(identity 'myron)

Sun, 27 Mar 2005

Segmentation fault - core dumped [/personal]

Ideas are swirling around in my head again keeping me from sleeping, so here goes. No warning of controversy this time, though. At least I don't think it's needed.

the Internet

Or maybe better titled, the Internet Revolution. That's what we were promised, anyway. Has the revolution happened? The Internet is everywhere, but have our lives been fundamentally changed by it? Outwardly yes, but otherwise no. The Internet may be a very novel kind of technology, "connecting people together like never before", but there's one aspect in which it's no different than any other technology: it has little impact on human nature.

That we're more connected now than ever hasn't at all changed our tendency towards superficial distinctions and the Us and Them mentality that follows it. Bloggers might now have a new medium through which to make themselves heard, but people who don't agree with them are no more willing to meet them halfway in the digital world than in the real world. A prime example is the most vocal group of bloggers I know of, the left-wingers.

You might think this is all a no-brainer, but it's funny that "connecting" people together in greater numbers than ever doesn't really connect us in ways different than before. Despite its potential at initiating real change and the Global Village, the barriers between people still stand just as strong as before. And yet it's one of the most far-reaching techologies that we've created to date, which leads me to believe that technology, for all its power, really only effects superficial changes in its users... a depressing notion for someone who works in technology.

government and technology

Well if technology has no lasting effect on human nature, what does? Government? It's been years since I read books like Lord of the Flies and Blindness, but I think I finally understand what they both said with respect to this. We see both government and technology as marks of civilization but strip them both away and we're really not as civil as we think. At humanity's worst, the lack of a government or even the difference between two seemingly vastly different governments is just a change in the rules we play the same selfish game of ensuring survival and advancing self-interest. That we choose to see otherwise is self-deception or, in the language of Blindness, a way in which "we are blind, Blind but seeing".

maybe i'm in the wrong profession?

But then who in society are the ones that effect the most change in people? Writers and educators? I guess I'll sleep on that one....

// posted at 02:03. permalink   comments