The internet has enabled lots of positive changes with finance. It's enabled average people to trade in stocks and bonds, something most Americans have never had access to in the past. Whether or not giving average Americans the ability to lose all their income in the stock market thanks to internet trading isn't really in the scope this discussion.
However, the internet has also made it easier for malicious traders to engage in so-called "pump and dump" schemes. A nefarious trader purchases many shares of a security with low value, then goes online to promote the security, promising news of a major announcement in an effort to drive the stock price up. They go online to investor chat rooms, often the same type of chat rooms that are used by pedophiles to prey on children, or message boards, and under a false persona give unwarranted praise and credit to the stock. When the readers are conned into purchasing the phony stock and raise its value, the nefarious trader sells all his shares for a profit.
I'm not comparing Lee Siegel to a pump and dump trader, having promoted his own writings under a false identity on The New Republic's Talkback section of its website. Resorting to ad hominem attacks and rhetorical tricks to persuade isn't what this post is about.
It should be pretty clear by now that I'm not a huge fan of Siegel's, though I've been reading him since before he was banned (and later reinstated) from writing at The New Republic. His sensational writing is extremely entertaining and provides interesting commentary, though his portrayal of the implications of democratic social media as portrayed in Against the Machine is fatally flawed.
It seems to be a hot trend to rail against the internet, but not in the neo-luddite sense that Ted Kaczynski would, but in a rather hip way centered around the idea that technology isn't just dangerous to what makes people fundamentally human, but that it devalues "art". Like Cult of the Amateur author Andrew Keen, Siegel makes a rather perverse and often baffling argument which centers on the antidemocratic notion that all people should not be given access to the same empowering forms of expression as the present social elite.
Leaving aside Siegel's flawed notions such as that the principal interactions of the internet are driven by commerce, it is architected in such a way that there are no longer social barriers (and thus cues), etc., the continuous undercurrent is that allowing individuals to amplify their interactions is harmful.
As the vilified Doug Rushkoff has asserted, the rise of the internet and the simultaneous cultural changes are tantamount to a rennisance in that it has brought about a shift in the way we think about perspective. The printing press was revolutionary because it empowered the broad dissemination of knowledge in an inexpensive way. It then empowered more individuals to disseminate knowledge. The internet empowers us all to be writers, publishers, creators. We don't realize that what we do as humans is disseminate information, even when engaging in physical trade. In the essence of every object is an idea, the Platonic form, which, when manifested is the physical good. We've always lived in a world where the survival of ideas was paramount. Only now the spread of ideas is democratized, and those who can get their ideas to spread best are the ones who will thrive. Only now, it's not physical force, but the ideas spreading largely by their own merits. We've created a way for ideas to spread semi-organically. It also happens to empower social relations. It also happens to enhance education. It also happens to aid in bringing a higher standard of living.
Now note that throughout this criticism, I've done little more than criticize based upon my own assertions and prior knowledge. I do little to take some of Siegel's assertions and spin them my own way. Granted, some of these are exaggerated to bring light to some of Siegel's techniques, but fundamentally, I've engaged in a similar practice to his writing. Sometimes it's just too easy.
p.s.
Lee, if this sets off your Google Alert, I just want you to know that I don't hate you.
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