Technological Empowerment: A Political Problem?

How can one not be empowered by technology? To suggest otherwise seems like such an ugly, elitist paradigm. Now, I do not have the scope or desire to deeply analyze such a dense subject. However, as university students just look at the almost limitless access to information and interactivity that our technological resources grant us. The contemporary question surrounding technological empowerment is not whether or not it exists. The question is: why don't more people have access to it?

Barbrook and Cameron elaborate on this concept when they discuss the development of a stratification between those who are "info rich" and those who are "info poor". They also suggest that the future of technological improvement will be an aggregation of efforts of state intervention and a "do it yourself culture". The combination of government function and free market ideals seems quintessential in the development of a more socially collective digital future.

Empowerment seems to be a product of both. In a July blog post, Matthew Yglesias condemns the Internet as a "cesspool of government intervention". However, he does acknowledge that the creation and maintenance of the Internet would be difficult without collective intervention. It seems that the government's control over technology is slowly fading in the wake of technological monopolist champions like Google and Microsoft.

Moving forward, even more private companies look to empower the masses through technological development. Square, a company led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, looks to change how we pay for everything. In a recent blog post, Farhad Manjoo proclaims Square as the technology industry's next great company. I strongly recommend reading more about the company. They seem to have the potential to significantly increase the number of economic transactions. Creating vast amounts of economic demand is an exciting prospect for the industry and for the majority of people.

It seems that Barbrook and Cameron were right when they laid out the shape of the digital future with two basic criteria:

• reject any form of social apartheid; and
• celebrate the creative powers of the digital artisans