The Price of Accelerating Technology & the Threat to Democracy
Think back to the Industrial Revolution: a stretch of ambitious decades characterized by widespread displacement, Schumpeterian-style growth, and striking societal leaps. It was a paradigm shift for the western world — this lucky convergence of invention (with newly discovered profitable applications to boot) and the systematized harnessing of natural resources (think coal, cotton, water power.)
Centuries removed from this period, we can neatly outline these unprecedented shifts and pinpoint the Industrial Revolution as a kind of launchpad for modern capitalism. We are not always so cognizant, however, that at our present moment we occupy a revolution all its own, one perhaps more powerful than the vaunted upheaval that was its predecessor.
This new revolution is scaffolded on novel technologies of the digital variety. It is a revolution glutted with data, the golden commodity of our age. There is one important difference, however, between the revolution with the steam engine and the revolution with the smartphone.
The powers of the former could be harnessed by humans, the powers of the latter came bundled up with more runaway potential. Human labor was still a vital component of the industrial prowess behind the economic growth of the former revolution. But the digital revolution of…
