This time not the library, but an Oxfam bookshop provided me with the chance to read a third offering from Paul Mason. I continue to rate him much above other radical left thinkers I have come across personally - and a good writer to boot. Yet I am unconvinced about abundant information leading in a generally socialist direction, whatever free stuff may already be emerging in the current information scene. Indeed, some argue that much of the free material is not really 'free' at all, but draws in our data for advertising.
Guessing the future is one of the trickiest things anyone can attempt in this treacherous world. Mason expressed hopes for gender equality (Postcapitalism published in 2015), but it has taken just a few years to muddy the river there. In turn, abundant information (perhaps not accompanied by an end of scarcity across the board) might come with more radical changes in the human condition. Joe Rogan's politics (and ethics) seem a long way from Paul Mason's, but if he were to be proved right that we are destined to merge with machines, then arguments - for instance against socialism - based on 'human nature' might become irrelevant.
Terfs and Trans campaigners beware.