I see that wherever there's stupidity, Andrew Keen is likely to be present. Last week, he addressed the terrifying possibility of universal broadband:

Universal broadband as the American railroads 2.0? I'm far from convinced. The railroads provided transportation to settle the West and to both build and link up new communities. In contrast, broadband provides a very different kind of transportation -- one that allows individuals to escape their physical communities, to create virtual loyalties, to lose their identities in the narcissistic chaos of cyberspace. Broadband penetration throughout America will actually kill most local retail stores, it will fatally undermine local newspapers, it will destroy local television and radio stations. No, rather than the railroads, broadband is more akin to the triumph of automotive culture in the first half of the 20th century, a development which destroyed the railroads and undermined the economic and cultural viability of small town America.

Umm, yeah. Had Keen been around in 1900, he woould have been decrying the spread of the "demon telephone". Keen should stick to something he knows. Trouble is, I'm not sure such a subject exists.

Technorati Tags: luddism