The Net Revolution's Backlash 120
We don't have a paperless world; work isn't easier, or even demonstrably more efficient; nation-states are not disintegrating; the new global economy hasn't improved the lot of the vast majority of the world's population; new software has nearly destroyed the notion of privacy; our citizens or political leaders haven't been reenergized by the sweeping possibilities of e-democracy. Our new President says the Net can turn children's hearts "dark" and murderous, and Amazon has yet to make a buck.
People can communicate, transfer information, make airline reservations, place auction bids, plunge into sophisticated games, hack any system on the planet, create alternate personalities, self-publish themselves, yak with their grandkids and amass tons of free stuff from music to lecture notes to building blueprints.
A seminal promise of the Computer Revolution -- for many, the point -- was to bring information to everybody and make lives easier. But is this the revolution? Does this really change life for the better, or even change it much at all? A few years ago, the idea of the Net -- its freedom and openness, its ethos of sharing information -- seemed stunning, radical. But they don't seem very revolutionary at the moment. In fact, the reconsideration and doubts -- a slowdown, a backlash -- are upon us.
Consider Napster, perhaps the Net's most popular single application and favorite media symbol. An entity that drew 62 million people in just two years -- a perhaps unprecedented accomplishment in business history -- is fighting to exist at all.
Napster's crippling can't be read as anything but a portent of what's to come. File-sharing is by no means shut down, but the bad guys have won one of the first great wars between corporatism and free information advocates, and the victory has handed them a substantial legal precedent.
So the Net is no closer than it was several years ago to finding a workable model for distributing culture fairly, legally and rationally; in fact, that goal seems even further off.
Napster probably means far less in practical terms than its media attention indicates, but it's a handy metaphor for this transition from one era to another, with the attendant confusion, turmoil and promise. Napster's series of defeats suggests that the grown-ups are finally taking charge, that the wild frontier is closing down.
The Net and the Web have revolutionized certain areas like academic and scientific research. But they've done little to eradicate illiteracy or poverty, or alter education for most students. The search for virtual community remains ephemeral. The Digital Nation has not emerged to create a new kind of rational, meaningful democracy. In fact, the latest innovations in software are complex filtering, blocking and moderation systems that permit people to pre-select the ideas and informatiion they're willing to receive. This is not what Jefferson had in mind.
There are plentiful examples of the way the Net can empower individuals -- in particular by providing access to information previously unavailable or prohibitively expensive. People have access to all kinds of medical, legal and other information previously sold and closed off to them, and to new avenues of expression from webpages to mailing lists to MUD's. .
The Net has given small entrepeneurs, threatened by the Wal-Marting of the country, a new opportunity to prosper. And it's creating countless smaller gathering spots for micro-communities in need of contact with one another -- the sick, the elderly, hobbyists, professionals, movielovers, gays.
Meanwhile, however, the computer industry, the heart and soul of this supposed revolution, is paying the price for years of arrogance, of confusing and overpriced products, of lousy customer service, of unfulfilled promises. All these have fueled the public perception that the people involved in creating the computer revolution are callous and greedy, that they can't really be trusted to create a computer network that people will be able to use readily and benefit from.
In fact, one of the striking characteristics of this revolution is the sense that the people making it have failed to keep in mind, communicate with or connect to the people using it, and upon whom their future ultimately depends.
More backlash: Retailers, distributors and other commercial midde-men have launched a broad assault, waging a quiet but successful campaign to block e-commerce. Car dealers, wine merchants and music merchants are lobbying for laws to shut down online rivals. Internet lawyers, almost nonexistent just a decade ago, are firmly entrenched in today's cyberspace, whether you see them as partners or villains.
A new report (not yet online) from Washington think tank the Progressive Policy Institute catalogs how pervasive the rush for protection has become. It notes that in l997, Texas optometrists lobbied successfully for a law requiring out-of-state contact lens providers to obtain original, hand-signed prescriptions before shipping lenses to customers. The law makes ordering via the Web, which generated half of 1-800-Contacts' estimated $145 million in sales last year, much more time-consuming.
There is an Internet Predicament, Newsweek's Robert Samuelson wrote last month: the Net is a great giveaway, but not yet a great business, because there is simply too much distributed for free or priced below cost. Online sales of goods are still a tiny fraction of retails sales; what has really thrived online is information, something tricky to charge for.
In fact, information has driven so much of the so-called tech boom that consumers are becoming overwhelmed by data -- even blessed endeavors like Disney's Go.com have found themselves one more dot on a crowded graph.
There is also a failure of community. Early cyber-models like San Francisco's WELL have turned out to be isolated examples of virtual community, not really a harbinger of things to come.
Naturally, questions and doubts about the revolution are not far behind.
In The Social Life of Information, John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid worry about losing the value of face-to-face personal and office encounters. Stories told around the water cooler are critical to businesses and institutions, they write, offering nuance, cues and personal connections that are essential in real communications, but which are sometimes lost online.
Narration, they write, is a key, if unexpected tool for workers or employers. "The constant storytelling -- about problems and solutions, about disasters and triumphs, over breakfast, lunch and coffee -- serves a number of overlapping purposes," say the authors. These purposes are often poorly served via e-mail, IRC or instant messaging.
Among the calls for change is The Unfinished Revolution, a new book from MIT computer scientist Michael Dertouzos. Looking at the rate at which technology and its attendant devices are taking us over, he laments, "We wait endlessly for our computers to boot up, and for bulky Web pages to paint themselves on our screens. We stand perplexed in front of incomprehensible system messages, and wait in frustration on the phone for computerized assistance. We constantly add software upgrades, enter odd instructions, fix glitches, only to sit in maddening silence when our machines crash, forcing us to start all over again, hoping against hope that they didn't take a piece of our intellectual hide with them."
And it's going to get worse, Dertouzo argues. If the quirky machines give us grief now, imagine the message we'll get when there are 10 times as many of these "creatures biting at you."
We need reform, Dertouzos says, a new plan for "human-centric computing" that will serve, not frustrate people, and work as well for the non-tech world as for the tech universe.
The idea of human-centric computing makes sense, though it does have a familiar ring. Haven't we heard such promises before? Computers were supposed to have surpassed humans in cognitive thinking long before now. But that's only one of the unkept promises of a revolution that has already made too many, and that's proved less than revolutionary.
Next: Broken Promises, Failed Expectations. Has the public lost faith?
Out of touch with human beings? (Score:5)
Every decision thats being made is being made by human beings, for human beings. Is it out of touch with some ill defined utopia that makes Katz feel all fuzzy inside, certainly, but that should not be mistaken for what humanity is.
If the net is cold, alienating, money obsessed, balkanized and uninviting it is because it reflects humanity all too well.
buzzwords (Score:1)
Without trying to sound inflammatory, computers are already human-centric; it's just that they don't always serve the humans that own them.
The quick answer: yes (Score:2)
Katz Meta-Post (Score:1)
Could be worse, could be better. (Score:1)
Buh? (Score:1)
Does Katz think... (Score:2)
The funny thing is... (Score:2)
All those stupid business men who have invented web technologies, thinking they were going to get rich. They're ticked because we've taken all the new gadgets and they haven't got a penny back. The internet is a great revolution. It has served the people well. Unfortunately, the people picking up the check want their piece.
