyberdemocracy: it is definitely the boldest idea among all three, and as the boldest it is naturally the most significant and the one that I have the most problems with.
The biggest problem I have with Levy’s cyberdemocracy idea is his claim that peace can be achieved by having one worldwide government. Some of the conflicts in the world are driven by differences between people. Religion is a big one, and the word culture can be thrown in here as well. People with different beliefs and values do not agree with each other. And people are actually very stubborn when it comes to religion and culture so it is very unlikely that the worldwide government can do much to eliminate religious and cultural differences. As a result, the worldwide government simply will not be able to bring world peace.
Another question is who will control this worldwide government. It is democracy, which means election, and since it is a worldwide government, I assume that everyone in the world will be eligible to vote and be voted (of course there would be an age limit or some other limit to define who is “educated” and “mature” enough). But as I mentioned before, people have different ideas and values. Not just on religion, but ideas and values regarding various issues. Two problems result: the first being how difficult and chaotic the election can be. Think about how many different groups of people one needs to target for votes. It is crazy enough even if it is just within one nation, but worldwide? Maybe campaign staff should become the highest-paid job. Of course one can target some particular groups, and ideally, the final government will comprise of people with different stances and represent all of the different voices. But this is the second problem: how is that going to help us reach harmony? Having all voices in the government will only lead to disagreement, which will then lead to stalemate. Ultimately the worldwide government is simply dysfunctional.
I do realize that the worldwide government Levy envisions is different from the governments we have today. In fact, Levy proposes that governments should be like corporations, and not just any corporation, but those that operate via the Internet (“cyberdemocracy…requires that public administration…follow the example of e-commerce enterprises”). He envisions a government that is “transparent”, “accessible night and day”, and “consider us as citizens to be served rather than as subjects to be administered”. He suggests that e-governments are indeed like this or at least moving in this direction. I would like to know more about the e-governments that he is talking about, but I personally believe that wherever there is power, there is going to be manipulation. While such manipulations will be more difficult in the cyberspace as it is indeed a more transparent environment, it is not impossible for those bent on the pursuit of power (and isn’t that basically everyone) to find a way.
Levy speaks of the cyberspace being a public sphere that is “more rich, open and transparent than the press or television”. The problem is that the Internet can be controlled even though it may be more difficult to control than the press or the television, and there are plenty examples of governments and corporations exerting controls on the Internet.
After all, is a worldwide government necessary? At one point in the article Levy seems to contradict his idea of universal government by saying “it is the town or metropolitan area which constitutes our true living capsule and place of interaction”. Perhaps his reasoning is that cyberspace is turning the world into a town. I think in some aspects the world is becoming a town – or global village, the official term for this phenomenon. Instant communication, connection, sharing information and transferring files with others thousands of miles away: in such aspects the world is becoming a village. But there is more than speedy communication that we should consider. I have seen an interesting lecture on how the Internet is shaping our way of doing things. The lecturer (sadly I can’t remember his name) proposes that the Internet is not connecting everyone into one collective group, but rather creating what he calls “tribes”. The idea is that the Internet is actually a way for people with similar interests to come together and form communities that are much like the tribes in ancient times. Except that the tribes are not defined or confined by geographical locations, but rather by common interests, characteristics or values the members share. The lecturer also suggested that tribe is the newest model for making an impact in the world, replacing the marketing/advertisement model, which replaced the manufacturing model. Whether this is true or not is up for closer examination, but one thing is certain: the Internet does not unite. It connects, but unite is different. Yet in order to have a functioning global government, just connect is not enough, unite is what is needed. Ironically, as the Internet provides connection, the world actually become less united as a whole because people utilize the connection provided by the Internet to find and join smaller circles. We can communicate with each other all we want (and the Internet helps tremendously in that) but we have different values, beliefs, opinions and viewpoints that will remain different no matter how much communication we have, because we actually want to belong to smaller communities of a shared set of values, beliefs or interests. Internet cannot kill locality, it redefines it. Locality is no longer physical or geographical; it's interest- or value-based. But it works just the same as it is separation or segregation from a global community. Therefore a world government is simply not going to work.
Let us move on to information capitalism. Here Levy proposes that “the ultimate source of wealth” is “the intelligence and collective creativity of groups of humans” and “general prosperity will be brought about by the free association of those who produce ideas; true wealth is not material, goods, money”. But it is a materialistic world out there, and when the word “wealth” is mentioned it is automatically linked with money, money, and more money. Levy is trying to argue that intelligence is the real wealth, but as great and beautiful as that sounds (and I am not saying that the idea is wrong), actual money is still needed to buy bread and pay for a roof over the head. Levy also promotes the free sharing of information, which further underlines that while he considers those who are intelligent and creative to be the most prosperous, his definition of prosperity is not associated with actual money and thus not associated with the material life. He speaks, rather, about one’s usefulness towards the collective intelligence of humanity. In that sense, he is absolutely correct – the cyberspace does help to create wealth for the entire humanity by promoting the sharing of information and the intelligence and creativity behind the information.
I do not have strong ideas on the grace section so I am going to leave that section along. But before I close my post I want to make one more point. Let us take a step back and look at the claims Levy made before either cyberdemocracy or information capitalism (or grace, for that matter) is mentioned. Levy constructed a set of premises before going into the discussion of the three layers, among which is a claim regarding human nature: we learn everything that is possible to learn. He also claims that the cyberspace will aid this desire to learn.
Cyberspace does help us obtain information; it provides a vast amount of information that is unavailable to us otherwise. We can, indeed, find everything and anything the Internet. But does information equal to knowledge? Everyone can contribute to information on the Internet, and all sorts of information gets published. It is thus not necessarily a blessing to have all the information available on the Internet right in front of us because there is the danger of false information. To defend Levy’s position, he is probably imagining a cyberspace where everyone is responsible, so maybe in his vision the information on the “Internet” is all reliable. But as of today Net netruality and reliability is only a dream, just like cyberdemocracy and information capitalism are only dreams as well.
Levy does realize his ideas are just dreams. Of course he does not use the word dream but the word “imagination” but really they are the same. Levy says that if we all dream the same dream, we can, and we will, create that dream world and turn imagination into reality. Sadly, I believe that getting everyone to have the same dream is simply impossible, even if we have the powerful Internet to aid us. Because here is my claim regarding human nature: we are all innately selfish, and even though we contribute to a collective intelligence, we still like to have our own little world where we get to be the one and the only.
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