23 original thinkers who will shape 2010

For me, as much as looking forward, the New Year is about looking backward and asking myself, "what if?"

What if, instead of demanding that air travelers throw out their shampoo bottles and take off their shoes, we approached airport security like we do data security? What if instead of a bank bail-out, de-regulation was rolled back? What if peer-to-peer file sharing was embraced by Big Content instead of fought tooth and nail? What if we invested as many resources, as much money and effort into technological, scientific and medical research as we did defense research?

What if we paid attention to the right people, instead of to the loudest people? Or those with the best ideas, not necessarily the most power?

Here's my list, in order relative to my compulsion for following what they're up to:

#1 - Bruce Schneier - cryptographer and computer security specialist. Beyond his research in computer security and cryptography, he understands exactly how it applies beyond its own realm, and to security policy - and life - more generally. In an otherwise uncertain, hysterical and self-serving world, Schneier provides a much needed dose of rational precaution, skepticism and analysis. http://www.schneier.com

#2 - The Google Trinity - Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt. In just ten years, Google has single-handedly redefined the Internet as an engine of communication and economic growth, and looks set to do the same for the mobile web and cloud computing. Whether you affectionately refer to them as the Goog or not so affectionately as Big Brother, if the hive mind had a triumvirate guiding and enabling it right now, it would be these three. http://www.google.com/

#3 - Steve Jobs - Apple. Not to be overshadowed, Apple has continued to be a force to be reckoned with on numerous fronts, largely thanks to the continued influence of Steve Jobs. Without a doubt the iPod and iPhone will be seen as the trend-setting machines of the early 21st century, much as Ford's Model T was at the outset of the last. Steve Jobs continues to have a way of captivating users on a mass scale. http://www.apple.com/

#4 - Wikileaks. Founded in December 2006 by Chinese dissidents, the site has one goal: to provide a secure, anonymous conduit for leakers of sensitive, classified and damning information about oppressive or corrupt governments and entities everywhere. By January 2010, their database has swelled to over 1.2 million documents. Currently, Wikileaks is overloaded and is soliciting donations to remain operational, if you are so inclined... http://wikileaks.org/

#5 - Matt Taibbi - reporter, Rolling Stone. Taibbi makes my list for a few reasons, including, according to Wikipedia: "In 2004, while Taibbi followed the democratic campaign of the 2004 US presidential election, he wore a gorilla suit in front of campaign staffers and took LSD at a major debate." He played pro-baseball in Moscow and then pro-basketball in Mongolia. He was kicked out of Uzbekistan in 1992 for writing critical stories about President Islam Karimov - you know, the guy who boils people he doesn't like alive. But more than anything, Taibbi makes the list as a person to pay attention to this year because he is lefty journalist who is intelligently calling out many of Obama's policies for what they are: a big fat sellout. http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/

#6 - Paul Krugman - Nobel Prize-winning economist and I-told-you-so'er. If you ever want to know what the liberal base in America feels about something, you just have to read Krugman's blog. Critical of both the compulsive deregulation of the Clinton years and the most recent corporate bail outs, his November 2007 book The Conscience of a Liberal is a definite New Year's resolution read - if only because Krugman is one of the few thinkers out there who can still genuinely get away with calling himself one while keeping a straight face. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

#7 - Randall Munroe - cartoonist, xkcd. The web comic xkcd has become what the best comic should be: both a reflection of and a remedy for its audience's anxieties, dreams, curiosity and daily monotonies. But more than this, Randall Munroe (with an unspecified degree in physics and a predilection for standing around awkwardly at clubs and parties) teaches us things about math, the arts, physics, cosmology, relationships and computer science - all through the lens of little stick figure people. In a word, awesome. http://xkcd.com/

#8 - The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Preserving freedom of expression online is crucial to defending liberty in the real world; the two are dependent on each other. The EFF has been at the forefront of open content, free expression, individual rights and digital privacy issues at a time when there was little established legal precedent in a specifically digital setting. The arguments they advance and shape now will continue to be used in the century to come in online/Internet case law, just as arguments advanced by progressive lawyers in the early 20th century advanced our concept of how the First Amendment applies to individual speech. Well worth tracking. http://www.eff.org/

#9 - Jane Silber - Canonical. The break out Linux distribution of the last decade has to be the Debian-derived Ubuntu distro. With development funded by entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu became the hottest distro at a time when the old steadies of RedHat/Fedora and OpenSuse began to look stodgy in comparison. And while Shuttleworth was circling the globe promoting Ubuntu and other projects (often literally), it was Jane Silber as Chief Operating Officer for Canonical who kept the ship afloat. She is set to take over as Canonical CEO in March 2010, one month before the much anticipated version 10.04 is released. http://www.canonical.com/aboutus/team

