I think you're right -- after all, the key to understanding the Web's creation is to recall that its creator intended HTML to be an easy-to-use mark-up language, taking care of basic formatting so that persons could exchange ideas. It can still be that, but many of those currently with access will never bother to understand the language. Hence, forums like this evolve to make it even easier for know-nothing-technicals to communicate.
Btw, I'm a communication scholar who took a course over 20 years ago (a computer science/sociology combination special!) on the "universal information utility." From my perspective, remarkably few persons realize how this medium alone (just the Web, I mean) changes society. It is a far more basic change than telegraph, radio, and television combined. It may even be more revolutionary than print. Its basic effect will be to enable us to return to non-hierarchical organizational structures! Many sociologists make a rough analogy between society and a human body; this used to be a poor analogy. I like to say that the Internet (or connected machines generally) is the first central nervous system of society, making the analogy somewhat valid for the first time!
All of the marvellous complexity and diversity of the living world! -- which is many orders of magnitude beyond even the complexity and diversity of the Web -- EVOLVED (rather than being dictated by a Top-Down God, or "managed"). The Web can and will evolve as long as anyone who wants it to work can make whatever changes our minds can conceive.
The key to achieving a society that approaches "utopia" (which I fear is normally considered a stable, rather than dynamically stable, society) is to realize it won't be perfect. Or, to put it in terms of games theory (suitable math for other currently insoluble problems), it will be a satisficing rather than an optimizing solution! And elegance (least number of rules) counts....
I forget who said it (but it was long before my time): "Life is a tragedy to those who feel, and a comedy to those who think."
This leaves those of us who both feel and think in a strange situation, of course. I can't help feeling that "Disneyland" and its ilk (the earliest, I think, may have been Coney Island's theme parks?) is a peculiarly American phenomenon; as is the idealization of sentimentalism. (Being sentimental is a sin: being satisfied with i.e., feeling sorry for someone instead of going further and helping out with the situation.)
No, sorry -- come to think of it, I believe there were pleasure gardens in Copenhagen, and some part of London, during especially decadent ages in which, as in our own age, those who couldn't afford to live an amused life were felt to be inferior.
Also, please consider, the problem with almost all utopian-dreamers is that they start from "scratch." There's always just been a nuclear war, or they're somehow marooned on a desert island, or something. It's a lot harder to get where we want to go -- if we even know where that is -- from where we actually are!
So, it's no coincidence that only certain persons are entirely welcome at places like Disneyland. But technology, although it comes in waves for different strata of society, is generally *intended* for social use, by persons generally. There seems to be some dichotomy here... does Disneyland (et al) have "users?" Technology is also, once absorbed by all strata, "transparent" to its users. But this would never even be acceptable at Disneyland, et al.
As for me, I'm still using XyWrite -- and I'm very happy that the Windows (3.1, runs on 95) version creates output (data) files exactly like the DOS version! I kept trying to explain to corporate types (wherever I was consulting) why we want our WP programs to create only-ASCII output, with optionally-viewable/searchable/replaceable formatting codes embedded, but they always felt having the program supportable by their in-house tech staff was more important. Of course, I end up being the one whose files are never unusable, any of which can be turned into HTML by my own custom programming system....
Btw, does anyone know what's the status, legally, of orphaned software? Can I make copies for other workers of things like Ecco (previously by Netmanage)?
Slashdot Mirror
Btw, I'm a communication scholar who took a course over 20 years ago (a computer science/sociology combination special!) on the "universal information utility." From my perspective, remarkably few persons realize how this medium alone (just the Web, I mean) changes society. It is a far more basic change than telegraph, radio, and television combined. It may even be more revolutionary than print. Its basic effect will be to enable us to return to non-hierarchical organizational structures! Many sociologists make a rough analogy between society and a human body; this used to be a poor analogy. I like to say that the Internet (or connected machines generally) is the first central nervous system of society, making the analogy somewhat valid for the first time!
The key to achieving a society that approaches "utopia" (which I fear is normally considered a stable, rather than dynamically stable, society) is to realize it won't be perfect. Or, to put it in terms of games theory (suitable math for other currently insoluble problems), it will be a satisficing rather than an optimizing solution! And elegance (least number of rules) counts....
This leaves those of us who both feel and think in a strange situation, of course. I can't help feeling that "Disneyland" and its ilk (the earliest, I think, may have been Coney Island's theme parks?) is a peculiarly American phenomenon; as is the idealization of sentimentalism. (Being sentimental is a sin: being satisfied with i.e., feeling sorry for someone instead of going further and helping out with the situation.)
No, sorry -- come to think of it, I believe there were pleasure gardens in Copenhagen, and some part of London, during especially decadent ages in which, as in our own age, those who couldn't afford to live an amused life were felt to be inferior.
Also, please consider, the problem with almost all utopian-dreamers is that they start from "scratch." There's always just been a nuclear war, or they're somehow marooned on a desert island, or something. It's a lot harder to get where we want to go -- if we even know where that is -- from where we actually are!
So, it's no coincidence that only certain persons are entirely welcome at places like Disneyland. But technology, although it comes in waves for different strata of society, is generally *intended* for social use, by persons generally. There seems to be some dichotomy here... does Disneyland (et al) have "users?" Technology is also, once absorbed by all strata, "transparent" to its users. But this would never even be acceptable at Disneyland, et al.
Btw, does anyone know what's the status, legally, of orphaned software? Can I make copies for other workers of things like Ecco (previously by Netmanage)?