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12 Manuel Castellsnetworks connecting places by information and communication flows, as Iwill elaborate below.Under the informational paradigm, the capacity for any communicatingsubject to act on the communication network gives people and organizationsthe possibility of reconfiguring the network according to their needs, desires,and projects. Yet (and this is fundamental) the reconfiguring capacity for eachsubject depends on the pattern of power present in the configuration of thenetwork.I will elaborate more succinctly on the second component of the informationand communication technology revolution: genetic engineering. Iconsider its potential consequences as more far reaching than those alreadyinduced by the digital revolution in the structure and dynamics of society. Thisis because it affects the programs of life, and therefore the basis of our existence.However, its effects have been less diffused throughout the entire socialstructure because of the nature of its implications which have led to institutionalresistance to their application; and also because its true breakthroughsrequired further advancements in the digital revolution, whose technologiesare essential for the qualitative development of biological research (as wasshown by the decisive role played by massive, parallel computing in the elaborationof the Human Genome Project).While genetic engineering is often considered as an independent processfrom the information technology revolution, it is not. First, from an analyticalperspective, these technologies are obviously information technologies,focused on the decoding and actual reprogramming of DNA, the code of livingmatter. And since biologists know that cells do not work in isolation, the realissue is to understand their networks of communication. Thus, genetic engineeringis both an information and a communication technology, very much asdigital electronics.Secondly, there is a direct, methodological connection between the tworevolutions. Computer models, and computing power, are the tools of trade ingenetic engineering nowadays, so that microbiologists, bio-engineers, electricalengineers, chemical engineers, and computer scientists are all essentialcomponents of the daring teams attempting to unearth the secrets of life – andin some cases to play God. On the other hand, bio-chips and DNA-basedchemically operated computing processes are the foundations of a new formof digital processing and molecular electronics, leading the way to the diffusionof nanotechnology, and, eventually, to the spread of nanobots, in a wholerange of applications, including the repair and maintenance of the humanbody.Thirdly, there is a theoretical convergence between the two technologicalfields around the analytical paradigm based on networking, complexity, selforganization,and emergent properties, as illustrated some time ago by the