That's why you see stricter and stricter rules for domain names. They haven't made any money off of the net. They don't know how to. But they're going to kill us or themselves trying
Yawn. (Score:5)
Katz once again has believed the market hype of the media whores who pushed the whole "internet will change all our lives".
Look at all the good things on the internet today - you can share files, you can seek tech help, you can waste time on weblogs... You can buy a holiday, you can research a car spec, all these things are good and possible.
What is evil about the internet? Kiddie pr0n, corporations subverting open standards, and marketing. Without marketing there wouldn't be 35 spam messages sitting in my inbox. Without marketing we wouldn't have had the boom bust dotcom era.
The meltdown in dotcom stocks is a symptom of how marketing and PR are destroying everything that's is good in the world, and not just on the net. Why do people get killed for their Nikes? Because the killers saw the marketing and *had* to have the trainers.
The fact of the matter is the Internet has improved my life. It's easy to download latest patches & drivers and look for help when I'm at work. I can plan evenings out with my friends over email, or offer them sympathy if they're down. I can track down hard to find books. Small things, but my life is arguably better than pre internet days.
What the marketers saw was communities like the WELL and thought that was for everybody. The thing about places like that is that they attract a similar kind of people, where these people can then found communities.
Most of the more cohesive communities online that I belong to are tech based. I think this is because us techs resent the way the internet has turned out and look for our own little oasis, free from the lusers that infest the net today. These communities are the envy of the media luvvies who push the net-chages-everything argument, because the media people are now realising that you can't build it - it must be allowed to grow. And most lusers aren't willing to go through that curve.
In short, as ntk.net says - "They stole our revolution. Now we're stealing it back".
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Revolution is not a reaction, but an Action (Score:2)
So, let's not pretend it's a revolution, eager to return to what was before, but accept that it is... and extend it into the future. Instead of analyzing its effect on all sorts of established patterns, I think a much more fruitful approach to the Internet Revolution is to see what things have been created or sustained or strengthened entirely within the realm of the Internet. I think Tiananmen Square and SubComandante Marcos are two excellent examples. I was online at the time of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and I remember the Chinese gov't shut down ALL media access to the events there. They shut down all video, all phones, even faxes. But the Internet was unknown to them (it was the late 80s), and they forgot to shut down the Internet. Students ran in from the scene, logged on to their university e-mail accounts, and sent passionate and detailed e-mails about what was happening on their streets. I remember being quite informed on the topic, then turning to the News at 5:00 and finding nothing but obscure references to something happening in China. I didn't know how to organize that information then, but now I do: that was the first time the Internet played a significant role in undermining "official" strategies. By the time the Chinese gov't got around to shutting down the Internet, which they never did, it was way too late--the truth was already out.
A few years later, I watched Subcomandante Marcos restructure the revolutionary value of the Internet over the course of dozens of e-mails which revealed a cryptic poetic genius who was extremely well-prepared for an online war, playing against politicians who kept trying to respond to him with plain old-fashioned violence. The events of the past few weeks, where 150,000 people gathered to cheer him in Mexico City, where the Mexican prez Fox sent several hundred police officers to PROTECT Marcos, instead of what they were doing eight years ago, which was sending assassins to ambush him (several ambushes failed against him, because he was simply better informed than the Feds)...
The point is, that we should not look at the Internet/Information revolution with the language of its predecessor, which I consider the paranoia revolution (which began in about 1930, and is winding down now in the face of the incredible access to information coming to us via the Internet). We should look at it within its own terms, and continue to build it out of the thin air from which it was created. Remember, no one, not a single soul, predicted where we'd be with the Internet fifteen years ago. It was just a research tool til 1994...
Well then, you ask, what is that new language? You're reading it. Look at us. We're geeks. Used to be, we'd have to make a living as circus-sideshow freaks. Now an incredible legitimacy is given to programmers, and our demand for Open Source approaches to the world. This is rich material, and I hope John Katz turns his ability to synthesize themes by careful and targeted research to realizing that the Information Revolution is one where we can only make scant reference to the pre-open-source world, and hold firmly to the vision that comes with this revolution so we can turn it over to our grandkids and know that we didn't just let Walmart and McDonalds and Pepsico coopt it from us like they so want to. Viva la Google! Viva la Amazon! Viva la Revolucion!
The Net Revolution (Score:1)
Information, is accessed and passed independently and in a way that we never imagined.
Business, can be done from anywhere with this medium. Two centuries ago, we had people moving from farms to cities, now it will be the opposite.
Within 30 years or sooner, broadband access will be in all homes in America, so the Internet's full potential will reach everyone, directly.
The Internet will become what the phone line is..
It's become one of the vitals of a home, water, gas, phone line, internet access, (although there are billions without a single phone line! Even in countries like Poland, Russia, etc.)
Copy protection is something that will never be realized because as mentioned, the Internet will help facilitate a solution. How did Linux become so big? The Internet! How did Java become so important in three years that Ivy League schools (Brown University) are now teaching it as a first language, the Internet.
The Internet has dramatically changed not only the world of Computers but of that of the entire world.
The failed dot-coms are only because people were such in a investing frenzy, and now? Now the market is correcting itself.
Napster? Face it, if you're running an illegal business that attacts up to 30% of the nation to its servers, you are going to have the law knocking on your door! The RIAA isn't going after IRC bots.
The Net was never intended to be a silver bullet (Score:2)
The Net as a tool was, and is, revolutionary. You can't deny the significance it has had to how people think and do nowadays. It has quickly become a prevalent, commonplace aspect of world culture, and that can not be ignored. People have learned about, and will continue to develop, the use of the internet as an information and communication resource.
The schism that we're struggling with, though, is due to the disappointment that the Net didn't solve our social and economic problems as well. How can we realistically expect the introduction of a new form of communication to immediately create a new form of government? That's what people expected in a global community, isn't it? That's why they're so disappointed.
More striking, though, is the fact that people were looking to solve their economic woes with the Net as a silver bullet. The entire world attacked this "communication tool" with a rabid fervor to fill their pockets with money, a decidely capitalistic ideal. The problem is that significant parts of the world are still struggling with capitalism. It takes time to implement a social structure like that and the insane ballooning and deflation of economic success is simply a result of "too much, too soon."
Will the Net succeed as an economic medium? You bet. Will everyone benefit? Absolutely not. To start with, you have establishments (read: corporations) which are in place and are fervently opposed to anyone else getting their piece of the pie. Entertainment conglomerates are the "Evil Empire" of the moment, but what did we really expect? Did we really think that they would allow our global community to affect their bottom line without consequence?!?
Those who expected that are the most disappointed, I think. But I also believe that overcoming disappointment is the key. Once that is done, though re-evaluating and simplifying our expectations of the Net, we wll find that the road to our global community (or our economic success, or whatever your personal intent is) is much easier, and more satisfying, to travel.
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:2)
Not all human creation reflects human beings or human thinking. The net is a medium, very much like TV, radio, and dead trees. What is cold and alienating is the (relative) lack of freedom to create or consume content as some (e.g. Katz). It is also entirely possible that the negative aspects above reflect the thinking of a few, a powerful few, that impose them on a much larger majority. I believe that is the case that is being referred to in the article.
... (Score:2)
The zeal started to wear off when people began to realize that the Web is a real thing, not an imaginary concept. It has limits. It is finite. Once tech-ignorant investors started realizing this, they pulled their money back out.
