Tech has been changing the way humans behave since we learnt how to make flint tools. The big difference today is that the average joe doesn't know how any of it works.

Death to all you luddites!
Ayn Rand, what a woman; GO HOWARD ROARK! (Charlie Darwin too)
Social Darwinism…hmmm, bliss…no more, well, no more sponges and weaklings…oh, no more talk of god would be just grand also…
Peter, I agree; the prof’s book makes some pretty astounding claims, but, how far off is he really…I mean, we change, we will never be static, we will evolve, into what, probably something non-human, how far off was Michael Crichton’s Prey? Write on the money I think!
We must embrace change and technology, and control it, if humans are to remain, well, human…

Peter,

Hoping to be not intruding the second time, but looking back more as a mature-age historian and political scientist, it is interesting how thinkers such as Ayn Rand use the reasoning of Aristotle to portray a style of individualism which in the end induces fascism both in politics and economics - and indeed, which could be happening now with our own Aussie government policies. However, these right-wing thinkers should take note of Aristotle’s Golden Mean - Moderation in all Things, the Great Man no doubt having had the insight to understand human weaknesses, thus seeing the necessity for the Golden Mean, to balance individual ambitions, which over the centuries has helped bring justice and democracy, the beginnings of which were set in train by Muslim scholars bringing Aristotlean thought to the barbarian West just after the 1000 millenium. AD.

It is interesting also how a documentary on Rand tells how she disliked the philosophies of the German thinker, Immanuel Kant, no doubt preferring, the less egalitarian doctrines of Wilhelm Hegel. Kant, of course, postulated the dire need for a global federation of nations, Rand probably preferring the role the US is taking at present, carrying on the neo-colonialism and neo- economic imperialism, and pre-emptive attacks on other countries, which Kant as a true Christian, would not have justified.

Regards, George C, WA - Bushbred

It is telling that this discussion on IT and its impact on the individual and/or the community is done through The Forum - a virtual community that exists on the internet.

I have perhaps met 2 or 3 of the regular participants in this Forum face to face but I value the thoughts and opinions I am exposed to here and partcipating in these discussions definitively makes me feel more connected to my new home country .

I am a technological optimist and I believe that electronic technologies can actually be used to strengthen the bonds of community and build social capital. What Katrina and other disasters on a mega scale shows us is that civic life and communities are the ultimate bulwarks and levees against the tides of destruction.

Seen in this light the recent discussions on the necessity for Telstra to continue to provide tele communications services for all Australians becomes a matter of national importance and a question of how we can continue to build a spirit of community. We all need to be connected to each other in order for everyone to be given the opportunity to contribute to developing the bonds of civic life and conviviality.

I have a major problem with this article.

"...technology is now so potent and pervasive it seems to be the main driver of social change"

This is a blindingly inaccurate statement. It absolutely reverses cause and effect.

From the time man picked up a rock and whacked his neighbour over the head with it, to the atomic bomb, we have exploited technology to help us terrorize our neighbour.

But the stone was not the cause. The stone simply provided the means to express aggression. To argue otherwise is to suggest that aggression was the result of finding the stone.

Recent technology is just that - recent. In its way it is no different to that stone, which was the most recent manifestation of a weapon at that time. Computers, when used to write stuff, are simply the most recent manifestation of the concept that include chisel-and-rock, papyrus-and-stylus, ink-and-paper, the typewriter and the word processor. Email is just an up-to-date version of the cleft stick.

Also, I should point out that predictions about the impact of technology have a solid history of being entirely wrong. Cambridge professor Douglas Hartree, who had built the first differential analyzers in England and had more experience in using these very specialized computers than anyone else, stated in 1951 that in his opinion, all the calculations that would ever be needed in the UK could be done on the three digital computers which were then being built. The 1972 polemic "Limits to Growth" also springs to mind as a resoundingly poor piece of prediction.

Technology and technological innovation, are simply an extension of us. They have no separate existence, and therefore cannot at any level be said to "drive" anything. I think it may be reasonably inferred that new barbarians, or whatever, are simply an extension of the writer's own prejudices and/or fears, much as were Hartree's wishful thinking (he was after all a mathematician) and the Club of Rome's vested interest in a doomsday scenario.