Team Human: Whose Global Village?

In the good old days, the big ethical conversation online centered on the “digital divide.”If only every African child had a laptop, the thinking went, then we’d get the universal equality promised by the Enlightenment. But that logic has also been consistently challenged by those of us who see more than a little bit of cultural and economic imperialism embedded on these devices and networks.

This week on Team Human, I speak with Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA professor and author of Whose Global Village: Rethinking How Technology Shapes Our World. He’s thought longer and deeper than I have about the impact of the net on aboriginal societies, as well as how indigenous peoples can use technology for their own benefit, rather than that of Facebook and Google.