The Internet
What is the internet? The most obvious analogy, though frequently avoided, is that it is the information equivalent of machines. We invented machines to do the physical work we, as people, couldn't do for ourselves, and now the computer is available to do the calculating we can't do for ourselves.
There is some resistance to this - as there were Luddites, so shall there be neo-Luddites, or cyber-Luddites, or whatever you choose to call them. At first blush, and the first line of defence if you will, are those who simply fear change. This is understandable, especially with the pace at which technology is advancing in this day and age. A hundred years ago the motor car was a relatively new invention, and the first powered flight was still in the news - it took those inventions forty years to have a real impact, and longer to become commonplace. The internet was born, really, in the 1960's, and in forty years has wormed its way into so many aspects of life. Todays children are growing up with, around and sometimes through something that hadn't been invented when some of their parents were born - that is rapid progress.
The internet, though, is something more than simply another labour saving device. It is a font of data waiting to be turned into information by enquiring minds, a wealth of opinion and fact to be drunk up, a thousand, million windows into a thousand, million places. It is what makes geography obsolete and - in keeping with Einsten - takes time out of the equation. These words I type here could, quite conceivably, still be drifting around cyberspace a hundred, a thousand, a million years from now, annoying whole new generations of people. But unlike the books of yesteryear, they can also reach people on the other side of the world within seconds.
Machines brought us to the realisation that we were something more than merely biological machines - or perhaps to the delusion that we are. Either way, the internet is forcing us to appreciate the next level of awareness, that thinking is not enough to make us unique. There has to be something more, we have to appreciate ourselves at another level - if making 'us' something inside the machines of our bodies meant that we could begin to see past the physical differences, perhaps this will allow us to see past the mental differences and realise that we are all, ultimately, something at once insignificant and wonderful.
The internet, then, puts this processing power, this wealth of information into a truly free domain, and that arouses fear from another place. Not that the wrong information might fall into the wrong hands - if it's the wrong information then there most likely are no 'right' hands anyway. Not even the tired cry of the psychologists realising their pseudo-science is being unravelled beneath them.
Rather, it makes a mockery, as information does, of the lies that underpin our societies. No, actually, our society - one of the most important lies it reveals is that there are no boundaries, no gaps, no spaces. We are all connected, now, we are all together - humanity is, and people are, and everything in between is a myth.
Money, nationality, religion, supremacists of all sorts - the death knell has sounded: ask not for whom the ISP tolls, it tolls for thee.
People have categorised, divided, enslaved, emancipated and controlled along a series of largely unintentional but socially accepted lies. These tools of past centuries have served their purpose, and their time, and like teenagers growing to the realisation that they really are small adults we must throw of these pretenses and grow up.
What makes the internet special, though, what makes it different to everything that went before, is that it doesn't just give to everyone - either directly or indirectly. It doesn't take from them, either, though you can give freely to it if you wish. It echoes the people of the world. Each voice typed into it, each flick of the finger adds to it, makes it more representative: - it is the ultimate Democracy. Everything is there, every voice is heard, every cry in the wilderness is equal, and those that cry in sympathy with others will attract others.
The ideas that are laid down here stand on their own merits, and will be picked up based on those merits. The ideas that appeal, the ideas that are reliable, the ideas that bring a chink of light, a glimmer of understanding will spread and that one voice can be heard. Once more, one person can make a difference.
That, is the internet.
There is some resistance to this - as there were Luddites, so shall there be neo-Luddites, or cyber-Luddites, or whatever you choose to call them. At first blush, and the first line of defence if you will, are those who simply fear change. This is understandable, especially with the pace at which technology is advancing in this day and age. A hundred years ago the motor car was a relatively new invention, and the first powered flight was still in the news - it took those inventions forty years to have a real impact, and longer to become commonplace. The internet was born, really, in the 1960's, and in forty years has wormed its way into so many aspects of life. Todays children are growing up with, around and sometimes through something that hadn't been invented when some of their parents were born - that is rapid progress.
The internet, though, is something more than simply another labour saving device. It is a font of data waiting to be turned into information by enquiring minds, a wealth of opinion and fact to be drunk up, a thousand, million windows into a thousand, million places. It is what makes geography obsolete and - in keeping with Einsten - takes time out of the equation. These words I type here could, quite conceivably, still be drifting around cyberspace a hundred, a thousand, a million years from now, annoying whole new generations of people. But unlike the books of yesteryear, they can also reach people on the other side of the world within seconds.
Machines brought us to the realisation that we were something more than merely biological machines - or perhaps to the delusion that we are. Either way, the internet is forcing us to appreciate the next level of awareness, that thinking is not enough to make us unique. There has to be something more, we have to appreciate ourselves at another level - if making 'us' something inside the machines of our bodies meant that we could begin to see past the physical differences, perhaps this will allow us to see past the mental differences and realise that we are all, ultimately, something at once insignificant and wonderful.
The internet, then, puts this processing power, this wealth of information into a truly free domain, and that arouses fear from another place. Not that the wrong information might fall into the wrong hands - if it's the wrong information then there most likely are no 'right' hands anyway. Not even the tired cry of the psychologists realising their pseudo-science is being unravelled beneath them.
Rather, it makes a mockery, as information does, of the lies that underpin our societies. No, actually, our society - one of the most important lies it reveals is that there are no boundaries, no gaps, no spaces. We are all connected, now, we are all together - humanity is, and people are, and everything in between is a myth.
Money, nationality, religion, supremacists of all sorts - the death knell has sounded: ask not for whom the ISP tolls, it tolls for thee.
People have categorised, divided, enslaved, emancipated and controlled along a series of largely unintentional but socially accepted lies. These tools of past centuries have served their purpose, and their time, and like teenagers growing to the realisation that they really are small adults we must throw of these pretenses and grow up.
What makes the internet special, though, what makes it different to everything that went before, is that it doesn't just give to everyone - either directly or indirectly. It doesn't take from them, either, though you can give freely to it if you wish. It echoes the people of the world. Each voice typed into it, each flick of the finger adds to it, makes it more representative: - it is the ultimate Democracy. Everything is there, every voice is heard, every cry in the wilderness is equal, and those that cry in sympathy with others will attract others.
The ideas that are laid down here stand on their own merits, and will be picked up based on those merits. The ideas that appeal, the ideas that are reliable, the ideas that bring a chink of light, a glimmer of understanding will spread and that one voice can be heard. Once more, one person can make a difference.
That, is the internet.
posted by Moghal at
12:39 PM
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