The More-Hopeful Theses

• ”Information sharing over the Internet will be so effortlessly interwoven into daily life that it will become invisible, flowing like electricity, often through machine intermediaries.” page 23
• ”The spread of the Internet will enhance global connectivity that fosters more planetary relationships and less ignorance.” page 26
• ”The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data will make people more aware of their world and their own behavior.” page 29
• ”Augmented reality and wearable devices will be implemented to monitor and give quick feedback on daily life, especially tied to personal health.” page 31
• ”Political awareness and action will be facilitated and more peaceful change and public uprisings like the Arab Spring will emerge.” page 34
• ”The spread of the ‘Ubernet’ will diminish the meaning of borders, and new ‘nations’ of those with shared interests may emerge and exist beyond the capacity of current nation-states to control.” page 35
• ”The Internet will become “the Internets” as access, systems, and principles are renegotiated” page 37
• ”An Internet-enabled revolution in education will spread more opportunities, with less money spent on real estate and teachers.” page 38

The Less-Hopeful Theses

• ”Dangerous divides between haves and have-nots may expand, resulting in resentment and possible violence.” page 41
• ”Abuses and abusers will ‘evolve and scale.’ Human nature isn’t changing; there’s laziness, bullying, stalking, stupidity, pornography, dirty tricks, crime, and those who practice them have new capacity to make life miserable for others.” page 43
• ”Pressured by these changes, governments and corporations will try to assert power — and at times succeed – as they invoke security and cultural norms.” page 47
• ”People will continue – sometimes grudgingly — to make tradeoffs favoring convenience and perceived immediate gains over privacy; and privacy will be something only the upscale will enjoy.” page 51
• ”Humans and their current organizations may not respond quickly enough to challenges presented by complex networks.” page 53
• ”Most people are not yet noticing the profound changes today’s communications networks are already bringing about; these networks will be even more disruptive in the future.” page 55
• ”Foresight and accurate predictions can make a difference; ‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it.’” page 57

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