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NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING NEW THINKING
Free weekly email contributing to a philosophy for The Digital Age
By Gerry McGovern Email:
gerry@nua.ie Web:
http://www.nua.ie
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July 27th 1998 Published By: Nua Limited Volume 3 Number 30
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IF
If the Internet is such a wonderful and diverse environment then
how come we're all going to the same places. Yahoo, Netscape, AOL,
Microsoft, Alta Vista, Excite, Geocities, Amazon and a few others
command over fifty percent of Internet traffic.
If it's cheap to develop for the Internet and it's a level playing
field and all that, then how come that cheaply developed sites
aren't attracting as much traffic as Yahoo? Sure it's cheap to
develop for the Internet; the cheaper the development the less
people who visit and the less often you need to update your site.
If you publish something on the Internet and nobody except your
friends and family read it then does that make you a publisher?
It's a bit like the tree falling in the forest scenario. If
nobody heard it fall did it really make a noise?
If there will be 800 million documents on the Internet by Year
2000, then won't we have reached the classic case of, 'More is
less.' Unless we structure information in a far more efficient
manner then won't information start collapsing onto itself, each
new entry lessening the value of that which is already there?
If information is the fuel that drives The Digital Age, then is
information overload its pollution?
If the Internet does indeed create one truly Global Village, then
will that ultimately mean an end to the diversity of language and
culture? Is that a good thing?
If we cannot touch on the Internet, and if we spend increasing time
online, will that mean that we will become less 'feeling' people?
If it's easy to make a friend online, is it as easy to lose one also?
If the Internet shouldn't be regulated just like the rest of society
is regulated does that mean that it's not like the rest of society?
If it's not like the rest of society, then what exactly is it like?
(Have aliens taken over the Internet?) Or perhaps and maybe the rest
of society shouldn't be regulated just like the Internet shouldn't
be regulated and maybe anarchy is the best model after all?
If you don't pay tax on the Internet and the Internet becomes a
fundamental part of your economic and social life, won't that be
like all your Sundays rolled into one? Of course it will. Once
your children don't need education, once your country doesn't need
an army or a political establishment, once you don't need your
highways to be maintained, once you don't need all the things that
taxes are used for in the first place.
If Government should stay out of the Internet because it doesn't
know what it's doing, then how come it was Government that
invented and nurtured the Internet?
If the Internet is a wonderful advance for humanity, democracy and
liberty, then how come humanity's poorest have a zero chance of
ever enjoying this wonderful advance?
If the Internet hadn't been invented, would the world be a
fundamentally better or worse place for the vast majority of
people who live in it?
If the Internet helps us all to communicate more, then doesn't
that greatly improve our chances of working out all the new
issues that face us as we enter The Digital Age?
Gerry McGovern
gerry@nua.ie
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