Apr 24 2013: Speaking from the perspective of an I.T guy (not exactly an engineer). I've heard it argued that most of the growth in the software world is happening because of open source software ie. software that is free both in cost and the freedom to modify. Google? Based on OSS. Amazon, Facebook and Ebay? The same along with pretty much the entire world wide web, the cloud etc... Even Microsoft - a company famous for the control of IP has recently bought Skype and moved Skypes infrastructure to Linux which is an OSS operating system. When it comes to distributing the economic rewards our economy has largely ignored the people who have been responsible for this growth and has been rewarding the people who have been actively fighting against the post-scarcity world Erik talks about ie. those that use such words as "intellectual property" and "piracy".If you want another example just look at the music and entertainment industry. Hopefully the market realises they're being had and a switchover happens soon, although someone will need to come up with an economic model where the people resonsible get at least some reward... not to mention spread the benefits to the rest of society. I'm not particularly optomistic, after all this decoupling of productivity from economic benefit hasn't caused much of a change in the software world, and there it has been happening for 20 years. There are, however, some hopeful signs eg. independent videos getting ad revenue on Youtube - both the artist and consumers win.
Feb 5 2013: Victims often seem to perpetuate the crimes done against them. Sons often perpetrate the domestic violence of fathers. Many european jews founded a violent racist state after having escaped one themselves. Now Muammar Gaddafi's ghost haunts Libya, and he can't be killed again with a sword. Zahra' knows what spiritual power is required to lay him in the dust. Africa has shown us before that there can be some hope even after terrible violence and ethnic hatred (eg. South Africa, Rwanda). I hope people like Zahra' can help Libyans banish the savage legacy of Muammar Gaddafi from their hearts.
TEDCred score: +0.40 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.
A reply on Talk: Erik Brynjolfsson: The key to growth? Race with the machines
A comment on Talk: Zahra' Langhi: Why Libya's revolution didn't work -- and what might