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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."
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.
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
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 -.-- -.-- --..
Let me get this straight.
You think that by not entering the technology sector that sector will end up producing products that are less environementally unfriendly?
If you want to see a change become an Electrical Engineer instead (or related field) and WORK on producing processes that are better.
Using your logic you shouldn't become a doctor either because of the hazards of biomedical waste. I can't think of a profession that isn't environmentally unfriendly in some way. Daily life is environmentally unfriendly. If you think there is a problem do something proactive. Not getting a degree in CS because the tools of the trade are produced in an environment unfriedly way doesn't solve the problem or really make any differance at all.
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?
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.
Then, that's why you should go into the Industry. Find out ways to fabricate chips without such things.
It's not as if we're going to give up computers.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
It won't at all. You're quite right. Access and laziness simply cannot be the reasons for low voter turnout, otherwise every country in the world would have the problem to the same degree as the USA. The problem is collossal, but one element of it can be drawn out with interesting comparisons to the Internet:
In the early days of the US, civil participation was an important aspect of political life, and everybody was meant to be actively following and participating in political life. The same occurs o nthe 'Net now, which promotes participation by several mechanisms, mostly social but also some technological The very idea of getting onto the 'Net and not getting involved in some project or discussion is absurd (and I'm talking about the 'Net, not AOL or some similarly media-blinkered version too many people use).
Politics in the US, and increasingly in European countries (i.e. the "old" democracies) involves less and less participation. Politicians actively *discourage* it - whenever citizens try to participate, they're damned. Participation is anethma to politics today. We exercise no real power over our governments because we only get the opportunity of one legitimate vote every two/four/five years (unless your government doesn't like you, like ethnic minorities in Florida). We exercise no real power over how they carry out their duties, nor over thier agenda, nor over how the agenda and results are published and perceived.
In a system where citizens have no power, and no part to play, it's no wonder they don't vote.
I agree, except with the fact that identity theft, SPAM and the amount of crucial information online is growing tremendously. I want crime involving the internet to be punishable. Ann Rand this is not.
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.
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.
I agree and disagree, yes, people don't vote because they don't care, *but* at the same time, if you are "just throwing your vote away" on a third pary, there is little incentive to make the effort to going to your polling place.
I feel that internet voting would increase greatly 3rd party voting. Would that affect *overall* turnout, probably some, but if it can get a thrid party matching fund votes, it would be a GREAT force in American politics.
Instant runoff would have a similar, or greater affect, and the both together might actually make people think thier vote matters and we'd see bigger turnouts.
Then again, I can be really stupid at times =)
Department of Homeland Security: Removing the rights real patriots fought and died for since 2001