Topic: Krugman: Is the Computer Revolution Coming To a Close? - page 2. (Read 4959 times)

I disagree. The example is that the central banking monopoly is so powerful it DOES affect the "entire planet's every day lives." It seems logical to infer that a robust alternative to this monopoly would have an equally powerful effect.

Hate to break it to you, but this is far to specific to ever be it's own "revolution".  While decentralized currency has great potential, it isn't so drastic as to alter the entire planet's every day lives. 

I think we are moving out of a phase of the computer revolution but this revolution will have a long way to go.  The dot com phase is going to move in the next five years to one that is going to be sad.  If you look at companies like Google, GE and others they are working on the next "internet" and the government has one running as well.  This next phase will be more controlled so only a few will have access to it kind of like cable T.V. is designed for the masses but controlled by a few.  At this point it will be interesting to see if the general public is smart enough to support something that is more open that anyone can support or will they be lulled into paying a small fee, giving up all their data for free and use one finger for touching their screen (or I hope heads-up display) to work on the new internet.  I agree with the currency suggestion but I am not sure how that will turn out and who will lead but I hope it will be bitcoin.  I also think that the traditional government model is in trouble and is too slow to change to meet the needs of those who back it.  The general public will start to undermine the government more and more by implementing things faster and sell governing causing a control issue that will result in change.

As they say, hold on to your seat because it is going to be a bumpy ride.  Oh look here comes a cliff .

By "reading" do you mean imagining? Read the article. Krugman is specifically arguing that the IT revolution is only starting.

The problem is that it's not a fallacy as long as overdue changes in society and education necessitated by technological progress is stifled by state bureaucracy.

+1

Funny reading a nobel winning economist fool themselves with an elaborate version of the luddite fallacy.

Indeed.

And the concept of peer to peer extends far beyond just computer network architecture. If you look at movements like 3D printing, peer to peer renting/lending, local farming and open source software you'll see that there's a growing change away from the centralized industrial mode of production of the 1950s to something much more distributed and horizontal. That's the true revolution that information technology was meant to bring, and sooner or later it will take over more aspects of our lives than we can fathom: workplace organization, governance, scientific research, medicine and education will all see serious changes in the decades to come.

Quite the contrary: the computer revolution is only just beginning.

I agree to that to an extent I would just point out Bitcoin builds on a large p2p movement which has been gaining steam for sometime now.  I mean forget the low level tech (like peer discovery, synchronization, etc) and just think about the human side.  p2p file sharing if nothing else gives people a frame of reference.  Can you imagine how much harder it would be to explain Bitcoin to someone if p2p filesharing, voip, etc didn't exist. 

Just my opinion but I feel that control over the money supply is so powerful and central to influencing our day to day lives (in fact, even determining whether or not people will continue to live, or even be born) that its importance and significance eclipses everything else.

Just look at how a relatively small handful of individuals (bankers and the politically connected) looted (and have looted) practically the entire civilized world through inflating an artificial bubble and it seems apparent that regardless of what other parlor tricks can be accomplished with peer to peer technologies, putting control over the currency back into the hands of individuals trumps all.

More broadly I would say the p2p revolution began back in ~2000.  p2p currency is just one variant of that theme.  p2p is replacing lots of traditional server client type of systems.

Oh I so hope so, especially if it makes people like him rage.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/is-growth-over/

This piece of garbage lists three revolutions:

#1 steam, railroads: from 1750 to 1830;
#2 electricity, internal combustion engine, running water, indoor toilets, communications, entertainment, chemicals, petroleum: from 1870 to 1900; and
#3 computers, the web, mobile phones: from 1960 to present.

I feel that the next one would be:

#4 decentralized currency, end of central banking monopoly: ~2020 and onwards