The Net offers us a chance to take charge of our own lives and to redefine our role as citizens of local communities and of a global society. It also hands us the responsibility to govern ourselves, to think for ourselves, to educate our children, to do business honestly, and to work with fellow citizens to design rules we want to live by. I won't presume to tell you precisely what all those rules should be. Some are local; some are global. Indeed, the Net is not a single home: Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define themselves. My goal in this book is to pass on a little of my sense of the richness and potential of the Net. I want to take away the mystery and the technical mumbo jumbo, so that you can see the Net for what it is: a place where people meet, talk, do business, find out things, form committees, and pass on rumors. . . . some of the capabilities are different from the so-called real world: Anyone can go online and publish something that can be read anywhere in the world; a child can write to a president; a Hungarian merchant can find a Chinese customer. Above all, the Net is home for people. Our common task is to do a better job with the Net than we have done so far in the physical world. The Net has some unique advantages: It takes away many of the logistical difficulties of space and time; information flows faster; markets are more efficient. The question is: How can we use these features to design a world that is more open, more accessible to everyone, and just a nicer place to live in? What could be, what should be Much of what I'm writing about is just starting to happen. Some of it is inevitable; some of it is not. Some of it could become true. But we need to do more than close our eyes and wish. To make it seem real, I've written a lot about what it will feel like to live on the Net and the kinds of communities we'll build: some real examples, and some only possible. The scenarios I describe are both predictions -- if we do things right -- and goals. (I've taken care to point out which is which.) I'm describing how it could be if we do pay attention to the underlying rules: Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, honesty, and disclosure. Markets will do a lot of the design if we let them, but we need a foundation of both traditional, or terrestrial, and Net-based rules to make the markets work properly. We also need habits of honesty and generosity. I addition, we need the good guys - you - to be active in designing this new world. No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it. The only guarantee of continued freedom is the presence of the pesky people who keep asking those in power to account for their actions. By its very nature, the system can't do that for itself. It's up to you. The Net offers us a chance to take charge of our own lives and to redefine our role as citizens of local communities and of a global society. It also hands us the responsibility to govern ourselves, to think for ourselves, to educate our children, to do business honestly, and to work with fellow citizens to design rules we want to live by. I won't presume to tell you precisely what all those rules should be. Some are local; some are global. Indeed, the Net is not a single home: Rather, it's an environment where thousands of small homes and communities can form and define themselves. My goal in this book is to pass on a little of my sense of the richness and potential of the Net. I want to take away the mystery and the technical mumbo jumbo, so that you can see the Net for what it is: a place where people meet, talk, do business, find out things, form committees, and pass on rumors. . . . some of the capabilities are different from the so-called real world: Anyone can go online and publish something that can be read anywhere in the world; a child can write to a president; a Hungarian merchant can find a Chinese customer. Above all, the Net is home for people. Our common task is to do a better job with the Net than we have done so far in the physical world. The Net has some unique advantages: It takes away many of the logistical difficulties of space and time; information flows faster; markets are more efficient. The question is: How can we use these features to design a world that is more open, more accessible to everyone, and just a nicer place to live in? What could be, what should be Much of what I'm writing about is just starting to happen. Some of it is inevitable; some of it is not. Some of it could become true. But we need to do more than close our eyes and wish. To make it seem real, I've written a lot about what it will feel like to live on the Net and the kinds of communities we'll build: some real examples, and some only possible. The scenarios I describe are both predictions -- if we do things right -- and goals. (I've taken care to point out which is which.) I'm describing how it could be if we do pay attention to the underlying rules: Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, honesty, and disclosure. Markets will do a lot of the design if we let them, but we need a foundation of both traditional, or terrestrial, and Net-based rules to make the markets work properly. We also need habits of honesty and generosity. I addition, we need the good guys - you - to be active in designing this new world. No system in the world is so well-designed that it can't grow stale, rigid, or corrupted by those who benefit most from it. The only guarantee of continued freedom is the presence of the pesky people who keep asking those in power to account for their actions. By its very nature, the system can't do that for itself. It's up to you. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age by Esther Dyson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
