Chapter 1: The DNA of Information

The information superhighway is about the global movement of weightless bits at the speed of light. As one industry after another looks at itself in the mirror and asks about its future in a digital world, the future is driven almost 100 percent by the ability of that company’s product or services to be rendered in digital form.

Introduction: The Paradox of a Book

We will socialize in digital neighborhoods in which physical space will be irrelevant and time will play a different role. Twenty years from now, when you look out a window, what you see may be five thousand miles and six time zones away. When you watch an hour of television, it may have been delivered to your home in less than a second. Reading about Patagonia can include the sensory experience of going there. A book by William Buckley can be a conversation with him.

Introduction: The Paradox of a Book

Early in the next millennium your right and left cuff links or earrings may communicate with each other by low-orbiting satellites and have more computer power than your present PC. Your telephone won’t ring indiscriminately; it will receive, sort, and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well-trained English butler. Mass media will be redefined by systems for transmitting and receiving personalized information and entertainment. Schools will change to become more like museums and playgrounds for children to assemble ideas and socialize with other children all over the world. The digital planet will look and feel like the head of a pin.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

The network will draw us together, if that’s what we choose, or let us scatter ourselves into a million mediated communities. Above all, and in countless new ways, the information highway will give us choices that can put us in touch with entertainment, information, and each other.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

The first manifestations of the information highway will be apparent in the United States by the millennium. Within a decade there will be widespread effects.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

We are watching something historic happen, and it will affect the world seismically, rocking us the same way the discover of the scientific method, the invention of printing, and the arrival of the Industrial Age did. If the Information Highway is able to increase the understanding citizens of one country have about their neighboring countries, and thereby reduce international tensions, that, in and of itself, could be sufficient to justify the cost of implementation. If it was used only by scientists, permitting them to collaborate more effectively to find cures for the still-incurable diseases, that alone would be invaluable. If the system were only for kids, so that they could pursue their interests in and out of the classroom, that by itself would transform the human condition.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

Like all middlemen in the new electronic world, political representatives will have to justify themselves. The information highway will put the spotlight on them as never before. Instead of being given photos and sounds bites, voters will be able to get a much more direct sense of what their representatives are doing and how they’re voting. The day a senator receives a million pieces of e-mail on a topic or is able to have his beeper announce the results of a real-time opinion poll from his constituents is not far away.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

Someone will doubtless propose total ‘direct democracy,’ having all issues put to a vote. Personally, I don’t think direct voting would be a good way to run a government. There is a place in governance for the representatives – middlemen – to add value. They are the ones whose job it is to take the time to understand all the nuances of complicated issues. Politics involves compromise, which is nearly impossible without a relatively small number of representatives making decisions on behalf of the people who elected them … It’s the job of a full-time policymaker to develop expertise. This enables the best of them to come up with and embrace nonobvious solutions direct democracy might not allow, because voters might not understand the trade-offs necessary for long-term success.

Chapter 12: Critical Issues

The highway will bestow power on groups of citizens who want to organize to promote causes or candidates. This could lead to an increased number of special-interest groups and even political parties … It will become so easy to organize a political movement that no cause will be too small or scattered. I expect the Internet will be a significant focus for all the candidates and political-action groups for the first time during the 1996 U.S. national elections. Eventually, the highway will become a primary conduit of political discourse.