Technologically driven social, political and cultural stratification in the coming decades

During the last election, we saw technology play a large role in political organizing. The campaign of Barack Obama effectively used newly created technology to communicate and organize political and financial support efficiently to out manuveure all of his competitors. All of this efficiency made possible by new internet technologies, which much of the older demographics which make up much of the republican base will never adopt. Organization of this demographic is limited to old media of radio and television. It lacks the ability to personalize information sent to supporters. It lacks the ability to put information in the hands of supporters at will with specific targeted messages.

One of the differences between John Kerry and Barack Obama campaigns, is that in 2004 Youtube and Facebook did not exist. Two technologies that Obama used effectively in his campaign to communicate with and organize supporters just four years later. What's more, it continues to communicate by text, email, twitter and facebook to millions of supporters about what they are doing, what they hope to do, and what supporters can do to help.


As technology accelerates, how will the early adoption of new communication and information technologies which can be leveraged for greater efficiencies of organization by younger generations influence the politics of the coming decades? What will those game changing technologies look like? Will they be the remote technologies which the young will adopt to stay connected to their friends, accessing live remote broadcast by their friends, and keeping constant awareness of the location and activities of friends and family which are rapidly developing today? Perhaps it will be the adoption of man-computer interfaces and direct interfaces with the brain which provide a total state of connection expected in the next decade?

The impact of inter-generational differences in the adoption of new communication, information and bio technologies is going to be hard to predict. I speculate that even the adoption of new technology will become a political issue, with the potential to precipitate a new generation of 21st century Amish, who fore swear both coming technologies as well as political involvement on religous grounds, as even the definition of what it means to be human is brought into question by the rapid explosion of technology. It's also possible that rapid technological growth will lead to a backlash of popular political neo-ludditism and anti-technologism from the right and the left.

Whatever the outcome, uncertain future, here we come.