Jeff Jarvis posts some thoughts about how a programmer's society would differ from a lawyer's society:

Lawyers are necessarily a suspicious breed. They live by rules. They think in terms of us vs. them. They think contention. They argue for sport. They always think they can appeal to a higher authority. They aim for victory. They are patient.

All those traits have an impact on American society -- many or most of them not good. The fact that lawyers run government is at the root of many of government's problems: Government has become all about arguing, little about serving.

But now imagine if former programmers start rising to the heights of American business and government and cultural life.

Programmers are logical. They believe in cause and effect. They believe any problem can be solved if you just find the cause. When they do battle, it's with a mistake, not a person. They live in the details. They believe in openness and transparency. They also believe in following rules but the rules of reality -- what a machine can and can't do -- over the rules man made up. They believe in planning. They, too, are patient. What else?

Interesting followup comments from Ernest Miller at The Importance of... and Rick Klau at tins (quoted below):

For me, it’s all about transparency. If Jeff’s right (and I’d like to think he is), then the biggest difference will be a shift from the old-boy’s guild that the legal profession maintains to the open source model that encourages disclosure, rewards iteration, and hides nothing.