[extropy-chat] Time Magazine's Person of the Year

[Anders Sandberg]

pjmanney wrote:
> I was just writing to one of our ilk that the zeitgeist is shifting.
> Hierarchical power is out.  And "me" as in "the power of one" is in.  And
> then this just arrived on my electronic doorstep.
>
> I'm the Person of the Year.

Congratulations!

> And so are You.

It is a bit like the occasional Peace Prize to the Red Cross - well
deserved, but a bit of avoiding having to choose.

I'm intrigued by this new kind of "online people power", or perhaps rather
Web 2.0 power. How can we turn it into better cognitive enhancement? The
Wikipedia is already a good example. The combination of sites like Flickr
and new imageprocessing (
http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2006/10/the_future_of_images.html )
can produce some interesting results, especially connected to a people's
panopticon. Can we construct a useful open society protection system this
way?

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University