Stealth

Let’s locate the greatest vulnerability of the “knowledge economy.” Easy. It’s ignorance. In a globalized and digitized world, we are awash in what might be called “microknowledge”: data bases, music downloads and financial transactions, eBay’s annual listings are now approaching 2 billion, almost five times the level in 2001. Half are outside the United States; from 12 percent to 15 percent of final sales involve cross-border purchases. But then there’s “macroknowledge,” meaning the great forces that move history: the impact of new ideas, mass movements and technologies; changes in political and social systems; the evolution of geopolitical relations; the transformation of cultures. Here we are where we’ve always been: we’re in the dark.

Samuelson, Robert J. - The Stealth Factor, in «Issues 2006», Nova Iorque: Newsweek, 2005, p 74 – 75.