Image via WikipediaIn a few swift decades, faster than most realize, the Internet is going to be literally the first country most people on the planet belong to. The Internet is beginning to challenge nothing less than the very concept of the nation state itself. And that is what the censorship bill on Capitol Hill is primarily about. Look how both parties are in agreement! And this goes way beyond old media companies buying out politicians. No. This is the politicians themselves feeling threatened. They can feel the ground shift, and it is not China knocking on the doors. There are those who play this countdown game of where China has become the number one country. Does that happen in this decade? Two decades from now? Or in 2050? The entire paradigm of that debate is foolish. In 2050 there will be no China, not the China we know today.
The political class feels threatened. Because they are wed to the nation state. A future where the nation state framework recedes to the background makes them feel irrelevant. And they would like to fight back to keep the status quo for as long as they can. They know they are fighting a losing fight. They are fighting a tsunami with a spoon. But they will not be the first batch of people in history to take a last stand.
Old America is Britain. The pioneers of the Internet are like America's Founding Fathers. The battles can not be avoided. I am glad it will be a war of words.
