'It Is a Challenging Time for the Internet: We Must Not Let It Be Undermined' (internetsociety.org)

Andrew Sullivan, CEO and President of Internet Society, a decades old nonprofit organization which works on internet-related standards, education, access, and policy, writes: It is a challenging time for the Internet Society, because it is a challenging time for the Internet. For most of the Internet Society's history, the expansion and development of the Internet could be regarded as an obvious good. There were always those who simply opposed technological development. There were always those who wanted their own interests protected from the Internet. But Internet users historically benefited so much, so obviously, that skepticism about the value of the Internet itself was rare.

Things have changed. Every technology can be used for negative ends. The Internet still, plainly, brings gains in efficiency, convenience, and communications. Yet in the recent past, some of the negative uses have become apparent, which leads some people to ask whether the Internet is just too dangerous. This environment has produced a golden opportunity for those who always preferred a sanitized, tightly-controlled utility to the generative, empowering Internet. These forces claim that only national governments, treaties, laws, regulations, and monopolies can protect us from the problems we face. They do not want the extraordinary collaboration of the Internet. They think there is some mere political choice to be made between the Internet we have known on the one hand, and a tidy, regulated network on the other. If these forces are successful, we will all lose.

The Internet connects people because of its basic design. Each network that joins the Internet does its own thing, but together they are all richer and more reliable. A network of networks cannot be centrally controlled because it has no centre. This is not some accidental design choice we could alter: without this essential feature, we do not have the Internet at all. For that very reason, we -- all humanity -- must not let this technology be undermined. We must face, realistically, the challenges that the Internet produces for us all; but we must face them collaboratively and together. The Internet is for everyone, because only everyone can make the global network of networks.

Comments

Re:Growing anti-intelectualism

[Opportunist]

I have a hypothesis for this.

We have a part in our brain, the Nucleus accumbens. Our "reward center". Which gets tickled when we get something, when we accomplish something and yes, when we take drugs. But also when we discover something. Yes, really. Having a revelation gives you a high. Anyone who ever tried to debug something and found the bug after 2 hours of searching can vouch for this.

Now, discovering something in this time and age is kinda hard. This ain't the 1500s when finding out that two things drop at the same speed no matter the weight is any new revelation. And if you check the more recent Nobel prizes, you'll notice that they usually went to very large teams because making some really great discovery is really, really hard work, and takes really, really intelligent people a really, really long time and requires some really, really big effort from them.

Yes, really.

Now, of course people with... how to put it nicely ... limited resources in the metal department, they don't really get to have groundbreaking revelations too often. The trivial things are simply not something that would tickle the aforementioned Nucleus and the more complex things are, well, let's put it that way: The high only happens when the Nucleus thinks that you understand it. Not by just hearing it.

Conspiracies now fill that niche perfectly: They are simple and easy to grasp and they are a new discovery that changes their world view instantly and profoundly. This is exactly what makes the Nucleus accumbens go into berserk mode. And, to make things even better, there is still plenty of room for discovery, even if you are not exactly Nobel prize material, because nobody who is would bother with this bullshit. So you can invent a few new continents that "explain" away some of the things a flat earth simply cannot or you can find new "hidden" inventory numbers in moon photos.

Unfortunately, the Nucleus accumbens doesn't give a shit whether what you find out is true. All that matters is that you manage to believe it.

Getting someone to snap out of it is not trivial. Essentially, you're trying to tell a junkie to stop taking smack. You think he cares what reality is? All he cares about is the next "revelation", the next fix, the next high.