Computing comes in waves. Each new technological breakthrough is a combination of the personal, electrical, mechanical, physical & material. Human neurons fire so that silicon circuits can twitch to life. Our biological brains create technological tools. We augment ourselves with our devices.

The impact of these tools keeps expanding. These technological tools have always had political power:

• International Business Machines helped the Nazis keep record of who to incinerate and who to incarcerate.
• Alan Turing’s Machine completely annihilated the Nazis after they figured out how to decode their encrypted evil.
• Steve Jobs’ iPhone changed the migratory patterns of millions after people around the world saw what they are missing.
• Jack Dorsey’s Twitter helped spark the uprising in the Middle East and the deposition of several despots.
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has led to the slaughter of vulnerable people and the mental health crisis plaguing our planet.
• Vitalik Buterin’s Ethereum created a new supra-national digital jurisdiction that has aggravated the US & EU.
• Sam William’s Arweave upset the Chinese Communist Party after they finally realised they cannot censor it completely.

The scale of computing waves’ impact has expanded every decade. Decisions made in the algorithm departments of a few companies in California affect the mental health of the planet. International democracies are struggling to cope with the fact that they are subject to the whims of our digital demagogues.

Let us look back on the waves we have seen in recent history:

100s
mechanical
electrical
mainframe

1,000,000s
mini
personal
desktop

1,000,000,000s
internet
cloud
mobile

everyone
social
artificial
economic

Physical monarchies were challenged by the US Constitution. Digital monarchies are being challenged by the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

The political computing wave is starting to crest.

I cannot wait to see it crash.

🗳