Dotcoms fell, and took with them the industry that had developed overnight to support them. Hardware and software companies were hit hard because they overestimated the boom. Everyone got caught up in the frenzy and started making bad decisions.
The Web is still here. It is still growing at a steady rate in size, usefulness, and publicity. In ten years, it will still be here, and will still be growing.
Who's revolution is this? (Score:3)
human-centric computing (Score:1)
Katz writes:
The idea of human-centric computing makes sense, though it does have a familiar ring. Haven't we heard such promises before? Computers were supposed to have surpassed humans in cognitive thinking long before now.
First off, technical advances have nothing to do with "human-centric" computing, which has nothing to do with computing power. Rather, it focuses on having computers (or VCRs or PDAs or whatever) more easy to use.
Any interaction with a device is a two-way street-- we tell it what to do, and it responds in kind. The problem with so many systems in use today is that they are designed such that the human ends up doing most of the work in the interaction. We have to make adjustments to the machine rather than the machine accommodating us.
Until designers start making a real effort to create products that meet users more than halfway, there will continue to be resistance to them.
One GEMSTONE found in this crap pile... (Score:1)
The huge company I work for decided LONG ago to establish offices in a country I won't name, but that is 12 time zones away from me. Well, after doing some initial coding, I sent my source to the other office for inclusion into the "BIG WEB PROJECT." As with all things, there were some minor difficulties. Due to the distance and the venues of communication (internet chat, email and telephone chat), I won't be able to resolve these problems in less than 2 days. I'm not on a schedule, but this COULD have been resolved in an hour if we could only see and talk to each other face to face.
Yes, the internet is a wonderful thing, but old style face to face contact will NEVER be improved upon by anything. Humans need human contact; it's in out genes.
Education != The NET (Score:4)
The foundation of education is reading, writing, clear thinking, and basic mathematics. All other education can be built on that foundation.
And, oddly enough, the net is not needed, or even particularly helpful, in teaching the foundation. Instead, what is needed are some books, writing materials, and a motivated teacher who knows how to read, write, think, and do math. (I don't necessarily mean teacher as in a school, but rather one who teaches in whatever context.)
Give a kid the foundation, along with some moral guidance, and you will have done the best you can to equip him to avoid poverty and ignorance for the rest of his life.
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:1)
It's like that robot in "Return to Oz" that had separate keys to wind up his speech, thinking, and movement, so he would often keep speaking while unable to think.
-I am Dwarf
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:3)
Ok, this may not be worthwhile content :) but thats just us obeying Sturgeon's Law...
Re:The Net Revolution (Score:1)
Websites that once contained gargantuan amounts of content are now replaced with websites with mediocre amounts of content and bucketloads of ad banners.
Websites that used to be run out of peoples love for the content they were posting are now run by fools trying to make the quickest buck possible, and when it doesn't work out they threaten that the site is being shut down.
Websites that used to have (god forbid) nine paragraphs of content dealing with a review, a commentary, etc on one webpage Are now replaced with three webpages of content, each filled with ad banners.
Obfuscation is now the key. What used to be plain text and easy to navigate is now obfuscated because someone decided to take some abstract artistic license with their Shockwave Flash program they just warezed.
My access to information is no longer free. I now have to sign up for a mailing list through a dummy account to receive information about new offers that are happening. I have to weave my eyes everywhere trying to differentiate between content and paid-for bullshit posing as content.
IT story telling (Score:1)
"The constant storytelling -- about problems and solutions, about disasters and triumphs, over breakfast, lunch and coffee -- serves a number of overlapping purposes,"
Goldysoft and the Three eBears
Once upon a time, there were three computers, a big server, a medium server, and a small server...
Wrong revolution (Score:3)
I thought that one of the obvious benefits of networking my computer with everyone else was being able to send pictures of my kids to my parents. This is a good thing. It makes everyone except Jon Katz happy.
If you expected the revolution to turn out differently, too bad. It's in the nature of revolutions to be unpredictable.
--
#include "stdio.h"
Work is easier for me! (Score:1)
Now, I sit in my cube, surf for porn, try to understand PDF's and write PERL.
Definitely easier for me!
Agreement (Score:1)
Katz forgets what life was like before the web (Score:5)
Now I'm not saying books have lost their place. One of the dangers is the net is people paying less attention to our paper legacy. But the amount of information on the web is staggering, and it actually isn't all that hard to find what you want, be it a snippet of MATLAB code to do wavelet transforms, a list of roman emporers, or names and reviews of all of Peter Jackson's films. It's in your face in 1-3 minutes. That kind of information turnaround was unthinkable 15 years ago, and its effect on my productivity is profound.
Now the net can hamper productivity as well, by providing easy distractions. But there's only person for me to blame when I allow myself to waste time. I don't blame the automotive industry if I hurt myself in a car wreck.
I think Katz is too cynically dismissive of the positive changes that have occurred as a result of the internet.
So Why Should It? (Score:2)
step in 167-year evolution (Score:4)
about events in their short lives and lose the
overall long-term picture.
The communications revolution has been steadily
progressing since the invention of the telegraph
in 1844. The telegraph spawned two elements:
intaneous communication and mass media (newspapers).
Everything since has been an elaboration.
These issues have occured before and will occur
again.
So you were expecting a miracle, Mr. Katz? (Score:1)
Mr. Katz could be a bit less histronic about the whole thing.
The future isn't here yet. (Score:2)
You want an accurate picture of the relevance of these things? Speed limits. The laws are there but no one cares. No one follows them. And no one would DARE make a car that only went 55MPH. Wait! Before you say DVD let me say again - so what? Once massive bandwith is everywhere who will care? Your DVD player will be as relevant as an old laserdisk player.
Katz, as usual, you're pretty pessimistic. (Score:2)
Those minor problems are beans compared to the great strides that the net has made for people all around the world. The reason that corporations and countries such as China fear the net is that they know that it empowers individuals like no medium has ever done before. It allows them to communcate and share ideas like never before. Worse, in their eyes, it allows them to think new, alien thoughts.
Example: How many Americans were anime fans before the net brought Anime into a semi-mainstream position? Now, they show Tenchi Muyou, Gundam Wing, and Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon on Cartoon Network. This means that people from the East and West are communicating despite the language and culture barriers. We're relating to eachother instead of the computers!
That, in my mind at least, is the important thing.
More importantly and more socially relevant, Americans got a view of *both* sides of the war during the Serbian bombing during the last half of the Clinton administration. We got told by the gov't that they were doing everything they could to keep casualities to a minimum and nobody was really being hurt, but when it came down to it, each ane every one of us could look to Eastern european websites for a view of what was happing by the people it was happening to.
Business has not been affected positively by the internet you say? Bullshit. I work for a firm that does tens of thousands of dollars a day worth of business over the internet. The trick? We have a sane business model that relies on charging our users for our services and products that are in rare supply LIKE ANY SANE BUSINESS MODEL SHOULD!
As for the fact that computers are not as good as they should be? Well I callenge you to start writing everything you put down on an old IBM 8086. Computers are doing just fine and are clipping along at a rate that makes most people unable to afford to keep up with technology. People's expectation of how easy, fast, and cheap techonology needs to be have been watching too much Star Trek.
Katz, you need to keep in mind that you're still in the middle of the computer age and that advances and leaps and strides are going on all around you. Keep an eye out and you might see them.
