1. "Innovation and technology: Twenty-First Century"

In the journal "Leonardo", Volume 28, Number 4 -published by Pergamon Press in 1990 we read an article with the title directly above, written by Lowell T. Harmison (biophysicist, scientist, administrator) Maxwell Foundation, USA:

The abstract states: This article is the edited transcript of a speech presented at the Communication Innovation Seminar at Headington Hall, Oxford, England in June 1988, a seminar attended by the editors of many major scientific journals. The seminar was convened to address current and future challenges to the communication and expansion of our knowledge, to highlight the achievements of Pergamon Press across 40 years of commitment to science, and to commemorate the sixty-fifth birthday of its founder Robert Maxwell.

The article's introduction proclaims: "Intellectual and tangible property rights which have intrinsic power for change, are the products of the mind and of the toil of our hands. Those rights are the ingredients for progress and social justice. As Plato once observed, "The only true power is the individual's ability to do. All the rest is is the privilege conferred by others".

Under the sub-heading "A U.S. Preamble to Worldwide Technology Transfer" the article continues: "The way in which intellectual and tangible property is distributed in the United States may set an example for technology transfer worldwide".

While under the sub-heading "National Factors: The US approach" we are told that "In the United States, there is a new approach to some of the factors impeding technology transfer. The 1986 Technology Exchange Act is unprecedented in U.S. history. It is aggressive, creative, protective of U.S. commercial interests, and far-reaching. It entails, among other features, an unimpeded technology stream from the president to the individual researcher and includes incentives for creativity. the law is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. It provides four ingredients necessary for successful transfers of technology in everyday life: a minimum royalty of 15% for an inventor, financial incentives for university and federal laboratories, incentives for private corporations to invest, and clear authority for university and federal laboratories to work with industry."

Under "The New Arena" we read: "Despite the challenges that I have outlined, scientists -and the editors of the world's leading scientific journals -must foster the development and exchange of technology for the benefit of all individuals and societies, especially those of the Third World. Otherwise, we in Japan, Korea, Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand will end up selling our technology to each other."

The "Epilogue" concludes: "Technology is the currency of this decade and of the twenty-first century:; it is the lifeblood of a new global economy and society. It must be used in the context of social justice ... The editors of scientific books and periodicals can help in this effort. They have enormous power; as recipients of tens of thousands of scientific and technical articles annually, they have the most direct and comprehensive overview of the latest in scientific thought and discovery; they have the platform from which these thoughts and discoveries are first offered worldwide to anyone who may care to read them; they control the major process by which scientists and innovators express themselves to the rest of us; and they have a position from which to draw out and excite the creative energies of their readers. They can reward creativity; they can suppress or encourage scientific work."

2. Tools for Thought:

In "Leonardo" Volume 24, number 2 -1991 we find a review by Fred Truck of the book "Tools for Thought: The People and Ideas Behind The Next Computer Revolution" by Howard Reingold (Simon and Shuster, New York, 1985). The reviewer quotes the first two paragraphs of chapter one:

"South of San Francisco and north of Silican valley, near the place where the pines on the horizon give way to live oaks and radio telescopes, an unlikely subculture has been creating a new medium for human thought. When the mass produced models of present prototypes reach our homes, offices and schools, our lives are going to change dramatically.

"The first of these mind-amplifying machines will be descendants of the device now known as personal computers, but they will resemble today's information processing technology no more than a television resembles a fifteenth century printing press. They aren't available yet, but will be here soon. Before today's first-graders graduate from high school, hundreds of millions of people around the world will join together to create new kinds of human communities, making use of a tool that a small number of thinkers and tinkerers dreamed into being over the course of the past century."

The reviewer concludes:

"Tools for Thought" is fascinating reading because of its clear and logical structure and because of the wealth of information it sheds on the people who made the machines that we all have sitting in our offices and and on our desks at home.'

3. Evolution of the social network

On the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7318288.stm (dated: Saturday, 29 March 2008, 10:44 GMT) We find, under the above title, an article by Marc Cieslak, Reporter, BBC Click:

His article states:

While the bigger players in the game might be experiencing a slow down in growth, they still command the attention of millions of users. "I think you are going to see a lot of businesses coming up thinking how do we tap this power of social interaction, trusted friends and different advice, to make money," says Travis Katz, managing director, international, at MySpace." '

'After all the power of a social network lies in the sheer number of users accessing that site. Rather than acting as a glorified friend finder, social networking could provide more practical help. The recent addition of a blood group application to Facebook that tracks down blood donors with specific blood types, ably demonstrates this. "The idea of social networking on the socially useful sites is all around consumer to consumer content," says Mr Burmaster. "So rather than a publisher providing information and content, it's all about consumer to consumer. They are providing information to each other.'

