A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity

Capa
PublicAffairs, 05/08/2007 - 272 páginas
Great leaps forward in scientific understanding have, throughout history, engendered similar leaps forward in how we understand ourselves. Now, the new hybrid disciplines of evolutionary biology and social physics are making the next leap possible -- and fundamentally altering our notions of individual identity. If identity is a fact not derived from within the individual, but conferred on an individual by a group, or network, a host of assumptions about how governments work, how conflicts arise and are resolved, and how societies can be coaxed toward good are overturned.

John Clippinger brilliantly illuminates how the Enlightenment itself -- the high point of individual assertiveness -- was a product not just of a few moments of individual inspiration and creativity, but rather of a societal shift that allowed innovation and creativity to flourish. Michelangelo owes quite as much to the circumstances of the Renaissance as the Renaissance does to the work of Michelangelo.

Now, the digitalization of society, which affects all of us already, allows new insight into these questions: What does it require for societies, organizations and individuals, to thrive? Who decides who you are? How can happiness be shared and spread? Who can you trust?

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Direitos de autor

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Palavras e frases frequentes

Passagens conhecidas

Página 133 - Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, Whole in himself, a common good. Mourn for the man of amplest influence, Yet clearest of ambitious crime, Our greatest yet with least pretence, Great in council and great in war, Foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.
Página 50 - How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
Página 49 - By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security ; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Página 12 - To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent: that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where no law, no injustice.
Página 49 - ... led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it.
Página 82 - The effects of those different geniuses and talents, for want of the power or disposition to barter and exchange, cannot be brought into a common stock, and do not in the least contribute to the better accommodation and conveniency of the species.
Página 18 - I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country...
Página 93 - This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.
Página 50 - ... see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner. That we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others, is a matter of fact too obvious to require any instances to prove it ; for this sentiment, like all the other original passions of human nature, is by no means confined to the virtuous and humane, though they perhaps may feel it with the most exquisite sensibility. The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society, is not altogether without it.
Página 94 - No man, nor corporation or association of men, have any other title to obtain advantages or particular and exclusive privileges distinct from those of the community than what arises from the consideration of services rendered to the public...

Acerca do autor (2007)

John Henry Clippinger is a Senior Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society where he directs a program on open security and digital identity which under the social physics project (www. socialphysics.org) supported the development of an open source, interoperability identity framework called Higgins to and to give people control over their personal information. John also conducts multi-disciplinary research and workshops with the Gruter Institute (www.gruterinstitute.org) and the Aspen Institute (www.aspeninstitute.org) on the impact of trust, reciprocity, reputation, social signaling on the formation of digital institutions.

John has consulted on networked organizations to the Command and Control Research Program (CCRP) in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Networks, Information and Integration). Previously, he was CEO of Context Media LLC, a knowledge management software and services company and Director, Intellectual Capital, at Coopers & Lybrand (now Price Waterhouse Coopers). Prior to joining Coopers & Lybrand, he was CEO of Brattle Research Corporation, which developed artificial intelligence, language processing and search software. He is author/editor of the book, The Biology of Business: Decoding the Natural Laws of Enterprise (Jossey-Bass, 1999) and the author of Meaning and Discourse: A Computational Model of Psychoanalytic Discourse (Johns Hopkins, 1977).

John is a graduate of Yale University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member and regular participant of the Pentagon sponsored Highland Forum, The Aspen Institute, CEO Leadership Institute of Yale University School of Management, and The Santa Fe Institute Business Network.

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