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To: Ilaine who wrote (4449)	6/7/2001 6:27:24 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 74559

<I think you are overstating the importance of the Internet - it's only important to human beings,> Well, that's not a bad start you know. If the left-footed mudcrabs don't like it, that's not my problem. But in time to come, I think the internet will be important to the internet. Just as I am important to me. Religionists and 'the great human brain' fan club members lose their grip right there... <... and no more important than the development of memory and forethought, the development of the ego, the development of the superego, the development of language, the development of agriculture, the development of complex civilizations with cities and international commerce, the development of writing, perhaps not even the development of the printing press, although I think maybe it's about equal in importance to the printing press.> True, all those things were necessary preludes to where we are. You could add mitochondria and every development since. Every single one was vital. But the internet is more than a bunch of wires and bit storage, just as our brain is more than a bunch of wires and bit storage. When the world is awash with sensors, fibre, lasers and computing, I think the internet will look suspiciously smart with vast memory, predictive powers to make us look dopey, and something which resembles ego and self-awareness. I'm betting on the Net rather than chimp derivatives [humans]. <I think of it as nothing more than the convergence of the printing press, radio, television, the telephone, the telegraph, and libraries, from the physical world to the digital world. It's just a medium of communication taking advantage of how cheap storage is for digital information, and how easy that information is to transmit.> Yes, that's now. But it's already vastly more than just an electronic duplication. What do you think IT will look like in 100 years? Just an electronic library? How about 20 years? How about 10 years? <Libraries never make money.> Neither did chimps, but we evolved from them and make heaps. You don't think the internet will evolve a bit more yet? Anyway, my point is not even that the internet will make money, it's that it will totally change the world. It might make no money itself, but still be vastly important. For example, if one could invent a gene which gave chimps an IQ of 100, that would be worth a great deal don't you think? But the cost of that gene might be zero. Just a few self-replicating amino acids hooked into the loop. Bingo, vast value for zero cost. That's what happened and how we got here. The internet could be the same. It's what will be enabled by the internet for people and for itself which is the big story, rather than the money to be made from building the internet, though I think that will be huge too. Mqurice