Imagine if everywhere you saw something wrong with the world, with a half-second's effort you could drop a quarter in a virtual tin cup and better than 24 cents actually made it to help solve the problem that annoys you. That's a future promise of the Internet age that hasn't arrived yet, but still could. This is the intersection between ubiquitous computing, where everywhere you go, you are able to connect to the internet, wearable computers, which would allow you to point out the problem in a way a computer would understand and the technology of micropayments which would allow you to be part of the great tradition of Burke's "little platoons" which are the little voluntary organizations that make free market capitalism actually work and not be the social darwinian hell-hole that its critics always predict.
Armed Liberal's musings over an LA Concert Hall reminded me of this future tech. There's no reason that the Disney Hall needs to be made with government involvement at all. It's just too hard to do it right now so government involvement in such endeavors persist.
Posted by TMLutas at December 10, 2003 01:42 PM