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."

Comments

Environmental Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Environmental Issues

[knobmaker]

The environmental damage of any new technology needs to be balanced against the environmental damage of the technology it supplants.

For example, the damage done by cars had to be balanced against the damage done by horses. In that case, the tradeoff wasn't so good, because horse manure is biodegradeable. Still, at the time cars began to replace horses, many citizens hailed the newly clean streets, and were pleased that the exhaust of cars blew away on the wind, unlike the exhaust of horses.

In the case of chips, I think their impact has to be weighed against the savings in fuel and other resources that such technologies as just-in-time manufacturing, telecommuting (I know, hasn't happened yet) online shopping and paperless archiving (ditto). Consider that a robot with a screw gun doesn't have to drive an SUV to work, and the usual trip to work burns a lot more than a couple pounds of oil.

Of course, there will be human costs associated with these environmental savings, namely unemployment among former screw gun operators.

content providers ahead on encryption barriers?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

Conversely, what would happen if copyright were to be abolished entirely, as many cyber-libertarians advocate? Again, this might not prove as liberating as they hope, at least in the short term. Content industries would be unlikely to realise their threat to withhold their products from the digital marketplace. Instead, they might digitise everything as fast as possible, but rely more than ever on technological rather than legal protection. In any race with hackers trying to break through encryption barriers, the media companies would probably stay far enough ahead to suppress most piracy.

I don't know what the writer was thinking. The media companies are so far behind that the major obstacle to copyright infringement is bandwidth, followed by contamination of P2P networks with bad files. As long as there is no hardware base DRM involved, the "hackers" will always catch up within days.

Re:Anyone else see the S-curve in Internet usershi

[krazor84]

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.

Voter apathy

[benjiboo]

A subject im interested in:

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...

Re:Anyone else see the S-curve in Internet usershi

[Khomar]

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?