futuramb's wider net

Three sneezes and you are out | Net Effect

Drastic changes like catastrophes are always having second order effects. H1N1 does as well, and this might be one that few would have predicted:

Adults working from home, children accessing video files and playing games online and families logging on for information about the illness would overwhelm residential Internet networks that were never built to have a majority of users on the Web at the same time, according to an October report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Cody Brown - A Public Can Talk To Itself: Why The Future of News is Actually Pretty Clear

Really interesting (and long) article about the development of news media!

It’s easy to look at mass layoffs at some of the most important news institutions we’ve ever had and make a point that our culture no longer values the production of news, but, when we have 120,000 new blogs created each day, I think the point is precisely the opposite. News is important. It’s so important that leaving it to a group of people in an office downtown is and has always been irresponsible.

Newspapers Across the Country Show Steep Declines in Circulation, in New FAS-FAX

On a comparable basis, ABC reported that for the 379 newspapers filing with the organization, average daily circulation plunged 10.6% to 30,395,652 — one of the most severe drops in overall circulation. Sunday circulation for 562 reporting newspapers was down 7.4% to 40,012,253.

There are several reasons as to why circulation keeps dropping, aside from former readers who have kicked the print edition to the curb. Publishers have been purposely pulling back on certain types of circulation, including hotel, employee and third-party sponsored copies. No longer are they distributing newspapers to the outer reaches of the core market. The cost of delivery and the cost of materials have forced publishers to scale back. 

Another shift has occurred: volume has taken a back seat to dollars.

Virtual consumption: the thesis | Virtual Economy Research Network

A PhD thesis in the growing issue of consumption of virtual goods. Seen from the perspective that our economies are shifting towards producing and consuming experiences instead of products and services this trend isn’t hard to explain.

- People buy virtual goods for the same reasons as they buy material goods. In online spaces, virtual goods can function as markers of status, elements of identity and means towards ends in the same way as material consumer goods do in similarly contrived physical spaces, says Lehdonvirta.

…

- From a macroeconomic perspective, it does not matter what consumers buy, as long as they keep on spending. Virtual consumption might offer an ecological way out of this consumer society’s dilemma, says Lehdonvirta.

What’s your place in the brave new future? - Times Online

An interview with Paul Saffo where he (again) states that the nation state is coming to it’s end.

“The nation state had a nice run but it’s coming to an end,” he said. “Globalisation made people think of themselves as global citizens, and that’s been furthered by air travel and cyberspace. [But] people look for meaning in the community.” In the past that community was the nation state but now, says Saffo, the centre cannot hold.
The growth of the European Union, devolution in the UK, David Cameron’s recent pledge that there would less government and more local autonomy under a Conservative administration, and the splits in the US states over gay marriage and healthcare all point towards an increasingly fractured future.

I definitely agree on the analysis and I used to think so myself for some time but now I am not so sure anymore. The reason is that in periods of crisis the nation state becomes more important than ever. People are crowding to get inside the walls in their belief that the nation state will save them.

In a risk society where every individual is left alone against all the dangers a natural reaction is rely on the things that can reduce insecurity. And such a thing is currently the nation state.

Even if the capacity of the nation state is rapidly dropping because of shifting reality when it comes to the nature of crisis and demographic changes enough people might cling on to the illusion of the necessity of the state in order to keep it along for decades more.

To me the certainty of the dying nation state has changed into a critical uncertainty for the period of the next 50 years.