ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

If you have made it this far you will realise this is not an academic text. My choice of subjects and themes has been largely subjective, based on the simple criteria: is this interesting? I recognise that this exposes the book to criticism for lacking rigour and opens me to the charge of, in the words of one my generous readers, creating a ‘breathtaking work of feel-pinion’. I hope the balance for this charge is that I have constructed a story that genuinely reflects my experience of living through a time of profound technological disruption. This is a long-winded way of saying: while this book is the product of the ideas and energy of the people who shared their insights, I take full responsibility for any omissions or inaccuracies contained in the final text.

I would particularly like to thank those who generously offered me their time and trust to share their stories: Andy Kell, Aya Larkin, Pia Andrews, Evan Thornley, Stephen Mayne, Kate Lundy, Anna-Maria Arabia, Mark Vincent, Brad Chilcott and Lenore Taylor. Alan Hamilton in particular was generous in sharing the thinking that he has published in an e-book titled Digital Colonialism: A survival guide. I would also like to thank Peter Ross, David Barrow, Tim Harcourt and Bob Carr for speaking to me in the context of my research and providing me with some valuable insights.

I have listed a number of books and articles in the body of the text, several of which have provided whatever intellectual ballast this book may hold. In particular I would endorse: Andrew Leigh’s Disconnected, Robert Reich’s The Work of Nations and Saving Capitalism, Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society, Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A brief history of humankind, Jeff Sparrow’s Trigger Warnings, John Naughton’s A Brief History of the Future, Susan Pinker’s The Village Effect, Robert Manne’s Cypherpunk Revolutionary, Larry Rosen’s iDisorder, Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism, Yosai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man and Identity, and Franklin Foer’s World Without Mind. I also drew on a large number of articles which invariably came from three sources: the New York Times , The Atlantic and The Guardian, further evidence of the ongoing importance of quality journalism.

A number of people whose opinion I truly value reviewed parts or all of this text and provided valuable feedback: Ant Sharwood, Tony Moore, David Jamieson, Sid Marris, Gina Thompson, Rachel Duke, Tim Lester and my wife, Ann King. My ‘mystery reader’ Tom Dusevic gave me invaluable advice to ‘tighten up’, something I only partly heeded, and also suggested the book’s wonderful title. Linda Funnell did a remarkable job in editing the text and cleaning up its many rough edges. But no-one was more influential in helping me shape my thoughts and encouraging me to turn what had begun as an angst-ridden attempt to explain Generation X into something so much more interesting than Phillipa McGuinness, the publisher at NewSouth.

I would also like to thank all the members of my own social network, my friends and work colleagues at Essential, particularly my business partner Tony Douglas, for their role in our shared journey. Also all the comrades who worked with me in those heady days of Workers Online when the web first inspired me with its potential to transform the world, in particular my ‘e-change’ collaborator, Michael Gadiel. But most of all, my family – Ann, Lucia and Frank – who live it with me every day with love and everything else that goes with that.

Finally, if you would like to keep the discussion going and explore ways of making good on what has become this manifesto of sorts, please visit <www.webtopiabook.com> or contact me on Twitter @PeterLewisEMC.

And, yes, I do get the irony of moving the discussion online.

Peter Lewis