What’s After the Real Time Web?: Me, Nova Spivack, and the Evolution of Mankind? Part 1

· Comments

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.

: Image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten via Flickr

Over at MindingthePlanet.net, Nova noted some interesting insights on the evolution of the web and mankind itself: What’s After the Real Time Web?

Nova contends that the current obsession with real-time web as the end-all-be-all, is “a bit myopic.” I agree, but that is where we currently are in the evolutionary process on the web and we will grow out of it.

He sees 2 big problems to be solved over the next 10 years: 1) Web Attention Deficit Disorder; ie. Too much information to be able to properly focus attention on any of it. 2) Web Intention Deficit Disorder; ie. Getting the proper amount of people to actually intend to do something that will make a difference.

I see these issues only being resolved when the other ‘strands of the braid’ finally allow intelligent agents to be practical. These intelligent agents, by way of possessing personal preferences and interests, will both be able to filter the desired info a person requires, and ‘intend’ for other desires and wishes which its user finds important.

Nova asserts that these trends are an evolution of into a global collective mind:

“This collective mind is not just comprised of humans, but also of software and computers and information, all interlinked into one unimaginably complex system: A system that senses the universe and itself, that thinks, feels, and does things, on a planetary scale.”

Correspondingly, he explains, there will be a radical restructuring of both Social and Physical organizations and operations.

Indeed, the linking of computers into a collective system could possibly lead to these reorganizations. The world is already seeing remarkable economic and political changes not even due to the revolutionary changes soon to come in technology and computers. All of these combined will dramatically affect the lives of everyone on the planet.

Part 2 will look at deeper changes that might result from the evolution of the web.