Proposition and Corollaries on Technology and its Social Use

Its time for me to channel Terranova for a bit....

Proposition I: Technology is simultaneously a social product and a social tool.
Corollary Ia: Discussions of technology are then discussions of the societies that produce the technologies, not just discussions of the technologies themselves.
Corollary Ib: The use of the developed technology depends upon the organization of the society that utilizes it.

Rheingold's tale is the discussion of the social use of technology - specifically the development of the internet in all its various forms throughout its development. It's a little warm and fuzzy at times, but not too far off (remember - this is written in 1993). For example - I have a Facebook account and it was a happy moment when a few old college friends I hadn't heard or seen in years contacted me through this social networking site. Since then we have exchanged contact information, and played a few "facebook"-type online games, but there is a distance between my old friends and I despite our connection on Facebook. In no way do our Facebook conversations have the same intimacy or energy as our 3 a.m. conversations at Denny's over pots of coffee. This change of intimacy doesn't necessitate that all conversations spurned on by Facebook exchanges are necessarily "banal" (Robins p. 6), but some are. Not all conversations on the telephone are deep and meaningful either.

This is one possibility of the social use of a social networking site. Of course - why have these sites developed? What is the social need/desire that has triggered this development?

Remember, Rheingold does posit the other side of the tale of the social use of the then developing internet - "The odds are always good that big power and big money will find a way to control access to virtual communities; big power and big money always found ways to control new communications media when they emerged in the past. The Net is still out of control in fundamental ways, but it might not stay that way for long."

To get back to my proposition and corollary Ib I'll quote from Fernback, "Like other commodities of the industrialized world, community can be exploited as a form of wealth," (10). Can we imagine a society where it would be anathema to commodify the Rheingoldian use of the internet? What, then, would the use of this technology look like? What would this society look like? What would the technology look like?

It is probably no big surprise to those of us living in late-capitalism, or post-Fordism, or post-modern capitalism (?), that "virtual communities" would be subsumed into profit-making endeavors. This is a reflection of the society we live in and particular societal values. Even Rheingold could forsee this in 1993.

I suppose the benefit to the Rheingold piece is that he is trying to imagine another world - another social use of the technology (conditions of possibility, anyone?). This is built upon his experience at the WELL. Fernback's piece is telling us of the social use of the technology for the profit of private entities (and for the surveillance of the citizenry by the government). To bring us back in time, then, I ask the same question Lenin asked, "What Is to Be Done?"

If Proposition I, Corollary Ia, and Corollary Ib are correct, it follows that the only way to change the social use of the technology is to change the society itself. Otherwise, warm and fuzzy "virtual community" style uses of the internet will remain and they will continue to be valuable for certain uses/connections. At the same time - these uses will run alongside the more insidious data collecting and profiling that Fernback describes. The "virtual community" uses do not challenge the "profiling" uses, and can both co-exist on the same network. One may also serve to support the other...

What is the autonomist answer to all this? "Exit"? "Virtuousity"? I'm not exactly sure to be honest. As this post is long enough, I think I will take a rest for now.