Banks and large companies have cast the shadow of their influence on all known and imaginable human activities. Apart from Parliament and the House of Representatives, corporate power governs the world, legislates in its favour and establishes courts to resolve conflicts by applying rules to its own measure. Lex mercatoria nueva, investigated by Juan Hernández Zubizarreta and others.
In education systems, for example, they have been introduced to the core. In theory, they intended to introduce supposedly innovative methodologies and systems that would improve education. The truth is that they want and are managing to transform education according to their market interests; they do not say so, of course, they use a pleasant language of emotions and happiness.
Every student has a computer and in all classrooms there is a digital slate that works like a screen connected to the Internet. If the connection works, etc., it is very easy to see it, for example, a. C. A map of the Phoenician colonies of the 5th century, something applausible that hundreds of centuries could not dream of, we have at our disposal. But not for free.
Communication technologies have been structured around the power of big multinationals and their advertising. The public institutions that should protect us have not done so, but have made our data and our lives available to corporations. The price of seeing the map of Phoenician colonies on the classroom screen is to ingest tons of advertising. Normally, within the classroom, with the presence of the teacher. Cars, sneakers, banks, insurance, yogurts, anything.
The price of seeing the map of Phoenician colonies on the classroom screen is to ingest tons of advertising. Cars, sneakers, banks, insurance, yoghurt, anything
My professor Javier Echeverría a long time ago warned of the world coming to us. He clearly saw that what was called the "third environment," a digital and telematic human habitat, was being implanted, very different from what we knew until then. The first human environment was nature; the second was the polis, the urban space. Now (then) we are at the gates of an ignote terra, which had to be explored, but which was also built and organized. He realized that things were being structured in a way that could be called neopeudal: the powerful air lords, owners of the big companies in the technology and communications sector that were being created, were already asking for vassalage and servitude to others. The Navarro philosopher posed the following question: Could the third environment become a democratic city? It was possible, desirable and necessary. He made a series of proposals for the democratization of Telepolis and recalled that, in addition to the digital global city, local areas could be established in this third environment.
Private publishers and public institutions recognized, applauded and rewarded their work. But nobody did anything to stop these undemocratic processes. It has been three decades since Echeverría published his first reflections on this subject, enough time for the financial capitalism and the ultra-liberal ideology that accompanies him to completely destroy the three environments: nature, city and cloud. All we have achieved in the third environment is, more or less, the cooperation that takes place in Wikipedia. The rest is a harsh and desperate jungle. And it is better not to know what we accept when we click (once a day).
Now, the researches of Echeverría and other great teachers of the time have been taking a different direction, they talk about innovation and the knowledge economy, in excellent conferences and interviews at the bank and business foundations, available online, to see in class on digital screens.