dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle's blog

This method of enforcing order with citizen compliance requires many badges and assorted uniforms. In extreme cases, specific headgear also may be required.

While the protests in Egypt were swelling last week, Douglas Engelbart was dying from kidney failure in his home in Atherton, Calif. at the age of 88. Engelbart led a revolution of a different sort by inventing the computer mouse in 1963.

Less egalitarian societies tend to be more innovative. The rich innovate for status. (“Automatic sprinklers!”) The poor innovate for survival. (“Dung-fired stoves!”) Inequality will produce societal wealth more quickly than equality, barring an implosion of insurrection. Witness the Cold War.