A few comments (Score:1)
I think the negative feeling about the Internet right now, is basically a bunch of greedy people came along and dumped millions of dollars into lame ass websites and expected them to pull a profit. Also any information that was copyrighted was also free for all, so old models lose money. Don't forget that most of the money is made off of porn and gambling and it seems grim.
Since we are a country that is so focused on money, on that level the Internet has failed.
On the otherside of things the Internet has empowered the average person and the rich and powerful have too much power as it is, so they don't need anymore.
The net empowers us to share info, easily develop business, create jobs for us, post our resumes and find jobs, create personal sites or share photos for family and friends, play cool networked games with friends in other states, email and chat with people around the world, update software that would be out of date, listen to the radio without being in the car, get news before TV, be entertained, get involved in issues of the world, make new friends, get help with problems in a messageboard, receive and send faxes for free, get stuff from your childhood from ebay, get maps to anywhere, win free money, find out movie times, and more. Damn the net is awesome.
It is a double edged sword and can create positive or negative outcomes.There will always be those people who are greedy, perverted, crazy, and negative. So make of the Internet what you want, otherwise other people will make your choices for you.
Magic & Blessings Chris
Re:... (Score:2)
Yep. It was a gold rush land grab. Fools rush in where fools have been before. The zeal wore off and the speculators pulled out but the damage they've done to the net is permanent.
Re:The Net Revolution (Score:1)
Although Communism would never permit an Internet such as ours, poor China, they can't even control what's going on their phone lines.
There's nothing wrong with trying to make money...
like Slashdot...I mean, think if they were really money greedy! You'd see banners left and right, and even <gasp> MS ads, because of the traffic that comes here.
napster (Score:1)
Read some political philosphy (Score:1)
Are revolutions ever predictable? (Score:2)
Sure, many people had glowing visions of what the 'net would do for society and, seven years after the mass mobilization towards those visions, not all of the predictions have panned out.
Isn't this about par for the course? I mean, the net itself is an incredibly complex system, and here a lot of us were trying to predict its behavior in and effect on an even more complex system -- human society.
That we got some of it wrong -- no, that some of the things we predicted did not happen when we said they would -- should not be unnerving or surprising.
And I dispute that Napster has had a small effect. While Napster as a service may be done, nobody is just going to "forget" about the possibilities it spawned... does anyone really believe that the record companies can put the genie back in the bottle? Do millions of people not think differently about intellectual property and the power of oligopolies because of the attention Napster has received in mainstream media?
I think we have a tendancy to think of revolutions as events that can be easily summed up in a chapter in a history book. Revolutions take time, and I think we're still in the midst of one -- too close to make sweeping declarations that the revolution is over, and that it didn't matter.
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:2)
WTF? You are right 100% right it is much easier to start a newspaper or publish a magazine or get a tv or radio show than it is to publish content on the web. Would you please give an example of how the net has made creating or consuming content harder?
"Digerati" bullshit (Score:2)
The fact is, only you and people like you ever wanted any of those things. When you talk about being out of touch with society, look to yourself for a change. Your the one who (in Wired for example) espoused pointless revolutionary propaganda about how astounding the information revolution would be. Meanwhile, people who knew how to code went out and made it all happen. Maybe you should think about your qualifications as a Internet critic.
When you look at who the Internet was created by, and why, you will understand why the world is not fundamentally different. Coding is hard, and it's completely understandable that the people who do it out of the goodness of their heard (or whatever moves those fingers) will do what they are interested in. Here is a hint: they are interested in communication, and making society a better place, not tearing down the walls of the Nation-State.
Your fundamental problem is in assuming that what you want from the Net is possible, desireable or even rational. What most people want is email or chat (the real killer-apps, not napster). Hence, the existence of email and chat.
The more you write, the more disconnected you become, and it's kind of sad. Pretty soon you'll be as important in the world as beatnicks are today. It's too bad, because everybody loves to hear your oppinion.
Your logic is contradictory Jon. (Score:2)
Also you contridict yourself with the whole Wal-Mart argument. Small time merchants aren't backlashing against Wal-Marts, by getting on the Internet these merchants are doing the exact same thing-- offering everything you want in one place... I happen to like Wal-Mart. I don't want to go to 6 different places to buy six different things.
My last point is that businesses who lobby or use litigation against other businesses is nothing new and also has nothing to do with the Internet. 1-800-Contact does business over the Internet yes, but over the phone as well. I don't think that merchants look just for companies who use the Internet to sell products, they look for companies that are undermining their bottom line, yes its wrong, its anti-competiative, and its stupid to bring up in this article because it will happen anyway. The board-of-directors of these companies are not sitting in dark rooms trying to bring the destruction of the Internet.
Face facts Jon, the Internet is a tool. It is a very good tool, it provides me with a job. It is not a utopia, or a cure all for the world's problems, people don't suddenly stop acting like people just because they are in a chat room. the internet is not a revolution, its a tool and no amount of Jon-Katz paranoia is going to change that.
The more I read your articles the more I'm convinced that you are nothing more than a well written Perl script.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
That article has broken me (Score:1)
We need reform, Dertouzos says, a new plan for "human-centric computing" that will serve, not frustrate people, and work as well for the non-tech world as for the tech universe.
We need human-centric telephones, that will serve, not frustrate people, yada yada yada
It doesn't make sense, does it?
The Revolution Is Already Here (Score:1)
People can communicate, transfer information, make airline reservations, place auction bids, plunge into sophisticated games, hack any system on the planet, create alternate personalities, self-publish themselves, yak with their grandkids and amass tons of free stuff from music to lecture notes to building blueprints.
That is the revolution, and it is good. I live in New York City. My father lives in Ohio. Last week, he went to buy a new car, and changed his mind about what brand to purchase while he was at the dealership. He called me while he was driving home to ask about the other vehicle he's considering. In less than 2 minutes I had found a dealership within 2 miles of his location on the freeway and given him directions.
The revolution is already here, and it is astonishing in it's scope and economic impact. Producers have an unprecedented ability to reach accurately targetted potential consumers. Consumers have an unprecedented ability to research potential purchases. Those of you who are familiar with economics have probably heard the related term; we are getting closer to "perfect information". Increasing the mobility of information helps us to satisfy our wants. Have you ever researched a computer hardware upgrade on SharkyExtreme or found a book about firewalling on Barnes and Noble?
There's a well deserved shakeout occuring right now. On my last contract one of the programmers that worked for me had just moved into programming. He was a golf pro 6 months earlier. There have been a lot of poorly thought out and executed business plans. It's a perfectly common occurance. Booms are followed by the wheat being culled from the chaff. The chaff deserves whatever happens to it, and the wheat invariably winds up in a better state in the long run. In this particular case, I would also assert that few are worse off now than they were 5 years ago.
The current level of irrational negativism is no more warranted than last Winter's irrational optimism.
Bob
Change has no timeline (Score:5)
So things didn't turn out like some of us expected? That's normal. Things aren't what we wanted out of the technology boom? Learn your lessons and move on.
Forget "had to", "must have", "should", and "didn't". The future is what we make it. Sitting around waiting for something miraculous to happen because of some ephemeral predictions is ridiculous. Complaining things didn't turn out like we want doesn't fix problems.
Too many people expected the Internet Revolution to happen to them - but that they didn't have to participate actively. Well, a Revolution needs Revolutionaries - so if you want changes, get off your backside and make them.
