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Issues for the Internet Society
DenOfEarth writes "The Economist has published a series of articles detailing some of the issues facing our current society and the technological leaps and bounds that are leading to the future internet society. They include: Protection of Privacy, Constant internet connectivity, Copyright 's Role in the Future, Technology-based Democratic Process, Government Authority, and Social and Political Ramifications. There's a good deal of information to waste one's time with here, but some good discussion is bound to come out of it."
How about environmental issues? I'm rethinking my future career in Computer Science since I heard that a single microchip takes 2 pounds of oil and 1 pound of toxic chemicals to create. Obviously most of that is going to the environment as waste byproducts, since chips don't weigh three pounds.
Also what about the issue of disposal of old computer equipment. All these toxic chemicals are dangerous, and old monitors contain large amounts of lead and some radioactive components.
We really need to deal with these environmental problems before we can continue along the path of technology in good conscience.
if they had put the articles on separate servers, instead of just in separate articles.
and then I thought the internet would be better off if the government stayed out of everything. There is no law stating everything/everyone one needs to be online, and maybe after people get 0wn3d, will they start thinking about thier own security instead of blaming everyone else. As far as copyrighting goes, how many people in the past setup two vcr's/tape decks to copy tapes, the only difference now is that its quicker to copy and easier to distribute...jus my random, semi-coherent rambling...
How to deal with the random internet outages caused by Slashdot?
I also have a problem with the Great Lumping Together of Internet Users. People use it for widely different purposes. And how it affects society? I think it mostly wastes a lot of our time which we could be using to better purposes. Don't get me wrong, I find a lot of information really fast on it, but did anyone ever think that having a copy of the Yellow Pages would "Change Society?"
Please have respect for people with different abilities, especially children.
From the article:
Maybe his father has the right idea. Dick hardly sees the old man these days because he always seems to have his video image and live-communicator access blocked. Blocking access is considered rude, even suspicious, but Dick wonders if he shouldn't do the same.
Find - or make - time to unplug. Don't be a Dick.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
there just isn't enough porn on the 'net.... this needs to be fixed immediately.
How 'bout they just tell us what the Internet's not fucking up? ;-)
Check out *nix.org , a dynamic, informative, and fun portal for fans of BSD, Linux, OS X, & Solaris!
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
A few objections to Constant interntet connectivity.
so she briefs herself on politics and votes on some of the half-dozen referendums held every day.
First off, if we ever get to the point where government is producing more than a half dozen referendums every day, I'm finding another country. Enough garbage gets out with elections "only" once a year as it is.
Also, Terrorism eliminated just because of security cameras? As though a security camera can stop someone intent on, say, blowing themselves up. I suppose, on the bright side, you would be able to identify him, after he had blown himself up.
And traffic, a thing of the past, thanks to the hand-held portable and 3d image viewer. I don't see working from home ever happening on the scale it's been touted. It is far more efficient to have your employees at the same place at the same time, rather than off at the opera, supposedly working "on the go". But back to the article, there are plenty of people who's business it is to drive for a living. There will always be traffic in a moderately large city.
I guess my problem with articles like this is that they make it sound like with just a few more GHZs and MBs, we'll somehow eliminate all the problems of modern society. A toast to foolhardy optimism!
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
In other news, poster reads the rest of the article, and is shocked, SHOCKED to find out that all this surveilance and fancy tech bothers some people. The traffic Dick! Think of the lack of traffic!
I suppose in this future, slashdot posters will end with sigs reading "Those willing to sacrifice freedom for Unencumbered access to public roads deserve neither."
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
Sure it's been going to hell in a handbasket for a while now, with the US govt and their corporate lackeys out to kill freedom of expression and all.
But when enough people get sick of it, won't they just build something else?
Who's up for internet 2.0?
Machine9dotNet
I realize this is a misinformed troll, but I couldn't resist posting the link to this article.
Protection of Privacy,
Lawyers already own government, so they will let government go to war over it with its own constituents.
Constant internet connectivity
Jam it up the butt. Voila. Instant Cable
Copyright 's Role in the Future
Copyright is and will be like oil. An enough reason to start wars.
