We had the good fortune to wander into a Jason Lanier talk at Book Passages in Corte Madera a few weeks ago.  He is a sight to see, overweight, white and a head of massive dreadlocks.  What really grips, however, is what he has to say — observations and analysis of our digital world, from a very informed and wide-ranging mind, and years of experience in the very world he is warning us about.  Here he gives the thumb-nail version of his book-long argument in “Who Owns the Future?”.

“TWO big trends in the world appear to contradict each other.

On the one hand, computer networks are said to be disrupting centralized power of all kinds and giving it to the individual. Customers can bring corporations to their knees by tweeting complaints. A tiny organization like WikiLeaks can alarm the great powers with nothing but encryption and net access. Young Egyptians can organize a nearly instant revolution with their mobile phones and the Internet.

But then there’s the other trend. Inequality is soaring in rich countries around the world, not just the United States. Money from the top 1 percent has flooded our politics. The job market in America has been hollowed out; unpaid internships are common and “entry-level” jobs seem to last a lifetime, while technical and management posts become ever more lucrative. The individual appears to be powerless in the face of tough prospects.

Both trends are real, and they are related. The disruption and decentralization of power coincides with an intense and seemingly unbounded concentration of power. What at first glance looks like a contradiction makes perfect sense once one understands the nature of modern power.