I’ve always been fascinated by this same subject (did my thesis studying how the Internet changed the lives of their users), and I agree on most of the ideas you’ve described: I really belive this web will help us change the way we relate, and I’m also a strong beliver thet the real power ot this web is communicating people.

As a reminder, I wanted to mention again that a bunch of stuff I was thinking about on this book didn’t make it into the review, but I posted it at my own blog here:http://www.memekitchen.com/mtarchive/000016.html.

I think, excepting my message here, that this review has generated a record low of comments on any article at Boxes and Arrows. Do I get a prize?

Commenting about the theme of permission–I thought Tim Berners-Lee said that permission-free participation in the WWW simplified its building.

Anyway, I’m not sure if TB-L said that, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I imagine it was one of his presuppositions upon hacking together the www. Being able to link to other people’s research & publication without having to go through a stifling hierarchy was definitely on his mind.

I think Weinberger takes this a little further, connecting it to bigger existential questions of what it means to be human and a social creature. But the sentiments on permission are very similar.

Thanks for the post!

The end of the world is nigh.

…

Merry Christmas to the fellow readers anyway!