Kevin Kelly talking on “The Technium” as he calls it – the “cosmic force” of technology running right through evolution. I probably wouldn’t use his language, but I do agree – the anthropic angle of the self-organizing drive is just that, our perspective, as “the species that domesticated itself” in order to exploit that (otherwise natural) drive. We don’t invent it or control it we manage to ride it as best we can in the best directions we can.
As well as the web becoming literally an organism in every sense of the word, and the real way that both genetic and memetic (human) resources are co-evolving, rather than the latter taking over from the former, I was particularly taken with this “tipping point” kind of conclusion ….
We technophiles are no longer defined by the technologies and gadgets we take up and use (though using is still the key process of developing understanding and of exploiting) …
We are now increasingly defined by the process of which technologies we choose NOT to adopt.
Dead right … inclusion may be as important as selection, but de-selection is still a fundamental part of the evolutionary process.
This must be closely related to my view that good communication is about what not to communicate, in these days of socially connected everything.