Prepare for Change

http://pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Series/Social-impact-of-technology.aspx?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=pip&utm_campaign=twitter "The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people’s social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people’s varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class." These surveys indicate that people who use social network sites are in real life more social and more trusting than those who don't. Again, we see that the initial predictions that the Internet would isolate people socially have been refuted.

Tearing Down the Tyrannical facade by Jeff Jacobsen 2011 "One must endure the unwisdom of one's masters." [Scott, p. 17, quoting The Phoenician Women, by Euripides]    The wave of public protests that began this spring of 2011 in Tunisia, dubbed the Arab Awakening, has spread to several countries, including Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria.  Each of these has a popular uprising to alter or replace the current tyrannical government.  Through some particular spark, a large portion of the population was emboldened to publicly protest against the severe restrictions imposed on the people by their overly-long and overly-demanding leadership.  Each of these leaders handled the protests by similar deadly means, invoking similar excuses against the complaints on the street.     Each of these leaders had been in power for decades.  Had the people suddenly decided  all at once that they couldn't take it anymore?  The social rest...