Douglas Rushkoff says Egypt protests show power of internet to push bottom-up change

But Web shutdown also shows how easily those in control can take it away, he says

Corporations abet regimes in controlling access; this makes Web shaky tool for change

Rushkoff: With alternative networks, activists could be free of central control

The vast potential of our networked culture lies not in figuring out what the computer wants as much as figuring out what we want. Because as we tailor our wants to the available choices presented us by software, as we conform our lives and attention spans to the demands of the network, as we learn the new social dynamics of massive connectivity and anonymity, we aren’t just adapting to inevitable realities of our times. We are just as assuredly adapting to the strategies of the business interests that have massive capital invested in leveraging the biases of these systems in which we too often passively participate.

This is why Rushkoff emphasizes the biases of computers; so that when we are offered new and novel ways of conducting our relationships and transactions, we do not redefine them simply because they cannot be represented in one and zeroes. By understanding these biases, we get a feel for when a computer is serving us and when we are simply kowtowing to the programming. We can decide when it makes sense to send that tweet and when it makes sense to knock on a door instead. Technology is supposed to augment our lives, but we first have to understand the technology. I’d go one further and say that we have to understand our lives as something more than mere “statuses” and “likes”.