We do not feel interpellated by the dual failure of hypercapital-
ism and the Third World because our societies see themselves as an
ephemeral but solid reticular environment made up of social ties
whose profusion compensates for their fragility. In this way, the In-
ternet would have made the sociological utopia of communism a
reality: a delicate balance between individual freedom and commu-
nal kindness—or at leastwhateversurrogate Facebook and Google+
can provide. Seventeenth-century philosophers used the metaphor
of a clock to describe the natural world and human subjectivity.
Today, social scientists use the metaphor of the Web to explain all
kinds of relationships, whether they are mediated by digital tech-
nology or not: immigration, labor, sex, culture, family . . .