ABSTRACT
Whereas several millennia ago humanity consisted of tens of thousands of people living in small nomadic bands, today humanity consists of billions of people linked together by Earth-spanning social structures. If the information necessary to use information technologies were to suddenly fade from our memories, these structures would collapse and most of humanity would die within a few months. The survivors would exist in small clusters in threat of extinction. In light of that possible consequence, why is it that social scientists have devoted so little effort to the analysis of information technologies and social orders?
