The majority of people are unaware of this, but humanity has recently passed the greatest fork in our evolution since before we evolved from apes.There are basically three forms of life from a social standpoint. Those that are solitary and rarely interact with their own species other than mating, those that organize themselves socially in a hierarchical group, and those that live in swarms.
For over a million years humanity has organized itself hierarchically. Family units were hierarchical, tribes were hierarchical, chiefdoms, kingdoms, countries, corporations, schools, government. However, recently, things have fundamentally changed and the shock waves are emanating through society.
The Internet, globalization, cell phones, email, instant chat, wikis, blogs, Facebook, MMPOG, SourceForge, have given a subset of humanity the ability to interact and collaborate with others on a massive scale. This is starting to fundamentally alter our society and species, we are becoming a swarm.
Ants, bees, wildebeest herds, live in large interconnected groups. This fascinating realm of scientific study is called swarm theory.
Although there is a "Queen" ant, this is just an honorary title and does not come with any power. If one studies swarms the interesting thing is that no one is in charge, of anything, at all. Each individual interacts with those around them in the swarm, and this interaction gives the swarm a greater intelligence and power that no single of the individuals could ever hope to obtain on their own. A herd of thousands of wildebeest can migrate hundreds of kilometers to the exact location of their mating ground with only a small number of herd knowing the direction. Ants can harvest a large area around their nest optimally for food without any plan nor ant managing the operation. Evolution proves that a swarm is the best organization for a very large interconnected group, just as it proves a hierarchy is the best origination for a small group.
If one looks at the new communities emerging over the Internet lately they exhibit the same behavior as a swarm. This has triggered a new economical model, one that has allowed open source software projects to compete with, rival, and replace some of the most sophisticated software products produced by the largest corporations, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Tomcat, Eclipse, Wikimedia, Jboss, OpenOffice. This is not just a computer software fad, it is permeating every industry from bio technology to manufacturing. Publishing companies are having to compete with Wikimedia and other wikis, record labels are competing with independent music and MP3tunes, auto makers no longer make most of the automobile but instead assemble thousands of part from independent producers.
This is just the beginning, this is not just a new economic model, this is a new way of life. Not only will every industry be “open sourced” but so will government, schools, communities, families and religion.
There are already several new open source religions, the Church of Reality, Yoism, wayism to name a few. There are also countless religious groups on Yahoo Groups, Google and Facebook, as well as religious wiki communities such as the Religion Wiki, where anyone can create their own new religion, or join a community of a existing one.
This is by no means a fad of new religions, traditional religions are embracing the Internet and massive online collaboration through websites, wikis, groups, online churches, online communities and online services. Annotated versions of the Bible, the Koran and other religious texts are emerging, allowing anyone to discuss, question or collaborate on the meaning of the text. This is the golden age of religion, for the first time allowing religion to represent the true soul of the people, not handed down from a hierarchy of priests, monks, clerics, popes, kings, governments and God.
