Final Questions

As we reach our concluding week, I want to revisit one of the points danah boyd and RU Sirius have been raising repeatedly throughout the forum: hyperconnectivity and hypercapitalism.

Early on, danahboyd said:

I'd actually like to address the first half of your opening question - "What are the values implicit in both collaborative open source activities and "crowd-sourced" activities" - before addressing the second half. The full question naturally leads us to think about contemporary capitalism and free labor, but the first half is also critical to analyze on its own. Why? Because we must take into account privilege at both the individual and collective levels.

Then RU Sirius added:

I think I may be at my upper limit of bloviating, but I still want to return to danah's point about the economics of this... but indirectly. I'd simply like to throw out this idea...

Rapid Technological Change + Ruthless Hypercapitalism = An Insanely Stressful Society. But the problem is not with the technology but with the socioeconomic paradigm that doesn't have (or want) the tools to cope with it

Also, the last part of the scheduled topics fits this discussion as well:

Folksonomy and the Folks.
Everybody is, indeed, here now - but should everyone be here? Does the rise of the amateur lead to an unnecessary devaluation of the professional? Do collective online activities promote a new form of participatory democracy and the development of new and accurate folksonomies, or rather to they lead people to overestimate the value of their unconsidered posts and opinions? Do representative democracy, academic disciplines and other seemingly elitist artifacts fall by the wayside?

Is the rise of the amateur simply the rise of the unpaid worker? And Clay - is cognitive surplus simply something to be scooped up by corporate powers? Entertainment as free labor?