"The Question Isn't Who Is Going to Let Me, It's Who Is Going to Stop Me"

"The beginnings of the 'cyber revolution' that King referenced in his sermon were already moving forward in 1968 as he was speaking. The origins of that technology revolution were clearly located in the counter culture as Fred Turner and John Markoff have shown and the idea (in Nicholas Negroponte's words) was to 'decentralize control and harmonize people'. That the earliest of networks like the Whole Earth Lectronic Link (WELL) organized by Stewart Brand grew directly out of the hippie culture was a natural progression from both the political and cultural growth of 1960's counter culture. But within 20 years, starting with Peter Thiel's cohort at Stanford University, the organizing philosophy of Silicon Valley was far more based on the radical libertarian ideology of Ayn Rand than the commune based notions of Ken Kesey and Stewart Brand. Thiel, the founder of PayPal, early investor in Facebook and Godfather of the PayPal Mafia that currently rules Silicon Valley has been clear about his philosophy."


Jonathan Taplin at Medium argues that we have been "sleeping through a revolution."