For me, the promise of the Internet has always been the way it can foster global communities in which the anonymity of the experience allows ideas to stand on their own merit, no longer limited by people’s inability to discount their preconceived notions and biases concerning the concept’s creator. On the Web it doesn’t matter if you’re a Man or Woman; Young or Old; Rich or Poor; Black or White (or anything else), if your idea is a good one it can be recognized as such. Forgive me for waxing philosophical, but this virtual, global think tank approach seems a pretty big step towards a true marketplace of ideas.
In it’s current form, Howzabout.org may seem on the surface to serve the fairly trivial mission of car improvement, but if examined a bit closer you can see that energy policy and personal safety of motorists is more often than not where an “improvement” pays off. With any luck, joining a discussion about how cars could be better will spill over into our other conversations, focusing our collective intellect and energy on how to make all manner of goods and services better as well….
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