What's a better 'higher' consciousness?

Continuing from this post, I just saw the season finale of Continuum, a sci-fi thriller created by Showcase out of Canada. While there are several sub-plots, its main plot line like others discussed above is how tech evolves to enable massive surveillance. And it's a battle for who controls that tech. Which of course is what's happening now with the battle over net neutrality. The corporations want the control for profit, same as in the series, while otherwise the Commons wants control to be distributed. If/when energy becomes distributed as in the TIR vision such political power can also be used wisely by the multitudes that attain to ecological consciousness.


So I guess one primary concern is, as noted in the above linked post, how a supposed 'integral' consciousness will be manifested. In the TIR version everyone has access to the massive data system as to communicate with each other and share the responsibility of monitoring each other and working together to facilitate the Commons.

I'm doubting that the sort of consciousness coming out of the kind of complexity favored by the other Commons (Michael Commons of the model of hierarchical complexity), and his formulation of higher levels, is of the same nature as the TIR Commons. That sort of baseline for judging what to do about the massive data seems to be more in alignment with the ideological, capitalist consciousness as a further extension of it, where an enlightened few philosopher-kings decide.