Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Do you find that the connections formed online by people in a very
wired, technologically sophisticated country like Korea have more depth
than those formed online in a a country with more limited capability
and adoption, like Senegal? 
  

    
Is the internet moving us beyond nation states - not replacing them,
but forming another layer of global relationships? Your book focuses on
how the internet collides in differing ways with nations. At the same
time it seems fair to say that an internet or cyber culture is evolving
and emerging that is extra-national as users come on line. It may be
more fair to say a multiplicity of cultures are evolving; it's hardly
heterogeneous. Any thoughts on the process and where it might take us?
Or is that too speculative in these early stages? 
  

    
That's a good question, Ted. We organized nation-states when
communication was scarce and coordination was inherently limited. The
Internet shows us that any "community" is actually a community of
communities; within any nation-state there can be, as you say, a
multiplicity of cultures. Can the Internet facilitate new, better modes
of organization? Do we have our heads around the transformative
potential? What stakeholders stand to lose in this sort of
transformation, and how are they reacting? (Think Occupy, Tahrir)...
  

    
From today's
Guardian...http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/dec/06/south-korea-hacking-problems

South Korea discovers downside of high speed internet and real-name
postings
Botnets, hacking and the exposure of personal details are price of
having superfast internet

One of the planet's most connected countries, South Korea, is also
plagued by hacking and data theft and is the Asia-Pacific's leading
host of P2P "botnets"–compromised, internet-connected computers
typically used for illegal activities. Lightning-fast broadband and
obligatory real name verification have a downside.
  

    
<28> Thanks for fleshing that out a bit Jon....in re-reading your
comment it occurred to me that something else is going on as we expand
our reach and consciousness globally, we are, at the same time,
becoming more locally focused; city states, with strong mayors, and
locally resilient communities. Both expansive and contractive movements
seemingly reinforcing one another.