Globalized Decentralization - a Brave New World.

[wulos]

Before I start, let me make it quite clear. Whilst this thread will touch on political ideas, making the discussion 'pro' this, or 'pro' that will result in it's closure. It is hoped that this discussion stays positive, free of personal insults, or political grandstanding. It can, and will be closed should the "extremists" wade in with guns a blazing....

Looking around on the internet, watching television, reading the papers there is an 'increasing' awareness of societies problems, and inequalities. Global financial Crisis, Global warming, Global Terrorism, Disproportionate distribution of wealth / resources, the list continues...

Many are quick to judge, happy to blame specific individuals or groups for the problems. Some problems get blamed on governments, or religious affiliations, others point at specific businesses(banking industry for GFC, auto / manufacturing / power industries for global warming etc)

For the last century? or so there has been a massive development in technology. Over the last 30-40 years, nowhere has this been more evident then in communications, and IT.
A century or so back, if you wanted to get a message to someone on the other side of the world, the message would have been hand written, and hand delivered. Quite a time consuming process, but one that gave the writer time to develop their ideas and the message they were going to send.
Nowadays it is possible to send a message instantaneously. Information can be accessed at similar speeds. Speeds that far outstrips our human ability to read, comprehend, and store in our memory banks, or make a decisions upon.
Along with this increased communications, is the improved ability to conduct business(both legal, and not so legal), over great distances.
Up until recently? these "affairs" would have been controlled by the governments / policy makes / law enforcement agencies, within the geographic borders in which these transactions took place. Different Geographic locations, meant different 'localised governments', anddifferent ways of solving these 'domestic' problems within their own borders. Governments set up rules, and policies to accomplish the better good(?) for their own 'local' consituents, with little real regard for what happens elsewhere.

As members of a far larger 'global' community, we are expecting of governments, and policy makers to come up with solutions to issues that are no longer confined within old traditional 'geographic' borders.
These policies of the governments / policy makers we turn to, are ultimately limited by juristictional borders. Borders which as a result of modern day technology, we individually believe no longer apply.

Clearly these issues are important to us all. With the speed of communications, we are continually bombarded with information, and as a result, major issues are quickly focused in our thoughts.
This increased awareness, allows us to interpret events, and come to a conclusion as to the importance of a particular issue. Once the conclusion is made, these issues take on their own personal significance, & import. Once important to us, we are become expectant of effective solutions being found, and then implemented.
Nothing here has really changed, just the speed.
Our expectations are that 'officialdom' (those same underpowered? ones as mentioned above) find speedy solutions, to these problems, and implement effective policies in a similarly expedient manner.

The information to make these decisions upon is no different to that available to us. It is in a constant state of evolution, and change, and from above, changes far quicker then it is humanly possible to accurately process. The amount of information(and misleading disinformation) to make change has increased at an extremely rapid rate, but the decision making process is still very much a 'slow' consultative process, conducted in person by a relatively tiny group of overworked?(information processing) individuals.
Is it little wonder that government policies, are often poorly developed, and often fundamentally flawed.


The internet & modern technology is unquestionably provided some great opportunities, but it is also contributing to some very complex social, and economic issues?

Heading into the future, how do you believe these issues can be better handled?