There is a more interesting aspect of that which is: are some of the outputs of the more technological areas - the open source movement and things like that - creating wholly new possibilities for human creative and economic expression? And, they might be. I don't think we know yet. I think it's too early to tell. We have seen the basis of the Western economy and hence of the global economy move online (become digital) over the past twenty years. As Marx would put it, the economic base has shifted. We are seeing the superstructures move now to reflect that. The idea of economic determinism is not right at every point in history but certainly the world we live in now is a post-capitalist world. We still use the word capitalism to describe it but in fact the economy works in a slightly different way and we are going to need a new word for it. In that world – we have a new economic base – we will find new ways of being. And we will start to see an impact in art and culture, in forms of religious expression. You know we haven't yet seen a technologically based religion and it is about time we saw something emerge where the core precepts rely on the technology.

Watch for the second part of the interview with Bill Thompson, which will focus on issues like political economy of the Internet and copyright law.