CS99I Meeting 18 Notes
Started by Gio Wiederhold, 3 March 2000.
Topic
The Approaching Age of Virtual Nations
From Futurist (08/02) Vol. 36, No. 4, P. 24; Dillard, Mike; Hennard, Janet
Virtual nations (v-nations) are online masses of individuals, unified by a common cause or ideology, that mirror real nations in the inclusion of and progression toward leadership, laws, power, security, monetary systems, and other elements. They will act as both a threat to and a hope for global resource allocation, cooperation, and security. The accessibility and technical infrastructure of the Internet gives such groups the tools to quickly amass tremendous collective power: For instance, in its 14-month existence, the Lifecast community rapidly aggregated enough wealthy, influential members to form an entity that would have ranked 23rd among the world's economies. V-nations need to be organized around a leader who will rally others to a significant cause and glue them together using the communications access offered by the Internet. V-nations with enough power and sway could acquire and form services and agencies designed to benefit their citizenry--stock exchanges, health-care facilities, security forces, educational centers, airlines, financial institutions, and even land. The sinister aspects of v-nations are demonstrated by al-Qaeda, which used the Internet to grow from a nationless band of far-flung extremists into a world-spanning terrorist organization with formidable economic resources and horrific destructive power. The emergence of v-nations will wreak profound changes: Citizenship will no longer be grounded in geography or restricted to one organization, and many people's allegiances will shift toward the virtual entity; the quality of life could improve, since v-nations allow people to go outside inadequate laws to obtain health care and other benefits, which could lead to the adoption of a virtual currency. Networked societies such as v-nations are seen as a natural evolutionary trend, but the real test will be whether they can share the stage with traditional nations.