I used to dress in tights and tell the kids this:
This is why I do what I do.
In my wild flights of fancy, the internet is creating something truly new and extraordinary. If a human becomes out of trillions of cells interacting ... what becomes when the products of our culture are connected and interact?
Will we know?
(Which reminds me to not mention my memetic theory of cultural consciousness and how civilisation itself can become self-aware).
Have I had too much coffee or barely enough?
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2 comments:
i hardly know what to say - that was extraordinary.
i always joke about the internets [much to your dismay, i know, honey] but it's emancipatory potential is unlimited, isn't it? but like democracy, it could be made conditional, or worse, squandered and bastardised. arguably, that's already happening in some respects.
i used to think the last truly great ideas, liberalism and socialism, came to fruition in the 19th century. where does this stand in relation to those, do you think? what do you call it? the internet? the web? the information superhighway? the age of technology? how do we understand it as a philosophical movement?
because the issues wersch was pointing out [changes to ethics, aesthetics, privacy etc] are actually philosophical questions, aren't they?
Isn't that like a lot of philosophical/ethical questions? That they boil down to good vs. evil?
The internets are a truly extaordinary place with all the potential and more that is shown in that clip. You two are a wonderful example of the way that the internets can bring people together and foster relationships that spill over to the "real" world where they become even more wondrous.
...but that's it too. With the advent of "games" like second life. Many people hide behind their second life personas and they can because it is an essentially risk free life. They can live in a fantasy land where they are 6 ft tall amazons who have amazing careers and live on islandes etc. Which is all well and good BUT IT'S NOT REAL.
It's taking risks and putting yourself on the line that makes you/me/us who and what we are and allows us REAL experiences and REAL growth. It also exposes us to pain and hurt but we grow from these too.
What point am I trying to make? perhaps that in the end people are people and because we made the internets than it is like us; it has an amazing transformative potential but that, subjected to the less desirable human traits like fear and greed, it can be misused and tranforms us for the worse.
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