I have been meaning to post my thoughts on the book Inequality.com: Money, Power and the Digital Divide by David Stevens and Kieron O’Hara for a while now. Despite the hokey name, the book is rather thought provoking. Essentially it is an attempt to discuss the social and political impact of information communications technology from top to bottom. It delves deeply into democracy, equality, privacy and several related topics.

One area where the book truly shines is in showing just how much societal change has resulted from technology has been in the last 30 years or so. Understanding the way people did things 30 years ago versus how they are done now is incredibly difficult even for adults who have lived through all the changes. So many things have become tacitly accepted as common place now that were revolutionary when they were first introduced that the scope of the change is hard to understand, but the book does an excellent job explaining everything from the death of all things ephemeral to the applications of Coase’s Theorem.

The book also discusses in great detail some of the various ways that technology could affect democracy. At times it mentioned with urgency many of the same themes mentioned in Avi Rubin’s Brave New Ballot. It also highlighted many of the ways that the problems usually blamed on technology are in some ways simply intrinsic problems that must continually be fought as a part of civic responsibility in any democracy.

Lastly, the book talks about privacy issues. The authors form a convincing argument that knowledge is power and that bureaucracies naturally crave both. They discuss why it is important for citizens of a democracy to maintain a level of privacy where they can discuss new ideas without fear of being monitored. Essentially, they are claiming that the Hawthorne effect not only applies to democratic discussions, but that it irrevocably alters them. (If you are a scientist, think of this as a sort of Heisenberg uncertainty principle as applied to the democratic process.) The authors also show how privacy in many ways is really a modern invention using the argument that it wasn’t long ago that everyone lived in villages where rampant rumor mills ensured everyone knew everything about those whom they lived with.

All in all, I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in any of these concepts.