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"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power than can transform the world." -The late people's historian Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 - January 27, 2010)

"David Brin is a scientist and best-selling author whose future-oriented novels include Earth and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. (The Postman inspired a major film in 1998.) Brin is also known as a leading commentator on modern technological trends. His non fiction book -- The Transparent Society - won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. For more informations see: http://www.davidbrin.com"

Bold predictions: 1. Facebook's main competition may come from China 2. Physical paper newspapers will be done by 2014 3. Television as we know it today will be done by 2016 (served over IP)

The Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second week of operation, and is now getting more attention from media as well as from people planning similar actions across the country. This is a promising populist mobilization with a clear message against domination by political and economic elites. Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can't work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions. In general, the occupiers see themselves as having more to gain than to lose in creating a new political situation - something that few who run the current system will help deliver. They are not eager for violence, and have shown admirable restraint in the face of attack by police. There may be no single clear agenda, but there is a clear message: that people will have a say in their political and economic lives, regardless of what those in charge want. Occupy Wall Street is a kind of protest that Americans are not accustomed to seeing. There was no permit to protest, and it has been able to keep going on through unofficial understandings between protestors and police. It is not run by professional politicians, astroturfers, or front groups with barely-hidden agendas. Though some organizations and political figures have promoted it, Occupy Wall Street is not driven by any political party or protest organization. It is a kind of protest that shows people have power when they are determined to use it. Occupy Wall Street could be characterized as an example of a new type of mass politics, which has been seen in

Shirky envisions an era of lower creative quality on average but greater innovation, an increase in transparency in all areas of society, and a dramatic rise in productivity that will transform our civilization. "[E]ven the banal uses of our creative capacity (posting YouTube videos of kittens on treadmills or writing bloviating blog posts) are still more creative and generous than watching TV. We don't really care how individuals create and share; it's enough that they exercise this kind of freedom."