As far back as we can look into prehistory, concentrated acts of knowledge sharing within a specific domain have been framed by ritual practices. Indigenous Australians continue the Paleolithic traditions of “women’s business” and “men’s business”, which refer to ritually-constrained bodies of knowledge, intended to be shared only within the context of a specific community of ritually purified (and thereby connected) individuals. These domains characteristically reflect gender-specific cultural practices: typically, women communicate knowledge of plants and gathering practices, while men invest themselves in the specifics of navigation and the hunt. These two knowledge domains are strongly defended by taboo; ‘secret women’s business’ is forbidden to men (or ritually impure women), and vice versa.
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Hyperconnectivity does not acknowledge the presence of these ritual structures; humans connect directly, immediately and pervasively, without respect to any of the cultural barriers to contact. There is neither inside nor outside. The entire space of human connection collapses to a point, as everyone connects directly to everyone else, without mediation. This hyperconnectivity leads to hyperdistributed sharing, first at random, then with ever-increasing levels of salience.
from a great article by Mark Pesce: The New Toolkit