Can The Net Ever Really Be Something? (Score:1)
Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
People get killed for their Nikes because there exist animals who have no respect for human life. Those animals exist in large part because they were not given moral training.
I don't like marketers either, but you can't hang every evil in the world on them.
This is a revolution.... (Score:1)
Nearly everyone does some version of this, albeit smaller versions in most cases, and I doubt it's going to change. My kids will do some form of this ritual on their new computer-thingamajigswhatevertheymayhavebythen when they're old enough to figure out how.
Just cause the media and a few others say you can't make money off the net doesn't mean that someone won't figure out a way to do it. It's just going to take some time and patience and someone will figure it out. And when they do, it'll be another Internet revolution all over again.
I guarantee it.
And until then, people are going to learn and grow from the net.
Re:Education != The NET (Score:1)
Napster as the net's most important app??? (Score:1)
So many things wrong with this article (Score:2)
We don't have a paperless world; work isn't easier, or even demonstrably more efficient
Isn't easier? Are you trying to say that typing an html document and posting it on the web isn't easier than printing it on paper and shipping across the country with a fleet of trucks? Do you have any evidence or are you just spewing forth?
YES! Knowledge is the single most freeing "object" in existence. Freedom is good! Revolution - drastic changes in people's lives - cannot happen unless they wish for something better. Knowledge brings hope and desire for change. You don't need permission to be free. You just do it.
the bad guys have won one of the first great wars between corporatism and free information advocates
a new plan for "human-centric computing" that will serve, not frustrate people, and work as well for the non-tech world as for the tech universe
One word: Google.
In case it's not obvious, I have a serious problem with this whole article. Freedom, revolution, power, knowledge - these are not things that are given to you by your politicians. They are not things that corporations can take from you. They are concepts that exist within the realm of the human mind, not government or corporate monoliths. The only time you lose your Freedom is if you let yourself be controlled.
There are a great many people including myself who have been able to obtain great amounts of knowledge in a short period of time through the use of the Internet that would have taken hundreds of years to obtain without the Internet. Because of this knowledge, I live in a safer neighborhood, I eat healthier food, I enjoy more entertaining passtimes, and my overall quality of life is better.
Don't bitch about the failure of the Internet because an article on CNN and some guy in McDonalds told you that life sucks.
It changed my life (Score:1)
dramatically changed my life. In college it gave
me a chance to display my skills to a wider audience. In grad school, though I was studying
in Europe I could stay in touch on a daily basis
with freinds and family back home. After that,
it made it possible for me to find a job, move
out to the West Coast, and keep contributing to
more than one online community I am a memeber of.
I know if it weren't for the net, I'd almost never
talk to any of my relatives, childhood friends,
college buddies, etc. Without the net, I would
find it vastly harder to travel and work all over
the world. And it has greatly expanded my
potential job opportunities.
When you come right down to it, it is an integral
part of my daily life. It provides the
potential to do great things, and empower
the masses. But like any technology it is only
a tool to make life better, and most people won't
use it the way I have. The the opens doors,
we still have to walk through them.
But that doesn't mean that it hasn't changed
life for us as we know it.
Mine has...
Dave Goehrig (dave@valinux.com)
My views may or may not be the views of the
company which pays me to write cool stuff
for linux. But I'd say its changed all of their
lives as well
Abstract (Score:2)
went
Stocks
and
then
they
came
back
down
very sad.
--
Re:So Why Should It? (Score:1)
What with the comment about moderation in his last post, this makes me think that Katz is becoming disillusioned with slashdot, maybe?
He's probably mad because all those posts calling him an idiot get modded up. I've only been on slashdot for a couple of months. Why is John Katz hated so much? I'm not saying he shouldn't be. He's obviously day-dreaming if he thought the internet was going to bring world peace and save the children. I'm just curious.
Start a mini-dialogue down here. Why do you hate JonKatz?
Social Control (Score:1)
Not Marketers.. (Score:2)
Digital Divergance ... (Score:1)
The other big issue is that marketers consistently ignore the social context. Inventing a mousetrsp and expecting the world to beat a path to your door doesn't work anymore. A study notes that when someone did build a box-like "superior" mousetrap, they did not realise that a) because it was more expensive, housewives did not like throwing it away, and b) instead of getting hubby to chuck out the wooden springtrap + corpse, they had to check for the beast themselves (uck factor). In a similar vein, to expect everyone to access email via palms or browse TV through laptops ignores the very distinctive modes/times we use the devices (cellphones = instant/urgent, laptops for asynchronous email/worktray) and evenings for browsing for product comparisons. Trying to be everything for everyone while trying to grab real-estate in terms of attention without providing fair consideration/value in return is a recipe for disaster.
There are some social concerns about what does make money. Porn and betting are profit centres (which just shows that the stupidity tax works). Portals which rely on magnetic features such as hosting family photo albums cuts into the normal social capital (do people realise they are having their memories held hostage by a third-party?). Unfortunately with most new frontiers, the dom-name speculators, snakeoil spammers, IPO scamartists and bit hustlers have seized the opportunities ahead of the mainstream turning the internet a rather unsightly mental stripmall and driving all the researchers and tinkers to alternatives such as Internet2. As with most newsgroups as soon as the signal to noise ratio drops, the quality suffers and smart people disappear. Given this trend, the internet is likely to end up a set of disjoint private enclaves (subscribers) with a few massive public connexus (billboards) depending n your initial ISP's affiliation (cough*AOL/MSN*cough).
Would life have turned out differently? Probably not given that the media is currently structured to attract attention with its maniac-depreessive hysterical qualities. Unfortunately the only consistent money-spinners in a realm of solidified ideas tend to be either illegal, immoral or addictive (and if you don't think shooters like QUAKE don't fall into that category there's a portal I'd like to sell you). Will there be alternatives? Yes but they won't be obvious but the fun has always been in the striving to discover and improve oneself.
LL
Re:Education != The NET (Score:2)
However, teach a child to read and write in his own language, and he will be equipped to study other languages just as he is equipped to study anything else.
Languages are different in that if a young child is lucky enough to be around people who converse in more than one languages, he will pick them up as he learns to talk.
Revolution (Score:1)
This is wrong... first you can't tie Bill to the internet as its creator. That would be silly.
Continuing...
The number one most influential person was Guttenberg because of the invention of the printing press hence the spreading of the written word.
I disagree.
Yes I am a devote follower of God but I do not believe the printing press was the single best invention of the last 1000 years. I believe the internet to be. Heres why:
It not only spreads the written word but it spreads all information. Where else can you get an Anarchists handbook, music, news, applications, food, gifts, etc. All can be done locally from your home. Technically if one were so inclined. They would never have to leave their home.
Nearly everyone is connected. Given time the whole of the world will access the internet as if they were using a phone. Revolutions take time.
We can't expect for it all to be done in a matter of a decade or more. It takes time. Look how long it took to receive our freedom from the Brit's.
This isn't somthing can can happen over night. There is no backlash! I am sure someone said this about the phone we know and use today. Wrong. The internet is somthing great and pure.
I don't mean morally pure. I mean it has done what it was intended to do and gone beyond that reaching further than planned. It is a beautiful thing. It is maybe the best thing this world could have asked for.
~AdmrlNxn
Whistler is to Zeus as Linux is to Hercules
Katz -- Do you read the comments? (Score:3)
Several days ago, for example. Numerous posters took you to task (myself included) for talking about all this stuff as if it's "revolutionary" or in some way indicate a "revolution."
