Are we all pronetarians?

I recently read a book outlining the impacts of technologies adopted in the early Information Age (now). Now, many books exist on the topic, each with an inspired vision about our future and how technologies are transforming about every area of modern life. This one is particularly powerful, both because of the combination of skills the authors brought together to make it happen and because it provides a good synthesis of phenomena often described without reference to the big picture. The book was written by renowned French scientist and humanist Joël de Rosnay with the help of an intriguing entrepreneur called Carlo Revelli.  Worth reading if you speak French. If you don't, an adapted version in the English language is in the works, which I am pleased to work on. The original authors and I expect to have it finalized around September and it will be published under a Creative Commons license.

Comments

[David]

What is a Pronetarian?

[alex]

David,

"Pronetarian" is a word that was created by the authors of this book by combining the words "proletarian" and "network" / "net".

What the authors say is that the Net is empowering each individual to produce, share, contribute and have an impact on his community in a way never witnessed before. Today, one does not need to climb the ladder of an established organization to get to a senior position from which to have measurable influence. Influence is not measure by the number of members an organization has. People cannot be coerced into a mass logic whereby the individuals have no influence and instead express themselves through an organization (a union, a party, an association, a company...) Individual persons take part to a process that is dynamic and chaotic. As free people, not in their capacity a members of a larger group. With their individual conscience, not as elements of a mob.

Thanks to the Net influence is a matter of having some talent, being somewhat remarkable and making original contributions. In short individuals matter. People matter. So, in using the Net to express opinions, share software creations, distribute open music or support projects, we act as and are in fact pronetarians.

[Roberto]

congratulations, alex. this is definitely another star to your sky of personal rewards.

your friend,

r.

[alex]

Thanks Roberto. It will be a star once finished and published... for now there is still quite some work to be done (and that's ok for me).

[lkratz]

Congratulations !

It's a very impressive achievement to be implied in the translation of this book.

[alex]

Thanks Laurent. It certainly is very exciting and working on the subject I can tell you it is aslo very challenging: porting a piece of work of this sort to a wholly different culture is really something!