Technology-based Democratic Process
The tried-and-tested Military Technology Democrazy I guess.
Government Authority
Government of certain 'lawridden' nations of federal states will kill, plunder and hinder peoples of other nations. Authorically enough.
and Social and Political Ramifications.
A certain nation of federastic states will try to start the fourth reich. So everyone else will have to stop them. Everything goes to Detroit.
We cannot hope, in our endeavors with such legal decisions, which are in themselves very similar to unsolvable philosophical problems, that we would ever achieve an answer that really pleased or was even intrinsically correct (morally and/or practically) to everyone. What matters more is this: knowing how to change things afterward.
Look at prohibition. It didn't work in this country. Granted, it took crime, death, and scandal to prove, but prove it did, and here we are. This may seem like a gloomy way to perceive the future, but to try perceiving the future is quite futile past a certain expunging of efforts, anyhow.
With tricky issues, the ugly-halves cannot be permanently concealed; somebody will get burned, no matter what the final vote decrees. What is so much more important (and infinately more effective) is that we pay attention to the situation that is Right Now, and deal with it, affecting change (which is highly necessary and extremely possible) as soon as need be.
To worry about not-yet-defined internet rights, taxes, government policies is an overrated endeavor. Why? Because it keeps us focused on the future, which is full of unreal imagery.
You counter with this: "let's make the right decisions now, because to affect change in the government takes so much time, lobbyist dollars, and a scattering of bi-annual elections". This is where my decree fits in precicely: we CAN'T make the right decisions now; we don't know what the right decision will be.
Let's use our vote for the purpose for which it was invented: to cast our selection of what we individually want. Do that first, don't vote for a group or with a group. Vote for what you want, and it will all be sorted out afterwards; just like Prohibition, just like 55 m.p.h. speed limits, just like government's involvement with business, just like segregation, just like woman's suffrage, just like anything that has mattered so far in our history. None of those issues were ever decided "correctly" when they were first made law. It took dilligent change (albeit human suffering, which is unavoidable) after the fact.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
"There's a good deal of information to waste one's time with here, but some good discussion is bound to come out of it."
/.
Hi, you must be new here. Welcome to
Sent from your iPad.
From the privacy article:
Engineers are now developing cameras that employ low-level radiation to "see" through clothing, walls or cars.
Wasn't there a Sony camcorder out a couple of years ago which could see through clothing in night vision mode with a special filter?
be a frayed>> be veri eh? fred....
Oh my god! Robots with screw guns know how to drive SUVs? Now where will we hide? My cabin on the mountain would be easily accessible by SUV, and they can unscrew the access bolts to the secret lab. I guess it will have to be the caves. The dampness should impede their functioning, and the SUVs won't fit. And of course, there is nowhere to plug in/recharge the screw guns. Damn! Whose idea was it to teach the screw gun using robots how to drive anyway? Is there no self-preservation instinct in you people at all?
Be a frayed>> be veri eh? fred....
be a frayed>> be veri eh? fred.....
Feds just mandated 22 mpg for SUVs starting in 2005 (I think, pretty sure about the 22 mpg, not so about 2005 but it's soon enough). I recently bought a newer model Jimmy which gets 18 city, 21 hwy. Most modern SUVs are more station wagon than truck.
Also of note is the fact that there is more oil in Alaska than in Iraq. Iraq relatively has shit for oil, that's why they invaded Kuwait in the first place.
Mexico and Canada are also exceedingly oil rich, that'll be where we take our shopping in the future.
Oh, and it's not well known, but they have SUVs in other countries too. I saw Crocodile Hunter driving around the outback in one. And he calls himself a nature lover.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
In the end we know technology is headed for a Mark of The Beast type system. The way in which it will be accepted will probably be through deception and clever marketing. There's going to be a lot of geeks becoming cave-dwellers in the future because of it.
Where'd he go? He'd be great to talk to about an issue like this.
The Party doesn't allow you to block the viewscreen. That's a double plus ungood thing. By the way, the chocolate rations have been increased to 5 units this month.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
everything on the 'net should just be nekkid. that would save us all so much time and bandwidth.
but did anyone ever think that having a copy of the Yellow Pages would "Change Society?"
