The "new" digital age

The thing about exponential growth is that we all think there is one "take off" point. But of course, that merely depends on where you look at the curve from. It takes off more and more - that's what exponential means. In the late 80's we saw the exponential take off of PC's and the internet. The 1st real digital age perhaps. Then around 2000 we saw age 2 - e-commerce and the standard that everyone used the internet - it's not special anymore (amazing yes, special no). So perhaps now we're entering the 3rd age - that of collective consciousness. I explained this to my partner Victoria - a very astute solicitor - thus: human knowledge and ability used to get driven from small groups of bright people physically networking, usually in universities, constrained by how many people could work together. The 3rd digital age of applied blogs, RSS feeds, intelligent search engines, etc now means that constraint has gone and that millions of bright people can apply their intellect, and absorb tangential & lateral thinking, as they focus on their intellectual challenge. That is scarily powerful.

I find the control of this fascinating. You might say there is none. But actually the entire community's collective ethics are the rules. There are loads of examples of the collective mindset bringing down unacceptable behaviour. It's a bit like an updated set of 10 e-Commandments, but proposed by the community itself.

Phew. And this is just our view of the exponential curve today. It would be way beyond our parents yet our children will wonder why we dawdled along like this.