#10 - Nomi Prins - author, It Takes a Pillage and Other People's Money. I tend to like hearing from anyone who goes against the grain - right wingers who support the President, left wingers who oppose him - because anything else simply does not require enough intellectual effort. Nomi Prins is one of those progressives who stuck to her principles despite the fact that Obama won the election, but deserves a nod not for that alone. http://www.nomiprins.com/

#11 - Neil deGrasse Tyson - astrophysicist and social butterfly. If there is anyone on this list I most want to tell: "You sir, are the man," it's him. A noted astrophysicist and rumored candidate for head of NASA, in his free time he solves Rubik's cubes on the Daily Show, spars with Stephen Colbert and debunks 2012 conspiracists, all with an incredible sense of humor. http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/

#12 - Anthony Bourdain - chef, traveler, street philosopher. More than just a cooking show host or food writer, Bourdain is a fantastic travel writer in the truest craftsman sense of the term, able to completely capture the seemingly mundane and common subjects before him and approach them each from the perspective of an adventurer. That sense of adventure stands out in his writing and his television show, No Reservations, such as filming on location in Lebanon as Israeli jets bombed Beirut in 2006...and deciding to keep filming the whole experience. An accomplished chef of over 28 years with an astounding depth of gourmet knowledge, Bourdain is anything but snobbish, and has an amazing love of all cuisine - especially peasant or local "street" food - that makes most foodies look prudish and juvenile by comparison. http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Anthony_Bourdain

#13 - Nate Silver - fivethirtyeight. If you track politics, you check fivethirtyeight. And if you check fivethirtyeight, you know that Nate Silver knows what he is talking about. A statistician originally working with baseball stats, he created his site in 2008 to track the Preseidential election cycle. And correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states - the exception was Indiana, which voted for a Democrat for the first time since 1964. Nate Silver is the one to watch for 2010 election stats.

#14 - Malalai Joya - the one exception to the "no politicians" rule. Malalai Joya is an Afghan MP who has been compared to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi and was recently suspended from the Afghan Parliament for denouncing the presence of "warlords and war criminals" within the Afghan Parliament. Called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" by the BBC, Joya also took a major stand for women's rights when she publicly accused Afghan officials of "trying to use the country's Islamic law as a tool with which to limit women's rights." She was suspended from Parliament in 2007 and several fellow MPs are reported to have threatened to rape her for her strong beliefs. Remarkably, Malalai Joya is only 31 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malalai_Joya

#15 - Richard Branson - chairman, Virgin Group. Perhaps the best way to describe Richard Branson is that he is the real life Ayn Randian hero, except that he has a soul. Apart from the various Virgin Group business ventures he established and made his fortune on, he has funded global conflict resolution initiatives, hosted environmental conferences, participated in a hunger strike for Darfur, and built the world's first private spaceship. Those Dos Equis commercials? Based on him. (No, not really.) http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/

#16 - Baltasar Garzón - Spanish judge. Garzón has an interesting and novel interpretation of the principle of universal jurisdiction in international law, where one state may claim jurisdiction over citizens of another state if the crimes alleged are of too great an importance to be overlooked, and are severe enough to be considered a "crime against all." Garzón has applied this principle to investigate former Chilean dictator Pinochet, to prosecute former Argentine military officials complicit in crimes committed during that country's dictatorship, had Guantanmo terror suspects extradited to stand trial in Spain, and has more recently sought to investigate and indict former Bush administration officials on torture charges, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. On yeah, he's got Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Baltasar-Garzon/31037568757

#17 - Richard Dawkins - biological theorist. Richard Dawkins has attracted attention most recently as an outspoken proponent of atheism and the theory of evolution. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene proposed that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities," advancing a gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme to our modern lexicon. He is a thinker and scientist who attracts controversy and ignites debate with every step, and 2010 looks to be no exception. http://richarddawkins.net/

#18 - David Graeber - anthropologist. An outspoken anarchist and university professor, Graeber's soft-spoken demeanor belies his innovative and radical take on society and its structure. Considered by some of his peers to be "the best anthropological theorist of his generation from anywhere in the world," he was nonetheless dismissed by Yale (on allegedly political grounds) and currently holds the title of Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of London, as well as being invited previously to give the famed Malinowski Lecture at the London School of Economics. His Direct Action: an Ethnography examines the anti-globalization movement of the past decade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber

#19 - Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook. For the present, the site Facebook.com, founded by Zuckerberg in 2004, has become virtually synonymous with the term social networking. According to Alexa.com, it ranks second in total web traffic, behind only Google.com. The site continues to draw attention in both positive and negative ways, most recently with privacy policy changes that affected millions and drew the attention of even the ACLU. It looks likely to continue this trend into the new decade. http://www.facebook.com