No, but the internet is quite diffrent from the Yellow Pages...
Ok, general information aside, here is what I could do, if I wanted to, from my computer on the internet right now.
1)Order all my groceries and have them delivered to my door (if I use the right companies).
2)Read all the news I want to and look at all of opions from editiors, experts, slashdot users, etc. i want to. Most of it's free too.
3)Buy all the books, CD's, antiques, DVD's, video's, comics, etc. I want and have it delivered to my door.
4) With a microphone I can effectively call people anywhere in the world for no interntaional call charges. Or I can chat to them online in chat rooms, instant messaging and so on.
5) I can send my reports to work/university/wherever without having to pay postage.
How do these things change society? like this...
1)No more need for supermarkets or checkouts, o people running them... just a few big warehouses arount the area to deal with demand.
2)No more need for newspapers or magazines, or the newsagents who sell them.
3)No more need for most of the high street.
4)I pay less money to my phone operators and as I'm on a flat rate for my internet connection anyway I don't care how many people I call.
5) No more need for offices.
If everyone were to use the internet to it's full capability, and order everything they could exclusively through it, then society would change a lot. Our city's would have no need for malls or supermarkets, which seeing as we've used a place like that to shop for at least 2000 years, (think markets, then shops... and so on) it would be a huge change from the past.
Obviously shopping is an extreme example, but it shows well how having the ability to view everything you need (almost) in one central place (the screen on my desk) could have a huge effect on society.
Eventually, people would vote directly from the comfort of their own homes. The political apathy which has spread through western countries in recent decades would be reversed.
Why is it assumed that making it possible to vote online etc, is a cure for voter apathy? Sure, for a while we might see increased turnout by people who are considering venturing out to cast their vote, and the easy option swings it, BUT the reasons for voter apathy still exist & it will continue to increase, whilst people feel so disjoined by it all....
One of democracy's greatest virtues is its flexibility, but the changes about to be wrought by new communication technologies will stretch the adaptive abilities of western democracies to their limit.
But will it? How do these advances change the process of democracy? Will it make our governemnts more acountable, as suggested in the article? Though we like to complain in the west about corruption & spin, I like to think that the media do a good job of holding our politicians to account. Will it renew our ailing interest in politics? Maybe not - the nature of the web is that you have to go looking in the first place.
Interesting articles though...
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
> Also of note is the fact that there is more oil in Alaska than in Iraq. Iraq relatively has shit for oil, that's why they invaded Kuwait in the first place.
Yeah but Iraq doesnt play along in the OPEC oil price fixing.
If Iraq would, oil prices would rise and higher oil prices mean more money for Bush's Texas Oil friends.
I love how people like to take it out on the SUVs I have a full size van (that I use like most people would use a full-sized truck) and I get less mpg then most SUVs. In fact MOST full size trucks get less the SUVs. Why do people LIKE picking on the SUVs yet very few people are up in arms about Silverados and F350 and Dodge Rams? Maybe because people who have these types of vehicles actaully know how to use them? Any thoughts?
I think it mostly wastes a lot of our time which we could be using to better purposes.
You bring up an interesting point here that is in itself worthy of discussion. While there are certainly good uses for the Internet for gathering information, it seems most of the time spent with it is actually entertainment oriented. Furthermore, this entertainment is inherently anti-social. While multiplayer gaming networks and chat rooms abound, these relationships are often very shallow. They can never replace relationships built with direct interaction with other people. On of the most profound impacts on society is the generation of a perceived unity in the world even as it isolates the individual from strong, close relationships.
Another impact is taking an already entertainment driven society and expanding the problem. When you look at the new developments in the Internet, nearly all of them are driven by the demand for improved entertainment. What kind of impact is this having on our society? One could argue, as in the case with computers, that the improvements made in computer hardware to support the gaming industry also enabled work to be more efficiently performed due to GUI interfaces and more powerful applications. However, as the Internet continues to build, are we really seeing major productivity boosts as a result? When I consider the time I spend reading Slashdot, I sometimes wonder if the opposite may be true. We (and I mean we) spend so much time entertaining ourselves that we lose sight of real issues and problems that need to be addressed (poverty, pollution, abuse, etc.). The Internet may actually prove to be more of a curse than a blessing when all is said and done if we simply entertain ourselves while Rome burns to the ground.
