What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them--one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connectios, try again later."
You can't blame the writer for his opinions. It was 15 years ago, the internet was still fresh ground for everything. I remember 1995 as AOL being ruler and the internet was a matter of staying in their 'webshell' a term now completely outdated. From the original Geocities accounts, I can see how anyone would be pessimistic about the internet becoming a more comprehensive, usable idea. I am now able to laugh about the idea of the cacophony of the internet, mostly due to growing up half my life with this concept and constantly getting new ways to overcome the problems. "You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them" When you think on it, it really is amazing how these concerns are made so simple thanks to Google and Wikipedia. Poplar blogs, news sites, Digg, Fark, Reddit, etc. All the reasons that were never supposed to happen filled i the void, just as Paypal, Amazon and Facebook have filled in the other concerns laid forth.
If nothing else, as interesting an article as anything from the early 1900's about what we ould be capable of by 2000.
2 comments:
i disagree with the writer. 1) getting three things that aren't what you want is funny. especially the second and third things.
2) it's not that hard to find what you want online. not as easy as it should be, but not that hard. once people start editing the data, you're going to start getting internet police, and it's downhill from there. not because of a slippery slope, but because people with power, more often than not, can't be trusted to do the right thing.
it was 15 years ago. while we were young and malleable, he was already likely 45 or older, either on the edge of bommer or silent generations. computers were newfangled and not to be trusted. rather than believe in a new 'revolutionary' world, he chose to think it couldn't happen.
and agreed with both statements. and slippery slope is a logical fallacy and should never be used for any argument.
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