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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robnhood who wrote (14739)	10/2/1999 6:05:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17770

Interesting stuff --as usual ;o) Technology: Democracy vs. Totalitarianism Technology and Democracy Tremendous forces, mostly technological, are making the world smaller and more conceivable as a system. This system has been undergoing nothing short of sheer convulsions as the contradictions of capitalism bear themselves out. The transition from the first wave agricultural revolution to the second wave industrial revolution brought us this wonderful ecological catastrophe and corporate centralism. Now, the military-based material system is working to dismantle itself as the second-wave industrial economy transforms into a third wave information economy. Ironically, the main force that could end up toppling dictators and fostering a global, grassroots community is a force created by the U.S. military. The Internet started as, perhaps, the first lesson in decentralization that the elite toyed with. The plan was to create an information system that had no central hub, so that if any given military base gets bombed, the rest of the bases would still be linked together. As military toys sometimes do, the Internet, once it embedded itself into the university/research complex, escaped from their hands and landed in the hands of the commercial sector. The Internet has spawned (and keeps continuing to spawn) virtual communities where diverse ranges of knowledge can be obtained for free in almost no time at all. Internationally, networks of people are banding together and using communications technology in a way to totally subvert the present mass-media system of one-directional communications. People have used e-mail listservs which can be used as mailing lists or as decentralized discussion groups to distribute information to multiple people at no per-person cost. This is very subversive to traditional news media. It also provides the opportunity to create virtual communities, joining like-minded individuals from communities throughout the world. As in Alvin Toffler's vision of the future, there will be physical communities built around local resources and material needs and a second layer of virtual community to fill one's intellectual needs and provide the "global mind." Already, people alienated in their physical environments are finding community on a cognitive, global level rather than a material, local level. The groundwork for one global language is being set on Internet. While certain European languages can survive via the Roman alphabet on keyboards internationally, other languages will tend to yield to the new International creole rather than try to supplant the American language dominance. Americans usually don't learn other languages. Americans don't start learning languages until too late in their schooling to do much good. Many Europeans and other non-Americans learn English as well as their own language. The world is being prepared to be a global community by way of the increase in communications and transportation technologies and the globalization of the economic system. [...] Full essay: enviroweb.org