On the other hand, one could argue that the Internet is merely a tool, and the problems mentioned above are purely a result of our society. Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Yeah. As opposed to using the vast increases in productivity to allow our corporate masters to extract more productivity from us in the same (or more) amount of time.
Just like all the other technological advances have.
--blob
All sweeping generalizations suck.
Issues for the Internet Society is an editorial bit associated with this survey, which also deals with the battle over copyright extension and also with piracy. Practical upshot. Unlimited file swapping bad. Copyright limitations (on copyright holders, not consumers, ie copyright expires after 14 years, renewable once) good.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
The temperature today in Miami, Florida was in the single digits, which shaterred all previous low temperature records. Where I live, it hasn't been above 20 degrees Fahrenheit for at least two weeks. What was that about global warming again?
Always interesting to see someone disprove global warming by using a local example. That's a bit like your average pimply faced McDonald's worker saying "There's no zits on my hairy ass... I have a great complexion!"
Do they mean the Internet Society or the Internet society in general?
http://www.outwar.com/page.php?x=267317
And dont you think it is odd we are breaking all of these coldest day records in the winter, as well as the hottest day records in the summer? We are going to the two extremes. That cold air in Florida came from somewhere... Where did it come from? The north pole. What does this mean? This means the north pole got warmer.
Over the www there is an unpresedented wealth of knowledge that can be used to educate the next generation far more eficiently than our current methods (or it can be used to augment the current methods of course) But a new way of searching through this ocean of data will be required. I have come to believe that the www as it is has a serious problem of scaling that will (or has already) present itself in the near future. The google is of course a very usefull tool that has grown so much because of the need people have to search fast and reliably throughout the net. But it is not panacea. There are limitations in what it can do and of course it is centralized (whatever advantage or disadvantage this means).Perhaps a new breed of overlay-network that would use a semantic approach to indexing and searching instead of the crude substring match methods we use today, would do the jobs. Now how about that? an e-mule client that uses ontology to clasify its contents! Yes! so the RIAA could not fill it up with random garbage as they intend to do.
In a large sense, government to date has been about information control. They've able to control the information that the public receives. It was somewhat diluted by the revolutionary right to the freedom of the press. But even that was limited because it meant that "freedom of the press" was granted to everyone who owned a printing press, and no one else.
Now you have the rise of a medium that grants equal rights to anyone who can formulate a written argument. Thus the recent journalistic navel-gazing over the effect of bloggers and their role in the unmasking of Trent Lott.
Well, I see that as a good thing. Most of those who enjoy the "freedom of the press" have that right because they work for for-profit corporations. Which means that in reality their freedom of the press is limited by the need for profit. Therefore the right to "freedom of the press" has never been truly free until now.
The Internet has de-legitimized the claim of the traditional press to authoritative speech. That scares media outlets and governments to death, because they know that the time when they could control the public message is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
This is exactly why the Framers of the Constitution placed so much emphasis on the freedom of thought and expression. Without it, you have a citizenry that is enslaved because they are not allowed to think as free beings. After all, how can you act as a free citizen if you cannot think as a free citizen?
Therefore, if we as citizens can resist government/corporative efforts to limit our natural rights, we will see true freedom in our lifetimes. Free thought is ours by birth. Free culture is ours by birth. So resist the drive by government and corporations to enslave your thoughts and culture under the guise of "property." Teach the corporations and governments of the world that if the choice comes down to freedom of thought or them, they go.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Where are the decent jobs that pay enough to live on?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
> they have SUVs in other countries Yes. Yes, they do. But many of those people have jobs that require them to drive a four-wheel drive vehicle because of extremely poor road conditions such as UN workers in third world countries. Your average mall-going SUV driver certainly doesn't require that. Unless you have some kind of job that requires it, its an indulgence that causes environmental damage, wastes fuel and increases accidents on the freeways. But I'm OK with that - the occupant death rate is between 6 and 8% higher than cars. Despite their reputation, SUVs are required to meet lower safety standards than cars. In my experience, the larger the vehicle, the more reckless the driver (professional drivers excepted), maybe because of the false sense of security you get from being up so high.
