Punkonomics (@DearBalak)

This show is about Rumpel, TV series “Once Upon a Time” with special guest Bob Dutton and returning guest Juliana Rorbeck (and the usual suspects)

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Maybe the long boom of technological disruption will slow down, ponders sf writer Charlie Stross.

We are undeniably living through the era of the Great Acceleration; but it’s probably[*] a sigmoid curve, and we may already be past the steepest part of it. [link in original]

Ah yes, that famous S-curve.  Slow to start, fast to build, massive in effect, then ultimately tapering off, like so:

So we can imagine the tide of industrial-technological change rising in the 1700s, roaring into life during the 1800s, turning into a transformational riptide through the twentieth century, and then, in the 21st, gradually… slowing… down.  The rate of innovation drops.  We become accustomed to the new.  Future shock stops shocking.

I just published a review of a recent book on digital surveillance and cryptography.  Cypherpunks is co-written by four activists, including Julian Assange.  A very exciting, provocative book, which I recommend.

In a nice coincidence, or a sign of timeliness, Reporters sans frontières released a new study on governments cracking down on the free internet, and the Western companies who supply them the requisite technology.  Those are topics of great concern to Assange et al.