For my particular take on your misreading of Hannah Arendt, see: Katz at his worst [slashdot.org].
The problem with your rhetoric -- both here and in your previous story -- is that it lacks essential content. Do you even know what you mean -- nevermind Arendt -- when you say "revolution." Do you understand the social, cultural, and economic forces that drive a "revolution?"
If so, please explain. Please explain the Katzian version of "revolution". I mean, for chrissake Katz, *everyone* says the "net is a revolution." Hell, we oughta get a gigantic pair of those chattering teeth on top of the White House that say nothing but: "The web is a revolution. The web is a revolution."
What, exactly, is the web revolting *against*? The answer is nothing. The web is evolving, yes. But culture is also *evolving.* How do you separate the two? What makes the evolution of the "net" particularly *revolutionary?*
My answer? Nothing. There's nothing remotely *revolutionary* about the net. It's become a puppet to corporations and a vast landscape of, well, the same stuff that makes up the vast landscape of culture: information, bits and pieces of this and that, and, yes, an occasionally stellar piece of
Sometimes, yeah, you get what you need through the web. You're looking for a good price on a computer, you go to the web, and BAM! there it is: A GOOD PRICE ON A COMPUTER.
Fair enough.
But is this revolutionary? Is this changing culture in a particularly vital and particular way? No, of course it's not. Why? Because I can go down to my local store and find a good price on a computer. The only difference is that with one form of purchase I can sit at my desk and with the other form of purchase I actually have to go outside.
So, what then: the net is "revolutionizing" our physical modes of travel? Either way I get the computer. Either way I probably get the same price. The only difference is that with one I must move my physical body more than six inches.
Wow. What a revolution.
Yes, that's a silly example. But it's not far off. Tell me what's "revolutionary" about the web? Or even about technology? I look and see people earning money, doing jobs, having babies, families, marrying, dying -- no different than in those dark "pre-web" days.
I see a lot of businesses with dumb business plans and even dumber executives. (Ever read the 'Organization Man', Katz?)
You're talking like you're still gee-whized by all this web stuff. And, yeah, if you still are "gee-whized" by this stuff, fine. You're entitled to your gee-whizziness. But, please -- and this goes for all the rest of the so-called "visionaries" or (as they probably prefer to be called) the "cultural critics" be careful and canny with your analyses. Why? Because you're essentially picking out odd specifics to highlight, what? -- the same culture that's always existed and that is now (as was then) always *evolving* -- but revolting? No. I'm not convinced. Who are the revolutionaries? The tech guys? The web developers?
Please. Give me a break. They're hacks like everyone else. We're all hacks. That's not a bad thing, see. But that's not *revolutionary*. And least not in the context that Katz is providing.
"Gee whiz! Look at all this! PRetty soon we'll all be travelling in spaceships! There will be no more hunger! No more war! No more conflict!"
Re:buzzwords (Score:2)
AHA! You've confirmed what I always suspected. MY computers seem to be serving General Protection, and Kernel Panic.
Revolution Schmevolution (Score:1)
What revolution? What promises? Who made these promises?
We are not living in the world that birthed the Communist Revolution, nor the French Revolution, nor the schism between Protestantism and Catholocicism. We're not living in the world of the Emperor Julian, nor in the world of Gutenberg.
For all of the people who called "Revolution! REVOLUTION!" with regards to the net, there were an equal number rubbing their temples and saying "Shut up.".
With the rise of punditry and the dissemination of information therefrom, we've been left in the unfortunate position of listening to people who have little or nothing to do with the so-called "revolution". These are commentators who are paid by eyeballs grabbed or ears tugged, and they're looking for the most bombastic doggerel they can dig up from whatever experience they've had with scandal sheets. "THE NET WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!", "THE NET WILL ELIMINATE THIRD WORLD DEBT", "THE NET WILL PROVIDE PORN TO EVERY AMERICAN WITH AN INTERNET ACCOUNT WHO DESIRES IT!". Only the last one has come true, and that's the only one I would've banked on 10 years ago.
The only reason to be disappointed with the net is because you listened to the promises that were being made by people who didn't have and weren't willing or able to fulfill them.
I find the net to be somewhat handy. That's my assessment, and I've never found it to be anything less.
Or anything more.
-l
Nation states??? (Score:2)
--
Where do I start? (Score:2)
We don't have paperless offices, mainly bcos there's some stuff that works better on paper. For example, reading paper is much easier on the eyes than reading screen. But a lot of stuff _does_ work better on PC. Every time someone says they don't see the advantages of a PC, I point them at a word processor. For the investment of a few hours learning basic commands (which is all you'll mostly need), you can write your own documents, format them correctly and proof-read them yourself. Compare to the manual system where you'd write something long-hand (or typed if you were lucky), redraft it to reorder stuff, pass it to a secretary to be retyped and formatted, proof-read it, send it back to have errors corrected, where the non-technical secretary has misread your technical formulae, etc, etc.. And now tell me this isn't saving us time, and I'll laugh in your face.
The latest innovations in software may well be filtering systems, etc., and I've no doubt that this wasn't what Jefferson had in mind. But then he never planned on freeing the slaves either (him and Lincoln were both quite fond of having an oppressed minority). Certainly great historical politicians can be useful to learn from, but don't pretend they know everything - they were just as screwed up as our politicians.
Whether the anti-Napster ppl are the good guys or the bad guys depends on (a) whether you're on the payer or payee side of the music coin, and (b) whether you regard downloading of music you don't already own (and have no intentions of buying) as wrong. Make up your own mind, but don't expect us all to blindly fall in behind you. The argument Napster had was "we've got lots of free music", not "we're trying to make the record companies see sense and charge reasonable prices". The latter may well come to pass, but Napster's initial aim (as shown quite clearly in testimony) was piracy, pure and simple.
Jon's argument in this article is, "the revolution hasn't done what I thought it would". Wise up. Every revolution promises to solve all your problems, and it's only after the revolution that you find whether it actually worked. And the answer is usually "sort of". Maybe the Net hasn't promised everything that all the wild-eyed boosterism promised, but only suckers fall for that. The rest of us think, "Do we need that?" or "Will that work?" and get a glimpse of reality. If you can't tell real life from an advertising campaign, you've been watching TV too much!
Does making more information available make life easier? It certainly does for me when I'm designing electronics - today, I can download a datasheet in a minute or two, where a few years ago I'd have to order it and wait several days for it to arrive. I'm willing to trade that increase in productivity off against deleting the odd bit of spam and the occasional Microsoft crash - I think it's worth it. If Jon and his mate Michael Dertouzos, whose book he's plugging, don't think so, he's entirely free to return to his typewriter. We're not stopping you, Jon, it's a free world. But realise that doing this will impinge on your ability to email in articles like this. Make your choice.
And much of the article (roughly the last fifth) is a rail against buggy software. Sure, there's plenty of it about, so why not use something more stable? Win2k is more stable than its predecessors, and Linux is apparently more stable than any Windows. Applications-wise, some are good, some aren't. There's plenty of feedback on how NOT to build a user interface (the Interface Hall of Shame is just one), so all you need to do is keep your eye on the ball and you're away. And whilst there's many reports on buggy and unhelpful applications, you never hear much about the ones which quietly get on with the job, the same way that it's only the inaccurate weather forecasts that ppl remember.
