Wow. Frigid, dude. OK, here goes:
I said what I said, and you can disagree with it, that's your choice. But before you
imply that I'm an irrational retard, (yeah you did you rascal) let me give you my side of
the argument.
The earth is composed of people. The people are doing things, most of the things are in
concert with other people. The things get done because of communication. If there is
no communication between people, then the chances of the people doing something
together (mutual benefit implied, of course, as opposed to shooting each other) are
greatly diminished.
I think we can agree on this.
500 years ago, in Western Land, if you wanted an education, you had to be a male.
You had to be born into a family that could afford to put you into an environment
where you could study, or you had to be really good at drawing or painting or
whatever. Otherwise, you never learned to read. Not being able to read seriously
limited one's ability to communicate across distances greater than say...100 yards.
200 years ago, if you wanted to communicate with someone in Japan, you had to wait
a while. Like 6 months.
You see where I am going here.
What about now? The faster you can communicate, the faster you can get something
done. This is a simple concept. You want to get your product to market faster than the
guy down the street, you send it Fedex.
You need 500,000 firecrackers and it's July 1? You pick up the phone and call
China. You fly them over. Faster is better.
50 years ago, you paid some serious coin-o'-the-realm to talk to Uncle Blinky in
Prague for 3 minutes, if you could get through.
Now, I can "talk" to Uncle Blinky for free. I can get him on the line, if he's on ICQ, in
about 10 seconds. I can chat as long as I want, for days if I want, for free.
I can order the firecrackers in one minute, for free.
gunflak.com.cn
This makes things faster. Cheaper and faster. Communication is much cheaper, much
faster. This means that lots of people who could not communicate with Uncle Blinky,
or order fireworks from China, can do it right now, today. For free.
But that's not the major point.
Let's say it's 1966, and I'm a senior in high school, and I'm doing a report on Ming
porcelain. (I know it's foofy, but work with me for a second.)
I don't know diddly about Ming porcelain. What are my choices? If I have the
encyclopedias there at my house, I can look that up. I get a few paragraphs. Better is
the library. So I hop in my car (I have a car) and I drive over to the library (there's a
library over there) and I get busy, and I find out as much as I can.
If I have no car, no library, like that, I'm SOL.
Let's say I'm a senior in high school today.
fresco-web.co.uk
chron.com.
That took me four minutes. That first site was probably written by Chinese. I
guarantee the encyclopedia was not.
And that is my point. The cultures that have developed on this planet did so partially
because of the physical separation of the people. The languages that we have are just
because Grugg and Flegg decided to move to different caves and leave each other
alone. Years later, they speak different languages.
Now, I'm not saying we should all wear the same clothes and speak the same
language. But it's good (and maybe some bad) that all these people can communicate
with each other in a free and open (relatively) environment. Free in both senses of the
word.
The Internet is bigger than the printing press, bigger than the telephone, bigger than any
other technological development in the history of the world. The Internet is headed in a
certain direction, my friend, and if you can't see it, it's going there anyway. Cultural,
moral, religious, and ethical boundaries are comin' down.
Sit back and watch, because it's gonna happen.
(Not bad for an irrational retard eh? I pick stocks too. I like ASND and CSCO.
Whadda yoo like?)
BAWK! :> #Subject-20947 |
