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.

Another point of interest for the future...

[Anonvmous Coward]

How to deal with the random internet outages caused by Slashdot?

Anyone else see the S-curve in Internet usership?

[ThePackager]

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?"

My that's a long list

[Amsterdam Vallon]

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!

don't you think...

[Machine9]

... that the internet is self-regulating in a way?

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?

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.

Soliloquy

[EEgopher]

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.

Welcome to Slashdot....

[Em Emalb]

"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 /.

Robot with a screw gun

[burgburgburg]

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?

Re:Didn't Sony already develop the x-ray camera?

[Knobby]

Sort of.. The SONY camera measured light in the IR spectrum and used that to enhance the images in low-light situations. If you enabled this option during the day, it would allow you to "see through clothes".. Of course, we're not talking about detail.. Just large scale features..

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:Voter apathy

[Telex4]

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.

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?

Just like all the other advances...

[I am the blob]

From the article:

The vast increases in productivity over the past decade mean that Jane has a lot of free time.

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