The notion that a technical capability
could generate a complex social capability.
That's a kind of elementary technological determinism
that it just doesn't… So, the challenge then is how do we
– the non-technical moment in the whole thing, we, people, we, communities,
we, organized networks of people, who are struggling for this or that –
how do we use that technical capability.
And there the potential is enormous,
but this notion that techy approach to technical capabilities…
You know, it's on a one to one, it's the X, you describe the X,
the technical capability and what it can do,
in terms of the X itself.
That's the fatal flaw of a lot of the analysis of the internet.
You need the non-X. You need to cut across
with some questions, some issue
that does not stay on the one to one.
Between a non-technical project, a social one, whatever,
and the technical capacity. So how you use it makes a difference.
Secondly, what are the innovations that are developed.
In the case of the internet, we speak about applications.
For instance, I just finished a study on the following question:
What are the applications that exist, digital applications,
for low wage workers, and low wage neighborhoods?
The lives side, and the work side of low income people.
Very little. There's a lot for us, professionals,
there's a lot for finance, there is a lot, you know, for certain things.
And then you realize that one thing is a technical capability,
another thing is, what are the bridges – software,
that we construct between the technical capability
and the world of applications.
I'm not very interested, I'm obsessing about
– my obsessions are very short-term obsessions,
I don't live my whole live with an obsession –
what are the bridges that we need to build so that low income workers
can actually make good use of a technical capability.
What are the things people who want to organize,
say nationwide, or worldwide, around a particular kind of issue?
Stopping water-grabs, for instance.
Nestlé and Coca-Cola make a lot of money of using,
abusing our natural resources.
How can we organize – this is happening all over the world –
how can we organize very specific applications.
So we need a critical analysis of what are the software instruments
that have been developed up until now, to use the internet.
When we do that analysis we realize
that the applications are geared towards the world of science,
towards the professional world, and towards finance.
Those are most applications.
I bet there is a world of possibilities that hasn't been used.
So just to have the internet is not enough.
There is, as I like to say, and somebody else said it too,
there's work to be done.
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