secure and rule personal expansion through technology. We will consider in a later chapter the evolutionary characteristics that this leap-frogging of technology represents, but we can introduce the concept here.

The evolutionary principles that one can see within religious organizations are often found within business infrastructures as well. There are well-defined life cycles within the business community in general, and within its technological components specifically, that often manifest themselves through the widespread adoption of new technologies in favor of incremental evolution of older technologies. If a technological mutation falls on particularly fertile grounds, perhaps from a sociological point of view, the results can be a very strong reinforcement of the specific mutation through group selection mechanisms. We consider this model as particularly appropriate for viewing private computing as a technological mutation with its acceptance in China.

Found within the archeological record of China are early examples of abstractions of the human identity; visualizations of that aspect of the human condition that attempts to distinguish us from the other animals and portray us as permanent, supernatural beings in our own right. Jinsha village is a suburb of the capital city of Sichuan Province. In 2001, ruins were discovered that dated back 3,000 years. Unearthed from the ruins were artifacts covering a wide range of media as well as very diverse segments of the society of ancient China. The artifacts were replete with intricate detail and made use of materials and art-form expressions that are relevant even in today’s world. They represent to us the fact that human expression has evolved less over the last few thousand years than has the technology that we can use to extend that expression.

The use of individual devices in China cuts across all aspects of Chinese society, from cultural to economic to political. In the Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of the former British colony of Hong Kong and the former Portuguese colony of Macau, chip cards have been strongly adopted in two distinct realms. Found in the financial venue, the Octopus Card in Hong Kong is a contactless card, i.e. a card communicating with radio waves, which is used as a bearer’s electronic purse. At specific kiosks throughout the city cash can be loaded onto the card. The card can then be used for a wide variety of cash-oriented transactions, ranging from paying for a subway or train ride to purchasing groceries at a convenience food market. The transactions are fast, which benefits the consumer and they are cashless, which benefits the vendor.

On the legal front, electronic identity cards are being introduced to speed the movement of people between the special administration regions and mainland China. Effecting the philosophy of “one country, two systems,” the legal framework of mainland China is significantly different from that in the Special Administration Regions. As a consequence, the movement of citizens between the regions is monitored and controlled, much as the movement of people among different sovereign states is monitored and controlled throughout the rest of the world. Electronic identity cards are being used in large-scale pilot programs to facilitate the movement across borders. This is quite analogous to the extension of Machine-Readable Travel Documents (MRTD) used by member countries of the Visa Waiver Program, of which the United States is a prime mover. These electronic credentials, when fully deployed, offer the possibility to speed travelers through passport checkpoints with enhanced identity authentication and yet ostensibly minimal inconvenience to the traveler. The goal, of course being enhanced authentication of the identities of the travelers for the states involved.

If China represents the opportunities of the marketplace, contributions to the fountain of technological innovation come from many societies, both cultural and economic. While cellular telephony derived its early pilot deployments within the United States, it was really the

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