Networks and Power | Niall Ferguson
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- čas přidán 5. 01. 2020
- “This time is different.”
Historians: “Ha.”
“The Net is net beneficial.”
Historian Niall Ferguson: “Globalization is in crisis. Populism is on the march. Authoritarian states are ascendant. Technology meanwhile marches inexorably ahead, threatening to render most human beings redundant or immortal or both. How do we make sense of all this?”
Ferguson analyzes the structure and prospects of “Cyberia” as yet another round in the endless battle between hierarchy and networks that has wrought spasms of innovation and chaos throughout history. He examines those previous rounds (including all that was set in motion by the printing press) in light of the current paradoxes of radical networking enabled by digital technology being the engine of massive hierarchical companies (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, and their equivalents in China) and exploited by populists and authoritarians around the world.
He puts the fundamental question this way: “Is our age likely to repeat the experience of the period after 1500, when the printing revolution unleashed wave after wave of revolution? Will the new networks liberate us from the shackles of the administrative state as the revolutionary networks of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries freed our ancestors from the shackles of spiritual and temporal hierarchy? Or will the established hierarchies of our time succeed more quickly than their imperial predecessors in co-opting the networks, and enlist them in their ancient vice of waging war?”
Niall Ferguson is currently a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and visiting professor at the New College of the Humanities. His books include : www.niallferguson.com/books"The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook" (2018); "Civilization: The West and the Rest" (2012); and "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" (2009).
"Networks and Power" was given on November 19, 02018 as part of Long Now's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:
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People should listen to this guy.
John Willis He is boring still at 12 minutes. He sure loves the sound of his own voice.
Ferguson starts at 7:00
thegrumpyhypnotist Thank you!
The lines in the background is making me cross eyed, had to change browser tab and just listen.
Thanks for Uploading.
that background Niall is walking past is making my eyes hurt.
Extrapolating out the point that the internet networks in recent years have become rather centralized rather than decentralized like when Trump won in 2016, it was likely a very important variable in Trump losing the election later in 2020, when this speech was made (beyond just covid being a thing). The centralized internet vastly disempowered the grassroots social media campaign Trump had in 2016, in 2020 people were spoon-fed what to think by the big social media monopolies.
It used to be said. I might not agree with what you said, but I will defend your right to say it. Those days are gone , mention the unmentionables is liable to get you banned from using the sites, or have it deleted. On Utube its not uncommon to have comments disabled , on subjects deemed to contraversal.
I can forgive conservatives if they're smart enough. For the past 30 years I've been reading/watching him N.F. hasn't let me down.
D.A., J.D., ultra-liberal NYC :-)
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Did you retweet Russian content too? Just checking the data
Right on the money
Nice talk.
He will be amazed about the next step in the evolution of the Internet.
He thought that social network monopolies were bad and evil.
Wait till we get the unstoppable decentralized networks.
It will be like the current social networks on steroids.
He will wish the FB came back, because it was at least manageable to some degree.
Memes will rule the world.
Memes are far better than Oligarchs and Monopolies that censor all dissent.
@@CJinsoo That is without realizing that the ones who control the memes are oligarchs and monopolies
6:50
He starts speaking
Too late. I already paid
The internet was free because the regulations kept it from privatization. For Denial Fergusson freedom is just the right of corporations to privatize and control the internet.
He got the year wrong on Westphalia, as he said it was 1548. It was a century later.
I realized how wrong I was very late
Why is it an anachronism to hold end-users solely responsible for the content they produce?
Because it’s not up to you or up to the end-user (creator) if you see it. It’s up to the platform to make it available, except when it’s not profitable. Then it’s the platforms job to show you things that make you profitable to it and hide things that make you less profitable, which changes it into a publisher. You are the product being sold to advertisers (and worse, no doubt). They are tallying engagement, including my response and even if you look at this but don’t respond. Tally it all to show that we are worth the price they are asking.
Because if you pass laws holding the platform liable then you can vastly increase overall government control giving the tower the advantage over the square. China has already done it. And wants to do it more. It makes Ferguson shiver. Yet he’s all on board with doing it here. Because obviously our authoritarians will be better blokes (although history says otherwise).
Homer Simpson does not say "well boh!"...
D'oh!!
Oof, that last point he made - 'the founding fathers sufficiently guarded against a future demogogue usurping the consitution' - had me shouting 'no!' at the screen. Americans are rightly concerned about our lack of consensus on the integrity of our elections now, and we have good reason to think people will work in bad faith to subvert future elections while claiming that's what the other side is doing.
That particular check and balance is in dire straits, and is a linchpin of functional democracy. Niall, at this point in time you were wrong about the damage to the country that the Trump presidency would create.
I’m not allowed to be on the Facebook network, they closed down my account.
I don’t think they like me very much, at Facebook.
Good job!
Trump 2020
Niall Ferguson is highly overrated but his books are pretty good.
Hierarchies are natural and inevitable
N. Ferguson may rattle as he will, it makes no difference.
Suppose I am building an aeroplane. While I’m doing it, N. Ferguson is rattling that it won’t fly. I ignore him. I just keep on building my aeroplane, and it flies. The rattler keeps on rattling. So what?
N. Ferguson may rattle as he will - don’t feed the troll. Paul Krugman said that too. N. Ferguson can’t stand that.
Too much rattling
It looks like he took a class of Italian and wants to show off.
Also, I don't think Italians needed a British to tell them what a tower means in terms of power symbology.
I am pretty sure they knew it, when they build it.
Also, I think they noticed it, being there in the last 600 years in EVERY FUCKIN ITALIAN TOWN.
I think someone had plenty of time and looking for an idea for a new book during his last Italian holidays...
Please spare us so many Niall Ferguson video clips. His opinions have no worth. He is a mouthpiece for the establishment. He does not have intellectual integrity.
@40:00 this didn't age well, but he will never admit it. He was clever once, but hasn't been able to keep up with the speed of history for over a decade - and we all know that was forever ago now. He's a fairly good historian, he needs to go back to some other century to potter about in.
Boring
What exactly were you expecting ? A dance routine from NF perhaps or maybe a fireworks display,the BIG question is, how did you end up on this site and, even more to the point, who held that gun to your head and forced you to watch the whole thing ?
@@MrBoreray don’t feed the trolls
@@MrBoreray it was a bit boring..
Oh this is just gross. How did I stumble on this