Indeed, the internet IS a whole new order of being.
It is the first time in history that large numbers of people who have no other connection with each other, nothing in common other than having a given machine at their fingertips, can communicate almost instantaneously.
Up until twenty years ago, the only ways to communicate directly with other people who lived hundreds or thousands of miles away from you and whom you had never met was by telephone, which required hearing the other person's voice, or by letter, which generally took more time to write and took time to mail, or by meeting them in person. Telegraph was the nearest thing to internet communication, and it still took time to go to the telegraph office, dispach the telegraph, have it delivered, and get the response back, and was extremely costly.
The human race has never faced this kind of communication tool before in its history. It is, indeed, a new order of being in terms of human interactions, and I think we need to recognize it as such and develop a whole new set of rules and principles for it. |
