According to Kevin Kelly, a former executive editor of Wired Magazine "the Web is only 5000 days old, and it went into what 10 years ago would have been considered impossible. He asks the question: what will happen in the next 5000 days? Fascinating. Right now, the entire linked computer system that forms the internet web (which he calls a single, global machine with lots of windows into it) has the approximate processing capacity of one human brain. But the brain isn’t doubling in power every two years like the web. By 2040 the processing power of this 'machine' will exceed the processing power of all of humanity. He anticipates COMPLETE global codependence upon the internet web over the next 5000 days."
(Tictactomm, help.com)
"There is only one machine. The web is its OS. All screens look into the one. No bits will live outside the web. To share is to gain. Let the one read it. The one is us." (Kevin Kelly)
[Technologically deterministic although still food for thought.]