"It's Dot Com!"
As an example, I know many people who seem to be able to "hit it off" with other people quite easily due to the fact that they watch the same television shows on a regular basis. Eliminate the common entertainment experience(which, I assume, they enjoy), and they might not be able to interact in as quick a fashion. Similarly, I can assume that there are a large bunch of like-minded indivduals who I can discuss things like this with over long distances. Also, in the days before all of this internet enabled entertainment were we surrounded by people to a larger degree, or for a longer period of time? I'm not totally sure about that one.
The second thing I'd like to bring up is the idea that everyone is too busy having fun to realize that things around them are bad. While I would guess that for a large chunk of the technologically enabled population this would be true, there are still going to be people trying to keep the flames down, not because that's what they love to do with their time, but because a stable society means a profitable society which means that these people will get paid to be the fire legion, in whatever form that may take.
Just my two cents.
mod parent down
lame articles. the one on privacy was SO basic. they are still discussing cookies??? in 2003? EVEYRONE and my grandma already know about cookies. gimme a fUcken break! dont waste your time.
whatever the future holds...I'm sure Al Gore invented it
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
People who complain about our reliance on oil don't realize how bad the previous industries used to be. Sure, solar would be better, environmentally, but oil is a hell of a lot better than coal fuel, or wood. In the middle ages, Germany's Black Forest was much smaller than it is todaybecause people were using wood for fuel. & Oil & Natural Gas are far, far cleaner-burning than wood. Or coal.
For further reading on the subject of our society becoming ever more entertainment-centric, I commend to you Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. He argues logically from explicitly stated assumptions (something I always appreciate) and surprised me in several instances by bringing to my attention disturbing things to which, living in the culture I do, I had been desensitized.
...I'm all for it! Freenet, however, is not good Internet 2.0 . & I'm sticking with Gnutella until Kazaa gives me some Mac support.
... because it just might come true.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Oh, and it's not well known, but they have SUVs in other countries too. I saw Crocodile Hunter driving around the outback in one. And he calls himself a nature lover.
Yeah, and the crocodile hunter cannot very well drive around the outback in a fscking Geo Metro can he. His use of an SUV is pretty well justified. How can a person justify a 28 year old woman who works at a law firm driving an SUV on city streets? The only justification that she can have is that she thinks SUV's are cool and trendy.
Testing out my new sig
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
Economist magazine seems to be wondering too much into political issues rather than deal more with economics itself. They should change their name if they continue this trend.
Taking up the possible decline of first-world tech jobs as they go the way of factory labor (overseas) would be a more suitable topic for an "economics" magazine IMO. Sure, everything affects economics, but they should deal more with things that directly and clearly affect jobs and money. Internet voting is a topic that is way out there.
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe you want to take a look at the rest of the world. It is called GLOBAL warming after all. At the moment I am in Australia, 44 degrees here (Celcius) and one of the hottest days on record. It has been bloody hot for bloody ages in this part of the world.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
What I see around me is that people think that their social environment gets bigger and bigger because they know people from all over the world, but in fact they just stick to people of their kind. By now it's easier to log on to the internet and have a chat with someone far away who's just like you, then to go to your neigbour and complain about issues that are more important in daily life.
More and more people can't stand each other while living in the same street or town, and that's a bad thing. If you have an opinion about something like politics, you'll always find people on the internet who think just like you. And that's far easier than to complain about it with people in your town.
"4) With a microphone I can effectively call people anywhere in the world for no interntaional call charges. Or I can chat to them online in chat rooms, instant messaging and so on."
:
:
"4)I pay less money to my phone operators and as I'm on a flat rate for my internet connection anyway I don't care how many people I call."
I take your point here, but this is as nothing compared to the ability to chat directly with people from all over the world you would not otherwise have been able to communicate with.
And when you can do that, you can find out about their lives and cultures, and find out that people are basically the same the whole world over.
You may find that most people from certain countries you have heard a lot about are, in fact, human beings, and not an unthinking part of some "evil society" that other media sources may have been trying to portray them as.
Alternatively, you may find the opposite is the case.
But the point is - you can find out for yourself.