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What The Net is Doing to You
Bart writes "The BBC reports One of the world's first research centres dedicated to studying the social, political and economic effects of the net has opened in Oxford" I've offered to trade CowboyNeal to them as a research subject for a case of beer. I think studying the effects of the internet on him will save lives. See? Someone is thinking of the children.
Heh. There is a photo of some shirtless, tatooed protester swinging a punch to a policeman, with as caption:"The net could help improve political debate". Anybody else thinks the BBC has a strange idea of political debate? Besides, how is the net going to improve political debate, or at least raise it above the level depicted in that photo? Soon, we'll all be wetware-wired into the net, and then, instead of beating you with a stick, the cops i'll just fry your brains instead. It's called progress.
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Surely the impact of the Net is totally obvious.
The Net lowers the cost of communication.
This lets people create much larger and more efficient network.
Activities that depend on such networks (research, digital theft, collaborative research, free software development, certain kinds of commerce) have and will continue to boom.
Activities that depend on the high cost of communications (old media, encyclopedia salesmen, and other information cartels) have and will continue to decline.
This seems to be stating the obvious... what else will a study turn up? That we are evolving resistance to RSI?
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
For disabled people that don't leave the house often it's even more of a godsent than for 'normal' people. Finally they have a cheap and vast and versatile tool for getting and sending information!
-- Cheers!
The statement doesn't make sense, no.
However, knowledge most certainly is control.
Do we have control over technology? I can certainly control my VCR, and I have the ability to stop it from blinking 12:00 if I so choose. (I'm lazy, and rarely do.)
Do we have control over nuclear energy? The average citizen doesn't (Thank goodness!), but I'd argue the fact that nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons, harnessing the power of the atom, demonstrate control.
Who controls the net? Not politicians. Not corporations. Not yet. For the time being, end users still control the net. Why? Knowledge. Look at the RIAA's doomed campaign against file sharing. They can kill Napster, but can they kill Kazaa? If they kill that, can they kill IRC? FTP? HTTP? The cat of knowledge is out of the bag in terms of that battle, and the users have thus won, and are in control.
Eve ate apple from the Tree of Knowledge and thus gained god-like insight into the human plight. Or at least, that's the metaphor.
But these bums who obsess on controlling the internet and all knowlege would be like a Bureaucrat, a Politician, and an Entrepreneur who entered the Garden, kicked G-d out and set up Garden of Eden Apples Lmt. They would then eat apple-sauce, apple cider, and apple apples.
Meanwhile GOAL would contract out to the timber industry for sawdust and the slop industry for protein, and use a Red #5 and a factory to produce Consumer Renewable Apple Protien-Supplement for consumption by the general populace.
Ohhh, and somewhere along the way, they would also convince everyone that due to G-d's absence, they in fact were G-d.
I firmly believe that promiscuity and homosexuality both constitute being 'truly sick'. You can talk all you want about how urges were 'repressed' and people need to 'express themselves,' but (contrary to popular opinion) psychology does NOT vindicate things like this in the least, and it is NOT psychologically healthy to do so. Pornography, promiscuity, and homosexuality really are like illegal drugs- you tamper with the way your body is ordered in an attempt to produce more pleasure and get all sorts of negative effects. If the Net is providing an 'outlet' for this kind of thing, that would be one of its worst effects, not one of its positive ones.
Modern society is learning the hard way that you can't encourage perversion and expect people to act morally. When we all grasp this basic truth, the world will be a lot better off.
I'm bound to be flamed to death for this. Sometimes the truth is difficult, unpopular, and publicly termed 'intolerant.' It needs to be told nonetheless.