Mood:
quizzicalTopic: corporates
Is history speeding up via web 2.0? What if sedentary screen time combined with high rate of information flow, and often powerful content, on web 2.0 is radically altering society?
Have you watched James Bond in Goldfinger made in 1964 or so and compared it with the Bourne trilogy made in the noughties, or indeed latest James Bond Quantum of Solace? The point is everything is faster now and public taste looks to be following. Maybe not the quality of plot line say but the overall data is getting very fast. Nor is this an original thought. The calls for strong context and editorial to manage this avalanche are becoming louder and louder in the big press too.
Even alcohol has stopped being very cool in Australia. There isn't much time for hangovers these days if you don't want to miss the next thing, be it job, news story, social opportunity, whatever.
We recently responded to the last Mayne Report ezine as follows with some observations about that publication, the GFC and the subtextual role of web 2.0 in altering society from bricks and mortar economy to cyberspace in many ways:
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 11:00 AMSubject: bloody good work there Stephen ........ "publisher of the Mayne Report". In my judgement you're getting critical mass of cred in your vehicle post crikey.com.au ownership.* Agree re GFC biggest story and agree Obama was "huge".Arguably the biggest story never covered was the tens of thousands made homeless by king tides in north of PNG in recent months. Imagine that in Shanghai and Bangladesh. Will make Tampa look like a child's sail boat on a pond in the gardens.
*On sub prime loans I still question where those millions of poor folks were going to live IF cowboy capitalism had not been 'given' the job of housing them, when any number of other domestic political pressures meant G W Bush etc needed to park the urban homeless issue - not least good will for recruiting cannon fodder for Iraq etc.* Interesting take on Russia big [financial] come down. Haven't read that any where before.
Thanks for that commentary previously about auditors questions under the new provision of the corporations code. The forest folks can use that re Gunns, South East Fibre Exports (in Eden, Japanese owned).
*Great point about inconsistency of the bailouts/blowouts re Bear Stearns (saved) v Lehman (abandoned) - Stiglitz and Naomi Klein make me very nervous about the so called bailout 'plan'. More like rob the US treasury blind on the way out like that Enron exec who got out early. Also makes me nervous that sharp blade Turnbull would praise Hank Poulson so sincerely. We need a useful Opposition not free market ideologues nostalgic for the Wild West.
Coincidentally my US web server's counter crashed when I posted in late November on Klein thesis of Wall St robbing treasury blind, no stats for next 5 days. Mmm. They said it was maintenance. Maybe it was, or Klein/Amy Goodman were better censored like a spark in a haystack.I still wonder the role of the internet in the GFC - how's this for a wild theory? Bricks and mortar retail outside seasonal fluctuations are going down. My source, a web builder at biggest online retailer here in Australia, says that even so they still trending up modestly post GFC. What if that's the case across social and economic sectors? The overall flight from bricks and mortar? Screen time predating on leisure, retail, government, television and other big media, exercise (obesity), even industry (why drive so much, tele-commute etc).I'm wondering if the web is part of the cause of the GFC?: Even more information via google and web based news streams means people feel more fearful regardless of objective statistics. There is always a corporate fraud, a mass murder somewhere. A horror, a snake bite, a flood, a fire etc. It bleeds it leads. It's enough to cause emotional and psychological confusion like the seagull predator presented with a million baby turtles rushing to the sea (a real phenomenon in zoology/ethology). Even Dr Google is making people worry more.
To egg the theory a bit more - markets have never been transparent which can provide blissful ignorance. Markets now however have never been more transparent and nuanced contradictions - eg like your point on Lehman v Bear Stearns - are happening all the time. I myself pick apart disjunctions in the quality media too often to be really comfortable about trust.Interesting to see ex PM Howard back on front page of The Australian today. Truly this guy is an energiser bunny. It's damn 'lucky' he was voted out otherwise we would all be talking Howardish eventually like an Exclusive Brethren sect. And he would be embracing nuke weapons for our own good of course. Which brings me to the international politics. Never forget the nuke weapon shadow.Variations of this drive the bombing of Hamas only this last week to prevent 'delivery systems' like the 'high tech' proverbial donkey cart (or paranoia re same) via Hamas. And what Hamas is getting now Israel will contemplate for Iran at any cost to the world, after all what the f*ck did we do for them when it counted in WW2? And if that happens well as Bugs Bunny has said it could well be "That's all, folks": Nuke exchange in the middle east. Chernobyl like clouds drift globally. False positives in nuke weapon systems from Russia to Pakistan to India to USA to France to Britian. If one of them doesn't let fly by mistake it will be a miracle in itself.
W Bush is probably still flirting with Rapture concepts this last month.Yours from the grassly knoll etc