'What is to stop unscrupulous business owners singing their praises via false posts on these sites? "The whole idea of consumer recommendations and social media is potentially open to abuse," says Mr Burmaster. "The classic example is within a blog, message board, or a group of people. Advertisers come in there pretending to be one of those people trying to promote products - look isn't this album great or this hamburger is fantastic.'

'Abuse or potentially erroneous posts aside, the major factor which will decide the fate of sites like these are the users. The more users who post, the more useful the sites become.'

4. Some Doubts and Queries:

Is the commercially exploitation of "Social Networks' the ultimate practical and "real-world" result of all the idealistic hype we have been fed?

Are "Delicious", "Digg" and "Facebook" really encouraging the public to exploiting the magnificent "Tool for Thought" to the maximum -or are they merely using the technology to exploit us to the maximum?

Does the book "Tools for Thought" really provide insight into the machine -or is it simply another romantic promo? Do these "tools" really promote thought in their users -or do they actually destroy human intelligence by making human thought apparently redundant?

Is the way in which intellectual and tangible property is distributed in the United States (a country in which apparently, despite its enormous wealth, many people still have no health insurance -or job security) truly a good example to be followed worldwide? In what way is it such a good model -and "good" for whom?

How on earth can a policy which is "aggressive, creative, protective of U.S. commercial interests, and far-reaching" bring social justice to Third World countries?

Once one cuts all the idealistic rhetoric out of the article by Lowell T. Harmison -it sounds as if "technology transfer" is actually equated with developing a market for US products. What exactly is meant by "technology transfer" in practice? What is actually transfered -and from whom or what and from where to whom, what and where -and at what advantage or cost to whom? Is the creation of cheap "off-shore" data-typing and call centers for outsourcing in third world countries an example of "technology transfer" -or are they simply a continuing (post-colonial) commercial exploitation of cheap labour? Does "technology transfer" really mean anything more than a speeding up of the process by which the economies of the rich post-industrial countries can take advantage of any new technological development anywhere in the world? In what way does the rest of the world benefit from this seemingly uni-directional transfer of knowledge and power?

So what is meant by "social justice"? Does it simply mean "the privilege conferred by others" to participate as consumers in order to be economically farmed as part of the fully globalised exploitation of all humanity?

How does the predicted impact of the astounding "tool for thought" relate to "technology transfer" in a socially just context? Surely, if there was any real "technology transfer" to the general public -then the public would not be so impressed because they would understand the technology better -and perhaps the commercial market would not be so powerful, if the consumers were better educated.

Probably, the publishers and the networks do have great power to "suppress or encourage scientific work" (and artistic work too) through the knowledge that they have in their possession -but is it true that "anybody who cares to" has free access to all the knowledge available in scientific books and journals? How does this equate with "powerful intellectual property rights"?

How can the idealism of "social justice" for all ever be realised within a predatory commercial system -supporting and supported by a powerful military system? How can "social justice" be achieved without first reforming the current global economic system which, despite the hype, is apparently firmly based on the exploitation of poverty and ignorance?

Are those who actually "create content" and provide the knowledge on the networks and the journals actually paid a fair fee? Do they share in the royalties? What happens to the income that the contributors generate for the various companies that are trying to earn their fortunes by exploiting these networks? If intellectual property rights really are such a wonderful stimulus for creativity -then why did the US entertainment industry recently suffer such a long lasting strike by their script writers? "Hopes raised for Hollywood strike deal" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7236188.stm. Doesn't this mean that the royalty holders are not actually the creators - so how does this help creativity when the inventors do not even own their own rights? How are the less powerful to protect their own interests against the big companies? How do the global media giants support "technology transfer" in the context of "social justice" -when their main aim is to make money at the cost of their competitors in a zero sum game?

So, are the producers of all this hype really so naive, are they fooling us -were they wrong, have they been mislead by others -or what?