Nexus Perplexus

A nexus is a single connection between things, facts or ideas.  A plexus is multiple ordered connections (often biological.)  We are living in a plexus world ... information-exchange connections are multiplying at a dizzying pace spawned mostly by the Internet and social-networking plexuses (plexi).  Two people can connect in only one way.  Three people can connect in three ways, but four people can connect in six ways ... and five people, in ten ways.  So how many ways can six billion people connect?  The answer is a number larger than all the grains of sand in all the beaches in the world.  This would be best called a "perplexus" as it is what the world seems to be rapidly approaching.  Facebook  and other social-networking sites could not build computer farms large enough to accommodate such an ultimate level of connectivity.

Previous information-exchange models went through hubs (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations) which dramatically reduced the number of connections to manageable levels ... but gave these hubs an enormous say in setting the information-exchange agenda.  Now, with the diminishing power of these former hubs, we are faced with the ironic consequences of what would be a totally "democratic" information-exchange world ... and that would be absolute chaos.  We have already witnessed precursors of such a new society in the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and the political fibrillation over how Western societies are to confront their current debt crises.  The world is trapped in an information maze with little understanding as to how to extract ourselves.  But extract ourselves we will ... as we always have.  But I, personally, am somewhat worried about what socities and information-exchange constructs will arise to deal with this new world order. 

Will they be benign or malignant?  (Or, more likely, just another way of promoting Lady Gaga?)