The Global Network > Dangerously Unstable

The global network has become dangerously unstable
By Niall Ferguson   February 20, 2017
Source: The Boston Globe
The world today is like a giant network on the verge of a cataclysmic outage.  Far from spreading truth and love, the network excels at disseminating lies and hate, because those are the things we nasty, fallen human beings like to click on.

The president of the United States tweets that his own intelligence agencies are illegally leaking classified information to The New York Times about his campaign’s communications with the Russian government, but he insists that it’s all “fake news.” (Read that again, slowly.)

You cannot understand the world today without understanding how it has changed as a result of new information technology. This has become a truism. The question is, how has it changed? The answer is that technology has enormously empowered networks of all kinds relative to traditional hierarchical power structures.
The reality is that the global network has become a dangerously unstable structure. Far from promoting equality, the network does the opposite, by allowing hyperconnected “superhubs” to emerge.

Far from spreading truth and love, the network excels at disseminating lies and hate, because those are the things we nasty, fallen human beings like to click on. If Zuckerberg seriously intends to turn Facebook into the vanguard of liberal world government, then he is on a fast track to joining George Soros at the top of Steve Bannon’s Most Hated list.

Niall Ferguson’s new book, “The Square and the Tower: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Networks,’’ will be published early next year.