The People Have the Power! Run for Your Lives!

In his Sunday column, the New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman cites a batch of happy evidence of how people are using the Web, Google, and Wi-Fi connections in ever-expanding numbers. Then he complains about it:

In other words, once Wi-Fi is in place, with one little Internet connection I can download anything from anywhere and I can spread anything from anywhere.

In other words, people can act just like Tom Friedman does, minus the globe-trotting expense account. No wonder he's nervous.

Comments

[David Weigel]

Cool. Does this mean that when I meet people in restaurants, I can use them as the basis of new geopolitical theories?

That would rule!

[Frenk]

The funny thing is that if this Friedman chap would read sci-fi, he would have found all of the ideas he touches on have been explored years ago by the Neal Stephenson, et al... of course that assumes that Friedman didn't plagiarize his ideas from Stephenson et al, which now that I think of it seems distinctly possible.

[Frenk]

PS I mean, it is the NY Times, right?

[Poul]

Reading Stephenson? Are you kdding? Friedman's piece _is_ "fi" without the "sci". After all, we're talking NYT here, aren't we? People there don't have to read fiction when they can make up their own.

[Shawn Levasseur]

Friedman spends so much time worrying about the ablity of terrorists and people who hate the U.S. to communicate amongst each other that he neglects the fact that the greater connectedness will carry the potential remedy to his fears:

Americans will be able to be heard more easily accross the globe, and vice-versa. Not to mention the ablity of voices in more repressive parts of the world to get their uncensored views out via the aid of foreign based servers (for example: Salaam Pax, blogging from Iraq, via Blogspot's servers in the USA)

The ablility of people from different parts of the globe to communicate easily directly to each other, is going to be a very powerful thing. I believe most of it will be positive.

The only problem I see, is the language barrier.

[librarian]

"The only problem I see, is the language barrier."

Not a problem, Shawn ...

http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/Language.html
http://www.worldlingo.com/wl/Translate

(etc.)

[Pat Cameltoe]

Unfair. I read Friedman's column. He was not disparaging WiFi. In fact, he was offering a balanced and reasonable take on it - it is inevitable, and it amplifies the consequences of US arrogance, mistakes, etc. This post's characterization is wholly unfair.

[Larry]

I think Matt's description of Tom Friedman's column is unfair.

The point of this column (which Friedman helpfully identified by saying "And that brings me to the point of this column") is that in a world with ubiquitous communication, what the rest of the world thinks of America matters a lot. The implication is that perhaps it is counterproductive to act like the world's most ornery superpower rather than the world's most enlightened superpower.

Also, the snide remark about expense accounts comes across as just a teensy bit jealous. Presumably the management of the New York Times is well aware that the full cost of a Tom Friedman column includes both salary and travel expenses. If the internet has taught us anything, it's that most people don't have all that much to say that's worth reading. Friedman seems to be one of those rare people who do have interesting things to say.

[Tepost]

Agreed with Larry. After reading Welch's blurb, I hit the link ready for a standard dose of NYT aggravation. What I saw was nothing like what Welch described.

"Complains about it"? I didn't read Friedman "complaining" so much as observing. The growing power of communications will allow us to trade cookie recipes as easily as anthrax recipes. Yes, wow ... what a jealous Luddite he must be.

Something is starting to bug me about the tech-smugness that has overtaken a lot of bloggers and others of us who spend most of our time online. It's the creeping sense of self-righteousness that's starting to creep into the tone. Yes, we all know the Internet has revolutionized the world and will continue to do so. But when someone like Welch blasts someone like Friedman for displaying a self-interest in the status quo (though I disagree Friedman's doing that here), he should realize this: He's displaying just as much self-interest, only it's about the milieu in which he himself has made a home.

Self-interest is, of course, fine. It's the accompanying arrogance that's starting to grate.

[Eric Deamer]

Larry and Tepost,

Friedman has for a long time, and I think rightly, been internet shorthand for the banality and arrogance of Old Media.