#20 - The hacker. Hacking in the sense of technology continues to take on new and varied meanings in our increasingly connected and online present. From malicious cracking and virus or malware propagation, to peer-2-peer file sharing and copyright infringement, to device hacking such as jailbreaking or rooting and modding smartphones and other handheld devices, to hacktivism such as the anti-Scientologist group Anonymous, to advanced theories of netwar and cyberwarfare, hacking has yet retained much of its primary ethic: that information demands to be free and open to all. The Jargon File

#21 - The Chinese consumer. China has experienced unprecedented economic growth in recent years, largely unmatched by parallel political liberty, much to the consternation of many Western pundits who see the two as inextricably linked. While my own sympathy lies with Chinese pro-democracy and anti-corruption dissidents themselves, the reality is that the Chinese government has proven able to quite successfully repress and manage any discontent with its current political system. It remains to be seen how long such a system would last, however, if the country's new-found relative prosperity were ever significantly challenged in the years ahead.

#22 - The Iranian woman. The recent events in Iran captured much of the Western world's imagination with scenes of ordinary Iranians taking to the streets en masse in opposition to its own government, and, when brutally repressed, that opposition continued and appears to be strengthening. While the initiative for this open dissent came from opposition political parties and Iranian students, it is Iran's women as a social bloc in that Islamic nation who may tip the balance of power to one or the other side.

#23 - The American independent. Behind the shrill cries of party partisans, media personalities and political hacks on both sides of the debate in the United States rests the as yet staunchly silent American independent. They spoke at the polls in November 2008 to hand Obama and the Democrats a clear if close victory, but in recent months have abandoned them largely for reasons that have not been addressed. What motivated independents in 2008 was a belief that the country was headed in the wrong direction, and voted to mark a clear break with the past 8 years, electing not only the first African-American President, but also a majority for the Democrats in both the House and the Senate. Despite this there is now the clear perception that Democrats broke their word and pursued a policy of corporate bail-outs and an escalation of the war in Afghanistan among other issues, and all with the chutzpah of a party that is out of power, not in it. Faced with a Republican Party which seems content to obstruct all initiatives, fighting a culture war of their own invention, and a Democratic Party which seems content to disguise hand-outs and corruption as reform, independents are likely to abandon the polls all together in 2010. The one thing independents lack is organized clout with either side of the political establishment, yet electoral victory hinges completely on them, an odd and uniquely American conundrum.

In determining this list I had five basic rules, and other criteria:

* No politicians or government officials. If anything could have lowered my trust in government officials to come up with new and invigorating ideas, it was 2009. Whether that be for a bitter, losing party which responds to defeat at the polls by entertaining the racist conspiratorial fantasies of the trolls of its base, or to the winning party, which although it has the majority seems not to realize it, that steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it has a base at all and pursues political impotence as a cover for maintaining the corporate lobbyist status quo... and I come to this realization not with a bang, but a whimper. 2009 was a major let down of political expectations I had for both sides of the aisle. While Afghan MP Malalai Joya is a politician now, she was too much of an intriguing figure to pass up.

* No media whores. No one should be paying serious attention to Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olbermann, the balloon boy, or the cast of any reality show. They are media whores - their livelihood and/or self-esteem derive from their ability to generate attention; they are engines of regurgitation and fascination, rarely more. Into this same category goes Daily Show host Jon Stewart. Why? Because I agree with him: people should not be getting their news from a cable TV comedian. Something is wrong when we think he's a journalist - his own oft-repeated words.

* No one should be automatically added because they are CEOs. A lot of "most influential" lists read more like a wealthiest persons list. Someone makes a billion dollars selling an incredibly popular toilet seat cover - this does not make them worth listening to about anything other than the subject of their own toilet seat covers. In anything, if someone has billions of dollars and doesn't do anything else except make money or pose for photo ops, then they should be on an ignore list.

* Dead people. People can't come up with new ideas after they are dead. Sorry, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace and Julia Child.

* Other criteria for inclusion was a mix of notability (to stop people from going, "who?"), relevance to the present with a focus on innovation (having published or done something within the past 1-2 years), and a broad range of interest - these are the kind of people who should be able to hold their own in a serious conversation on any subject with anyone else on the list. Finally, these also happen to be people who I feel deserve more attention then they are receiving in many cases, whether you expressly agree with them or not. Noam Chomsky has enough groupies, Alan Greenspan enough yes men in tow; and neither has come up with any particularly new material in quite some time.

* One notable exception: the most glaring exception in my mind, considering the other tech choices I made, is anyone from Microsoft. Suffice it to say that both former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and current head Steve Ballmer continue to be influential people, however it is my considered opinion that Microsoft has done more to stifle innovation in its field than anyone else, primarily as a tactic to maintain its market share. Until that changes, they have not earned their press time.