I did not hear this "promise" (Score:1)
If the best I can hope for is collaboration, then I am all for it.
For those who want to save the world, get off your computer, it would be a good start (I got enough to read already).
The failure of the marketing hype (Score:1)
Some of these promises were made by people looking only to exploit the medium for the money. Some of these promises were made by well intentioned people *hoping* these things would come true.
Point is, the people on the Internet are the priveldeged few (compared to the world population) and so it will change some people's lives, but not everyones.
Technology, as it is applied today, may or may not, solve societies ills. Alot depends on matching people's needs with the proper application of technology. Gates had a very interesting speach here [gatesfoundation.org] that hightlights this very issue.
So yeah, Katz is right on. Mebbe overly dramatic, but on.
On the other hand, progress is rarely linear, and with thoughtful application, the Internet can be all the things that are hoped for. Just not today.
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:1)
i don't buy it.
i'd believe it if you were talking about, say, a starving person who lurks in an alley, sees a guy walking by eating a ham sandwich, and kills the guy to get his food. this is not the phenomenon that the poster was referring to.
thugs who kill you for your fashionable clothes are not naked, barefoot, and freezing. neither are they pro athletes who need high-performance footwear to enhance their game. they want your clothes because they are status symbols, not because of their utility. the only reason they have a need for new Nikes is because the need has been manufactured for them.
who manufactured this need? marketers and advertisers.
-steve
Re:... (Score:1)
And the real people who made money during the California gold rush were the women who went there. All those men didn't have any cooking skill. They sold them pies for $20 each. There is money to made on the internet. Selling things to suckers who are trying to sell things to suckers.
Re:General Protection and Colonel Panic (Score:1)
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:1)
I think this is partially true...but many of the decisions are being made by governments or companies, those with the money and power, and then the human beings (us) simply get to react/deal/revolt agains those decisions.
Re:So Why Should It? (Score:1)
essentially, he's a newsweek-, rollingstone-level 3rd rate hack. the vague pronouncements he makes would be suitable for burial somewhere in the back half of those publications, but not for featuring on the front page of slashdot.
he talks to us about us while talking down to us, bsically a typical liberal media elite bozo. in each article he tries to get in touch with what he percieves as "geek", but only demostrates how out-of-touch he is. and he rarely says anything interesting or new.
blah. i'm done. the "Katz Meta-Post" was me. read it to see more of what I mean.
Re:Yawn. (Score:1)
That's quite unfair to Katz. In the net's early days, and even before computers, many people made all sorts of utopian predictions about technology and massive information access. Unsurprisingly, many of those predictions failed. He's drawing on sci fi authors, media pundits, prominent scienists and hackers, etc. Katz is not saying that he personally expected all this great stuff to happen.
Rather, he's asking us to think about some of the original idealism of self-styled net philosophers. Was it completely unrealistic? Or did we miss the boat on something wonderful?
Re:One GEMSTONE found in this crap pile... (Score:1)
The funniest thing about this electronic communication is that you can have 4 people sitting in one room, working on computers and if one of them wants to share an idea, he/she will send a message via the 'net to the other 3. I personally hate that. Why can't they just look up from their screens and say a few words?
This sort of thing is becoming ridiculous.
self-styled net philosophers? (Score:1)
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:2)
Re:The Net Revolution (Score:1)
I have family members that don't have a phone line, and they're living too! But we consider phone lines vital don't we? Idiot I'm not, just insane!
Re:Not Marketers.. (Score:1)
That's a bit of an oversimplification.
No.
That's a *gross* oversimplification. Marketers do not just sell products, they sell *lifestyles*. They create culture. They create needs out of thin air. And however much they compete with one another on specific products, one thing that they all agree on is that consumerism is good, and more consumerism is better. All of their product-specific messages may cancel each other out, but this aggregate message remains: buy as much as you can afford to buy, and then some.
Even that wouldn't be so bad, perhaps, if it were simply shouted on a street corner. But marketers have scads of socio-psychological research (most of which is proprietary) enabling them to communicate the message in the most subtle, manipulative way possible. Most of the money spent on child psychology each year is spent by marketing researchers.
WRT the Nike/murder comment, the people who are killing for Nikes don't always want the shoes for themselves. You can buy a lot of crack for the cost of a good pair of running shoes. (This doesn't really change the overall point, though, because if it weren't for aggressive marketing, they wouldn't be worth nearly as much money).
Re:Revolution (Score:1)
The internet is based on information. Information is dependent on characters that humans can recognize. Therefore, the printing press, which allowed the general public access to books, and hence information, is like the predecessor to the internet. So you can say that the internet is like an improvement on the printing press. Therefore, it is not an original invention, and cannot be number one.
Continuing, not everyone is "connected". Most of America is connected, most universities in the world are connected, but Grandma Scarpatti down in Palermo, Italy is not. And she doesn't "surf" the net hoping to catch the Pope online, in a chatroom. She reads the Bible, which she wouldn't be able to do if the printing press was not invented...
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
Re:The quick answer: yes (Score:1)
I personally believe that humans - in the U.S. for example, are becoming such a dependant bunch, where notion self-reliance is all but history. What does this have to do with computers? I get the impression from Katz that our ultimate objective should the ability to sit back and have computers act on our every whim, to anticipate any desire that can be met in the digital realm. He's looking at what computers should do for us, rather than what we can do with computers that we couldn't do even ten years ago. Are they perfect? No. But what is?
You claim that people are being isolated - maybe some are - but others are reaching out, finding new connections that wouldn't have been possible without the net. You also have to take into account that in some cases, the changes in the way that people have begun to interact and behave in general - maybe this is what people are trying to get away from. In this sense, the net provides the ability to interact at a safe distance, without being completely isolated.
Re:... (Score:1)
Talk about a feminist adjenda. Picks and Shovels! The people who made out during the gold rush were the ones selling picks and shovels!
Sheesh.
Later,
ErikZ
Re:Read some political philosphy (Score:1)
Re:Change has no timeline (Score:2)
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:1)
Wrong. Every decision is not being made *for* human beings. Often times we write code, design protocols and build interfaces based on ease of implementation, lowest cost, what's technically feasible, etc. Then we expect humans to adapt to the machines and not vice versa. That's not a reflection of our humanity, it's a reflection at best of humans making due with limited time and resources. We *can* do better, but oftentimes we sublimate our humanity to that soul-crushing inhuman force known as "the bottom line." That's not part of any definition of "humanity" I'd support.
Re:Social Control (Score:1)
Re:Revolution Schmevolution (Score:1)
Exactly. Few of these predictions were made by computer scientists. They were made by marketers, politicians, ex-IBM salesmen trying to drum up consulting business, and lots of gullible and/or dishonest writers -- all quoting each other for evidence. If Katz wants to complain about this stuff not coming true, let him complain to the people who actually made the predictions.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:1)
Actually, just my two cents worth, but I think that it could be argued that the "stupid business men" might have thought that they could get rich without inventing cool web technologies, but rather by exploiting them. Take the boom/bust of the dot-coms, for example. Did any of the companies actually offer anything new or innovative? It seems to me that many of them simply looked at the framework that had already been laid (with the help of projects like Apache, Sendmail, any number of open protocols, etc.) and just sold stuff that already existed, more or less. Of course, they can never make enough money, so the latest idea is to patent any technology that moves.
