Before I start, this is not a debate about Darwinism vs creationist vs anything else. Today I want to tackle another point where the preacher, governments, do not believe in what he professes.
Of all the countries I lived in, the governments teaches all our young kids about Darwin and the rules he declared regarding evolution and how everything in our history must necessarily revolve around it.Yet, the governments are also the first ones to oppose evolution and do everything to remain in a prehistoric stage hoping to save some dinosaurs. However great and beautiful these creatures may be, I am happy that dinosaurs do not walk the face of the earth and over my house today. They have certainly served their purpose in their time to shape the world as it is today, but their time is now over and I would oppose anyone wanting to create a Jurassic Park, except if it's a film.
So what are some of our dinosaurs today ?
Multimedia
The first ones to be hit by the Internet era are certainly music and movies giants. They did not anticipate it, they where unsettled by 'pirates' and still wage war today against new generation of multimedia distribution. They have recently forced Grooveshark to close down in lack of working a viable arrangement. With the plethora of music and video platforms many new artist are able to surface where before the industry would have prevented them to succeed. For us it means a much more democratic and accessible entertainment. Yet some still fight over their old marketing and sales strategy rather than embrace the new possibilities.Thanks to netflix, youtube, etc.. you can access the videos you want at the moment you want, with or without ads. Yet the CRTC in Canada is trying to control what we see and trying to pass laws against this evolution - which is directly in opposition with Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 2. In other countries Netflix had to fight battles to overcome some countries regulations. Although, if today most of the battles are won, there are still some discrimination per countries. In the Age of Internet it is still a dinosaur to kill: there should be no frontiers. Same goes with bluRay zones, which should be illegal discrimination, yet the government do nothing about it.
Maps
May be turning to Google maps or Microsoft's alternative is something natural today, but there were still paper made companies that complained against Google for unlawful competition. Seriously ?! Yeah... like it's not their fault that they laid back on their profit without any consideration whatsoever to stay competitive and accommodate better the clients. This dinosaur really had to die.Taxis vs Uber
The dinosaurs are not the taxis drivers, but the companies and governments who pretty much own them. Uber makes it so simple to get a ride from one place to another, yet we can see in France, in Canada and probably other countries a huge opposition.In Canada it's simple, it comes down to money: the licence for a taxis driver is the price of a house ! You pretty much mortgage your next 30-40 years to the governments for the right to be a taxis driver. Not that the governments makes anything better for the drivers. It is extremely complex and costly to get an insurance for a taxi driver. They are probably also the worst drivers in town.
In France they are forcing the private Uber driver to return to their home base after each run... so much for global warming and Paris traffic jams !
So this dinosaur has to evolve too, if it's not Uber, then let's have a country equivalent. It is much better for user to rate their drivers and have an efficient and convenient way of traveling then the age old Flintstone taxi where everyone had to run.
And many more...
Now I could go on and on with many more examples: such as cars evolution, drones, google books project, self driving cars, robotics, google glass, encyclopedias, etc... The internet era is a new type of renaissance, and many companies and governments are just not prepared. Now, being unprepared can happen, but they have two choices, fight against progress or embrace it. Sadly most decide to fight it. To those dinosaur that will not evolve, I say, please accept your incompetence silently or change. Governments should not impede such progress but motivate it. But they often are the biggest progress stopper because they are slow and are manipulated by companies that have placed politicians where they are today.Governments
Democracy is the voice of the people for the people. Yet we see a decline of interest in elections. The new generation feels so disconnected and even betrayed by the politicians today. Voting for a party sometimes sums up to voting for a color, but not the way you can wear it.In the Internet Era, democracy should not happen once every 5 years. It should happen regularly, to be truly the voice of the people for the people. I personally like the solution of Pia Mancini regarding modern democracy on TED . If you do not want to see it (though you really should) to sum up the goal is to have people participate actively and simply in the laws voted in parliaments or equivalents.
On top of her suggestion I would add that politicians should be held accountable. They are paid with our money. They do not make money by themselves, we are the work force producing services and products that makes the money in the country. We pay for them to represent us, they make promises to represent us in such or such a way, yet once voted, they may very well do as they are pleased without any consequences. This is called false advertising and it is ILLEGAL.
If the people may vote for every law and hold accountable their elected, then we would transform a wannabe democracy into a true democracy, or also called webocracy.
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