Chapter 23
GOD TECHNOLOGY
In Short
- Why everyone will be famous for 15 people, not 15 minutes.
- How come some people argue that Google is God?
- What determines if a new social technology is here to stay and worth your time?
Overview
In this chapter serial internet entrepreneur Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten discusses how the web, and technology, is making us more divine. How technology makes us more god-like and how we can judge what is “good” technology by comparing it to the kind of abilities a god would have.
There are five attributes to what makes a god a god. You would have to be omniscient (all-knowing), omnipresent (everywhere at once), omnibenevolent (always good), omnipotent (can do everything) and immortal (no physical presence). Technology and social media help us achieve those five things and, thus, make us more god-like.
You’ve come all the way to the last chapter in this book and no doubt you’ve gained a lot of knowledge and picked up some extremely useful tips. So now what? Where is the world of social media heading? How do you apply all that knowledge and what does it all lead to? How durable is this new phenomenon exactly and how much time and effort should we all invest in keeping up and taking advantage of it? These are tough questions to answer, but I’m planning on offering you a basic and simple formula to make sense of it all. Long story short: ask yourself if a technology makes you more divine.
I know, that last sentence begs for some ...