He's not egregiously bad or anything, and this isn't an egregiously bad column. It makes some valid points, but the general idea is that Friedman seems to have, yes, an unlimited expense account, unlimited access to the powerful, and regular access to the NYT, Oprah, etc. and he doesn't, IMO, say anything particulalry interesting.

So for us internet wags, it seems like Friedman is starting to see that the jig is up now that anyone can be a pundit, and there is, frankly, some schadenfreude involved there.

Beyond the fact that its a little strange that Friedman has spent all this time extolling the virtues of globalization and of new informaiton technologies and only now is he saying that its a bad thing, because everyone has the power to spread their opinions.

[Tepost]

Maybe I still need another cup of coffee, but where are you getting that he's saying new information technologies are "a bad thing"? Sure, he points out the need for vigilance in this new era, but I don't read him saying that this technology, per se, is a bad thing.

As for the arrogance stuff: Maybe Friedman is arrogant; maybe he's not. But let me offer this. When it comes down to it, pundits such as Friedman were lofted to their positions by the market; they are the ones that supply-and-demand ultimately deemed tops. On the Internet, as you say, anyone can be a "pundit." And while there is something of a market mechanism at work there, too -- presumably the better pundits will be the ones eventually noticed most -- there's also a ton of unfiltered garbage. And online, the garbage just sits and accumulates, because there's no marketplace device to sift through it, as there is in a media market with real dollars involved.

This is not an argument against everybody having their say online. That's the beauty of the 'Net. But comparing Friedman to the legions of "Internet wags" is precisely the sort of silly tech hubris I'm talking about.

[Eric Deamer]

Tepost,

You may be right about the point of the Op-Ed itself, though I think its strange he comes to the conclusion he does given how sanguine he was about all this technology stuff before.

The Jayson Blair thing has pretty much conclusively proven that the NYT isn't a meritocracy, so your guess is as good as mine as to how Friedman was "lofted to this position".

[Curt Warner]

I agree that there are much more egregious examples than this Friedman column of the old-media "the Internet is the downfall of civilization" line. But he does draw a logical conclusion. Technology, Internet, etc., has tremendous beneficial and calamitous potential.

And I'm not sure what exactly we expect out of old-media types. Should Friedman announce, "Dear reader: I am a beneficiary of the status quo and am fearful of any new-media technology. Proceed with this in mind"?

[Tepost]

Um, quick heads-up: Jayson Blair is gone from the New York Times.

That's the market at work. The garbage was successfully filtered out. The "Internet," on the other hand, would not have removed Jayson Blair, because it has no market incentive to do so. Online, the Jayson Blairs just accumulate.

My point is not that the Internet sucks. Obviously I'm here, enjoying the chance to express myself. I'm just pointing out what I find to be a silly (and growing) arrogance on the part of many online commentators, particularly bloggers. Yes, the Internet can empower you and your voice. It does not automatically make you the equivalent of a New York Times op-ed columnist.

[Jacob]

"The Jayson Blair thing has pretty much conclusively proven that the NYT isn't a meritocracy"

whoa. lets not make what could be one unhappy exception into the rule. i mean, the NYT does have a certain reputation for quality- does one u maryland dropout destroy that in one fell swoop?

[James Merritt]

Tepost says, "I'm just pointing out what I find to be a silly (and growing) arrogance on the part of many online commentators, particularly bloggers. Yes, the Internet can empower you and your voice. It does not automatically make you the equivalent of a New York Times op-ed columnist."

Agreed. In my experience, the Internet has never made anyone as arrogant as a NYT op-ed columnist.

[Tepost]

Difference being, of course, that a NYT op-ed columnist has some justification for being arrogant. As I pointed out in a post above, he or she has been rewarded by the free market, given the position amid fierce and ongoing competition among other laborers.

Online, few "wags" have such an excuse for their arrogance. Instead, bloggers online are arrogant, I suspect, because they've never had a way to spout off in front of the world before, and so there's a false sense of empowerment that comes with the whole thing.