The idea that struck a chord with me during the lecture this week was the notion that with the advent of the internet, we are able to live a whole portion of our lives separate from our bodies. What I mean is, that we are able to separate the "information" (our mind) from its "physical carrier" (our body) and travel virtually anywhere we want, do, learn and see things whilst keeping out butts planted firmly in our chair.
That is nothing new to anyone, it's pretty obvious I know. The reason I mention it is because so many of us in the world are spending a lot of our time with our minds online; in a sort of alternate world - "Cyberspace" I guess you would call it - interacting with each other virtually but not physically, living our lives virtually, but not physically.
Kevin Kelly calls it "the new economy." John Barlow calls it "the new home of the Mind."With this new world, comes new rules, a new language, a new culture and a whole new way of thinking in terms of politics.
And what an amazing world it is! Judging from the idealist world described in the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, there is complete equality (as all nodes in the network are equal, regardless of race and gender), true freedom of speech, ("anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity"), and autonomy ("we declare our virtual selves immune to your [Governments of the Industrial World] sovereignty even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies").
This world is instead built off the logic of networks. Kelly explains that we "clothe the globe with a network society," connecting everything to everything - making a world that Barlow believes to be "more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before."
So wow - a world completely free from any authority and control? My first thought is - wouldn't that cause complete havoc and chaos? Well, I guess so in a way and in a way not. We see cases of internet bullying, cyberstalking, unethical behaviour (see: gate-crashing of virtual funerals on WOW for example) and networking to cause crazy riots. But on the other side: we see unified communities with free open source software, forums with people helping others, people tagging each other in facebook photos to relive memories and overall sharing of information for education and entertainment.
Just like our real physical world, the virtual world can be a world of good and bad - and to an extent, it is a world that the user them self can influence to be what they want. Hopefully, we will continue to build towards the utopian vision of this "new world" of ideas, information and relationships.
4 comments:
Sadly I think society is moving further and further away from this 'new world.' There is so much upheavel in the world as a result of the internet eg. London riots were escalated through social networking sites, that Barlow's faith in cyberspace has lost its way.
I really like how you incorporated both readings. This was a great post! Rather than pick apart the internet, you acknowledged the pro's and con's. Which, a lot of other blogs seemed to ignore.
Hey Annie; I agree with your view that there would be havoc and chaos on the internet where people would have total freedom of speech; as there would be people who would use it and misuse it - it opening the doors to social issues such as cyber-bullying, for example. In such situations victims can be attacked both in the physical and virtual world with no way of escaping. As a result I believe that the statements of freedom of speech, and that all nodes are equal of race and gender to contradict one another.
Though Utopia would be nice, I cannot see it eventuating :(
Great post Annie, as Matt said you've outlined the pros & cons of the Internet nicely. I think Barlow's idea of everyone being equal on the Internet is a little farfetched as we still do have cyberbullying, hacking, WOW massacres etc. But maybe one day it will happen, It's still many years away in my eyes though.
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