Sunday, January 18, 2004

Christopher Lydon Interviews Tim Berners-Lee: "Sir Tim uses the word 'fractal' a lot. We live in a fractal world, he kept saying, meaning a world of many levels of structure, where the shapes of mountains often resemble the shapes of sand grains at a different scale; or giant clouds replicate tiny puffs of steam, or human communities at the village level tell you about affinities and tensions at a global level. One of his most compelling digressions was the thought that we should organize our days accordingly. We should live some part of our lives in each of the human orders of magnitude: from the family unit of six to the global population of six billion. Spend a few moments of the day with a consciousness of our individuality, then our closest family circle, our 60-member squad, platoon or company, our 600-member association, our 6000-citizen village in a 60,000-citizen city, in a 600,000 metropolitan area in a 6-million member state; then: our 60-million nation on a 600-million continent, and on to our full species extension. "



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