The Internet since 1995

re: The Internet in 1995

The internet has done things that few people imagined back in 1995. The internet is now about 7000 days old, its already completely changed media and commerce, how we socialise is being transformed, the next big shift is probably in education (which thus far has been based on the idea that you need to get people into a room together if you want to disseminate knowledge efficiently). Ultimately, I think its going to change the way we think as well.

In 1995 I was literally wasting hours of my life debating things with people that could be largely settled these days with 5 minutes of googling. I'm starting to realise that most of the pre-internet thinking I did was akin to stumbling around in the dark.

(originally a comment on this metafilter thread)

In our hands

Haha they made a handheld device that contains all human knowledge and now we make fun of each other for looking at it too much

— David Thorpe (@Arr) March 7, 2013

Left, Right, and how they see each other

(originally from a comment on this metafilter thread)

... I believe it is possible for some people on the right to genuinely believe their way is better for everyone in the long run (rather than just being self-interested etc, which is the usual way the left views the right), and such a hypothetical honest good-intentioned right-winger would argue thus:

"The left wing aim of redistributing wealth to help people in need is well intentioned, and I would allow some of that for the most needy cases. In general though, such hand-outs engender dependency and yes, lets admit it, possibly lazyness and lack of motivation in some cases. Also redistribution by the state is always inefficient and clumsy and slow. Its better for most people to have to fend for themselves to a large degree (excepting some extreme cases) and a country of people standing up for themselves will be dynamic and productive. Redistribution if left unchecked would grow to cover more and more cases and dampen the whole economy and although it would hurt the rich first, it would eventually hurt everybody. Thus (in corb's wording) voting for the left eventually fucks everybody"

I don't agree with that position, but I do admit the possibility that some people honestly think like that, and that they honestly believe their way is for the ultimate good of everybody.

160 chars: LHC for Ideas

"We are the first generation to have the information equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider for ideas." http://gigaom.com/2010/06/06/does-the-internet-make-us-smarter-or-dumber-yes/ …

Play

I was pretty olymposkeptic (see my mefi comment history) but I was looking forward to the ceremony because I like Danny Boyle and because all the #savethesecret people said it was good.

I really liked the ceremony - presenting the Industrial Revolution as both something epic and something terrible. Having a whole section for the NHS, and the 'Frankie and June Say Thanks Tim' social-media bit devoted to Tim Berners-Lee* was brilliant. I totally lost it when the panning-back camera revealed Rowan Atkinson on keyboards.

The naff bits (reading the oath of 'olympism', speeches etc) were the bits that the IOC mandate as _having_ to be in the ceremony.

The parade of nations was great (imagine how much more amazing those parades would have been 30 years ago when people travelled/internetted less). And the torch was great.

In the end I was left thinking - "That was a beautiful spectacle, ending with a lovely tribute to world togetherness etc. Shame its all about sport rather than something I'm actually interested in" ... as in, to me, it seemed _too_ epic to just be about a running and jumping competition. Why don't we have ceremonies like this to celebrate other things, like science, or literature, or just the fact the we exist at all? (I suppose the millenium celebrations were celebrating that, which is why they were great)

And that line of thinking - 'why such a large tribute to sport instead of something really important?' led me to "get" sport for the first time. I get it now. Humans like to play games. Sport is just play. But play boosted and codified and regulated for the world stage. We, as a species, like to play, and when we play big it ends up looking like the olympics.

So I guess I'm a bit of a convert now. Still dont like all the sponsorship nonsense, but at least they kept that out of the ceremony.

* Tim Berners-Lee appeared with his original NeXTcube and sent this tweet just before he appeared

(originally a comment on this metafilter thread)

160 chars: Leaders

Theory: Leaders that are imprisoned before they get into power are better than leaders that are imprisoned after they get into power?

160 chars: Unity

Is there any point in Unity if it's not in opposition to something?