What will Humanity Become? 2
August 22nd 2007 07:01
Continuing my efforts to compile a list of tangible and rational changes that are likely to occur in the near future which will combine to fundamentaly alter what it means to be human.
2 - The Internet as the Main Society
The internet is not a tool or an object or a distraction, it is a society. I haven't really done much research on how society is defined, but I'm pretty confident the internet can satisfy any criteria. For me society is just a framework which allows for interpersonal relations. At the end of the day everything takes place between individuals, society provides structures in which those interpersonal relations can take place and create possibilities for certain relations that previously might not have been able to take place. The internet is a place where people can come together to buy and sell goods and services, to consume and create cultural artefacts, to entertain and be entertained, to educate and be educated, to conduct research, to hear news, to chat, to interact, to do whatever.
Just as at the dawn of modernity the city became the key society, so too now with the internet. The rural did not cease to exist, but the city created new opportunities, new ways of coming together, new social relations, new social classes, new passtimes, new fields of study, new types of work. In short, a new way of life. So too are we seeing a radically new way of life, the consequences and depth of which might not yet be apparent to many. Web 2.0 has shown those who previously thought we had seen all the internet had to offer were quite mistaken. So do not be mistaken again, the true transformative potential of the internet has barely peeked its head above the surface. But from that tiny bit we have seen so far it is plain to see that when it is in full swing this thing we call our earth will become a radically different place. It will be radically free, open, dynamic, collaborative, directly democratic, and many more adjectives.
What is the underlying logic of the internet? This is a kind of hard question to answer articulately, but it is important in painting a picture of what the world will look like. Perhaps we can take examples. Let's take file sharing as an example. The underlying idea is that creative and cultural works should be freely and openly available to everyone. Whereas under the logic of capitalism creative works belong to the creator and are created for the purposes of making money, on the internet creative works belong to everyone who cares to partake in them and are created for the purposes of allowing the audience to enjoy and engage with them. While the old system has made many attempts to hold on to its power and maintain its paradigm as the dominant way to understand creative works, as embodied in copyright law, they simply do not understand the internet and its many faceted nature. On the internet there are infinite paths to any point. By attempting to close down individual service providers which were allowing file sharing you cannot stop the phenomenon of file sharing, for it will spring up in new forms, if you cut down one tree, the five other shrubs that were slowly growing in its shadow will rapidly grow. This is because it was never napster or kazaa or bit torrent that was responsible for file sharing, it was people. People want to share their files and they want to get new ones for free. The internet simply allows people to do what they want, how they want. Some people see this as a bad thing, society to them should restrict people, should tell them what they are and aren't allowed to do. In this way the internet is radically democratic, allowing people to choose for themselves and diminishing the power of anyone to restrict anyone else.
Ok, this is starting to get long, I was going to talk about wikipedia as another example, so I guess you'll have to think about it on your own. Ask yourself this: What is the fundamental underlying assumption about what "knowledge" is that underpins Wikipedia? and post your answer.
2 - The Internet as the Main Society
The internet is not a tool or an object or a distraction, it is a society. I haven't really done much research on how society is defined, but I'm pretty confident the internet can satisfy any criteria. For me society is just a framework which allows for interpersonal relations. At the end of the day everything takes place between individuals, society provides structures in which those interpersonal relations can take place and create possibilities for certain relations that previously might not have been able to take place. The internet is a place where people can come together to buy and sell goods and services, to consume and create cultural artefacts, to entertain and be entertained, to educate and be educated, to conduct research, to hear news, to chat, to interact, to do whatever.
Just as at the dawn of modernity the city became the key society, so too now with the internet. The rural did not cease to exist, but the city created new opportunities, new ways of coming together, new social relations, new social classes, new passtimes, new fields of study, new types of work. In short, a new way of life. So too are we seeing a radically new way of life, the consequences and depth of which might not yet be apparent to many. Web 2.0 has shown those who previously thought we had seen all the internet had to offer were quite mistaken. So do not be mistaken again, the true transformative potential of the internet has barely peeked its head above the surface. But from that tiny bit we have seen so far it is plain to see that when it is in full swing this thing we call our earth will become a radically different place. It will be radically free, open, dynamic, collaborative, directly democratic, and many more adjectives.
What is the underlying logic of the internet? This is a kind of hard question to answer articulately, but it is important in painting a picture of what the world will look like. Perhaps we can take examples. Let's take file sharing as an example. The underlying idea is that creative and cultural works should be freely and openly available to everyone. Whereas under the logic of capitalism creative works belong to the creator and are created for the purposes of making money, on the internet creative works belong to everyone who cares to partake in them and are created for the purposes of allowing the audience to enjoy and engage with them. While the old system has made many attempts to hold on to its power and maintain its paradigm as the dominant way to understand creative works, as embodied in copyright law, they simply do not understand the internet and its many faceted nature. On the internet there are infinite paths to any point. By attempting to close down individual service providers which were allowing file sharing you cannot stop the phenomenon of file sharing, for it will spring up in new forms, if you cut down one tree, the five other shrubs that were slowly growing in its shadow will rapidly grow. This is because it was never napster or kazaa or bit torrent that was responsible for file sharing, it was people. People want to share their files and they want to get new ones for free. The internet simply allows people to do what they want, how they want. Some people see this as a bad thing, society to them should restrict people, should tell them what they are and aren't allowed to do. In this way the internet is radically democratic, allowing people to choose for themselves and diminishing the power of anyone to restrict anyone else.
Ok, this is starting to get long, I was going to talk about wikipedia as another example, so I guess you'll have to think about it on your own. Ask yourself this: What is the fundamental underlying assumption about what "knowledge" is that underpins Wikipedia? and post your answer.
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Comment by Visionary Voyager
Knowledge is at once a hard-won, personal asset and a communally owned social asset.
Because you belong to and are an integrally involved member of society, what ever you discover and create belongs to you as an individual and to us as part of you. Chances are very good that you could not have discovered or created what you have without all that we have discovered and created before you. Therefore knowledge cannot be owned by any one individual or group of individuals. In a very organic/systemic elementary way, knowledge is a public asset and a public service.
Knowledge is advanced by both curiosity and necessity.
Knowledge is enhanced and nurtured by wisdom.
Knowledge can serve both good and evil; or to put it another way, knowledge can be the road that takes humanity to utopia or the road that takes humanity to ignoble extinction.