Introduction: Disruptive Nets

Table of Contents and Overview

Table of Contents

1. [A1] The Abstraction Hierarchy
2. [D1] The Disruptive Internet

Overview

This ambitious collection is a little bit different. The working hypothesis behind it is that there’s something in common between the Internet and human cognition — two very different topics, rarely combined. I’m going to develop this by alternating posts on Internet policy with posts on intelligence, with a few integration posts mixed in. My mad plan is to identify a commonality between the two around the structure of a disruptive net(work).

I’ve been developing two theories over the past ~15 years. The first, drawn from my now-professional field of Internet policy, is that what makes the Internet awesome — fundamentally different from pedantic, discrete, predictable systems — is its inherent capacity for disruption. (Side note: The inspiration for my career thus far has been a belief that this disruptive capacity is in jeopardy, coupled with a powerful drive to preserve it.) The second, drawn from one of my hobbies, is a belief that the distinguishing characteristic of human intelligence, and the thing lacking in even the most intelligent information processing systems of today, is the capacity for creating and manipulating abstractions.

I don’t know if there are any new ideas here. I’m not positive there are entirely new ideas any more. I do believe that, at the very least, this work represents some creative reframings and combinations of existing ideas, maybe even with some potential for implementable, practical outcomes. But I recognize the possibility that this is all just a mildly interesting abstraction of the complex processes of the Internet and the brain — an artifact of my brain’s evolving view of the world, taking form through words and concepts.

I won’t give you a comprehensive education on either Internet policy or cognition, not by a long shot. But I hope I can provide enough detail and depth on both subjects that even a novice to them can appreciate the context for the concepts of abstraction and disruption, and the significance of the comparisons I’m making.

Also, these posts aren’t going to be stuffed with external references, even though they should be. All my thoughts were inspired by something, and most of those inspirations were books or papers written by others. But I suck at details of tracking things like that (maybe because I’m good at creating abstractions!). Where I can, though, I’ll share sources and suggestions for further reading.

This project is bigger than me. It’s a foolish quest, a dragon that may or may not be a windmill, or a shining sun that I can’t help but fly towards despite wax wings. But I am who I am, so I have no intention of letting that stop me.

Anyway — I hope you enjoy it.