You're right, the internet has served the people well, and I don't see that changing. For a few years we have seen a massive inflation in people's expectations of what the web could do for them. ("Wow! Buying pet food online! I've been waiting my whole life for this!") Now that the wind is coming out of the dot-com sails, people are perhaps starting to realize that they had unrealistic expectations for the net. But those of us who aren't just in it for a quick buck know that the net is not a failure, and we will continue to find new and better uses for it (patent pending).
Sorry for ranting on an on...
Re:Revolution (Score:1)
The internet isn't just information but a place where people can connect and talk and share as well as download the hottest new single buy Eminem and read various selections of Edgar Allen Poe at 2am when the library has long closed awhile ago. It isn't just a superset, if it was, it is an entirely different invention composed of millions. Given enough time it will touch billions.
Secondly, I never said everybody I said nearly everybody is connected. Don't put words in my mouth that I never said because that is how falsified facts occur. Don't be that guy, don't be that liar.
Continuing...
You mean to tell me the American Revolution was a quick and violent change? I hardly think so. In fact I know so considering I studied about it for a whole friggin' year. What about the Russian Revolution... that took time. Most revolutions take time and with time the Computer Revolution will evolve into somthing great.
Now to clarify... I would put printing press number two to the internet sonsidering they are two separate technologies. Printed word reaches and touches people, it does not connect people to each other in the form that the internet does. Sure you can mail a letter through snail mail to connect to your long lost friend, that could take 24 hours to a week. Or you can send an email... 30 seconds maybe... or an Instant Chat session on Jabber or in an IRC Client.
The internet is the later and greater invention of the past thousand years in my opinion, that and I just love Coke cans. They are so small and all you do is flip the tab. Amazing!
~AdmrlNxn
Whistler is to Zeus as Linux is to Hercules
Re:The quick answer: yes (Score:1)
I also can't disagree with your take on Katz. He really seems to want to let our computers live our lives for us. What are we for then, Jon?
Ultimately, I think that the 'Net Revolution has allowed those people who want to be isolated to be isolated further. However, it does allow people to communicate in new ways, witness ICQ and AIM. But those same people that are using ICQ/AIM are isolating themselves in a different way, from the physical presence of other people. This is something that truly bothers me! I worry that we're going to get a whole generation of kids that simply don't leave the house: attend classes online, converse online, meet your spouse online, find employment online, telecommute, and finally, your obituary is posted to your website. An extreme view, but a trend carried to its logical end. I truly believe that people need interaction with other people *face to face*, and no, video-conferencing doesn't qualify.
Life shouldn't be about interacting at a safe distance! If everything is safe, you have no risk, then what is the point, where is the struggle?!
Re:step in 167-year evolution (Score:1)
"It is impossible that old prejudices and hostilities should longer exist, while such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the nations of the earth."
Talking about the Internet? Ah, no. It is a quote about the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable. I picked this up 6 months ago from an Economist article titled, "What the Internet cannot do [economist.com]". Had only Katz read it too, we might have been spared his lament.
"Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been[or] what it core values are."
- 'National Standards for United States History' as reprinted in _Time_, Nov. 7, 1994
Hmm. . .isn't making Katz unhappy. . . (Score:1)
. .
</Martha Stewart mode>
Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:1)
Sure, but is it enough to make a difference on issues like poverty, hunger, etc.? Yeah, a starving, out of work chap in Sub Saharan Africa can view http://www.ynotnetwork.com [ynotnetwork.com] but that doesn't make any difference to his condition (not for long anyway!
Take the case in India. With an exploding info tech sector, all that has happened is that a small proportion of the population has managed to up their standard of living greatly--the bulk of the population is still where they were.
Don't get me wrong--things have definitely improved ( I could be the sub saharan bloke op cit ) and the workings of the beaurocracy have, I'm sure, improved. The point is, it (the net) is simply not enough to change the world on its own.
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:1)
marketing doesn't make me want to go out and get/steal the latest fashion.....when I see commercials I don't feel the need to steal from someone else to have a specific item. So what the difference between me and the person who mugs someone for foot wear? Morals, the common fabric of society, these individuals were brought up in such a way that they can somehow justify beating someone up for shoes. The generalization that marketing is to blame is dead wrong....if marketing were to blame you would see a lot more people stealing shoes....
To understand we need to take a look at how the individual who stole the shoes was brought up and then understand his reasoning for stealing said item. Of course he wanted them, that's the reason for stealing anything isn't it, if not for the item its for money to get the item. this can be applied to almost any situation, what we need to look at are the morals of the individual, to do that, we look at the society they grew up in.
without marketing we would still have thiefs.
Re:One GEMSTONE found in this crap pile... (Score:2)
I won't argue that face-to-face communications isn't valuable. But if people who are geographically separated have to work on a project together, they have to work in a different manner than they would if they sat across the hallway from one another. (Yes, I know: Duh!) Electronic collaboration can work well provided the people involved (including management) understand that the way that they're going to interact is going to be different. I've seen it work and had it work for me but it takes some getting used to.
Organizations that rely heavily on oral communications seem to have the most trouble (and the most resistant to) adapting to an online workgroup arrangement. At least in my experience, anyway. They are in the habit, for whatever reason, of not writing anything down. Those new to online collaboration tend to flail around when they're forced into putting their thoughts down on paper or into a online forum database. These are the organizations that never follow up a meeting with an email (or, heck, even a hardcopy memo) with notes of what was discussed and decided. Everyone's idea of what went on during that meeting differs and eventually you'll have people going in different directions based on their unique memories of what was decided in the meeting. I've always described those situations as ``progress via Brownian motion''. My motto is: ``Oral tradition has no place in project management''. Works for me anyway. Of course, there's always one person who thinks that what they have to say is so important that everyone will write it down for them. Those are the folks who'll torpedo any online collaboration.
On the other hand, having a 12 hour time difference in team members work schedules like you described would present some problems. But it's nothing that couldn't be solved by both sides shifting their work schedules a bit to have a little bit of overlap. I wouldn't want to do this for a project that was going to run for several months, though. And you might be able to shift schedules around a bit to have overlap, say, one day a week so people can actually get a conference call set up.
I actually prefer situations where tream members communicate via an online forum. Even when there isn't
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Re:Out of touch with human beings? (Score:1)
I am not implying the above. All I am saying is that creating and consuming content is not without friction--access to content in a number of countries is and has been heavily restricted regardless of how widespread the internet is. Then there is the greater philosophical issue--if I am facing impending death from starvation or am facing extermination on account of who I am, does free access to content help?
In summary, yes, a vast number of people have access to and ability to create content because of the net, and yes, it has changed their lives to some extent. Is the world materially better off as a result? The answer is not a resounding yes, more like a maybe.
Re:self-styled net philosophers? (Score:1)
So he's looking at his predecessors and thinking, "Boy were they wrong. What give?" I think that's a fair question, especially since he's in the same game.
Re:Not Marketers.. (Score:1)
Re:Nation states??? (Score:2)
Some nations are incorporated (either willingly or by force) into a larger state (or country) that has other nations alongside; like Switzerland, who has a German, a French, an Italian and a Romansh nations.
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Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
Disclaimer: I am in no way in favor of marketers or other sales ilk of any sort.
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
Re:Agreed...mostly (Score:2)
Why on earth would you care whether it was just sneakers or not? I mean, we are talking about murder for trivial things here and whether those trivial things happen to be sneakers or some other arbitrary paraphenelia, I don't really see the difference.