Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Assignment #1


The world wide web otherwise known as the Internet is a powerful medium. It has developed at such a high pace year by year that things once considered in the realm of science fiction type thinking are now performed with ease in the confines of ones own home. This new type of communication that was first use by military to communicate over vast distances, now connects the everyday person with mankind across the world. Things such has HTML that once took great skill to master and perform the basic building blocks for the interface of the web page can now be performed by a regular person and one can make a simple entertaining web page in a matter of hours.

This method of communication revolutionized the way we in the modern world think, see, talk, and relate to each other. Is this a good thing? In many ways yes, with the Internet man can now know more about the world in which he and she lives and can stay in touch with loved ones a lot quicker even then say fifteen to thirty to even since the dawn of the modern man. Now he or she doesn't need to wait till it is reported on the nightly news, or read in the newspaper, he can find out as it happens. People have been able to learn about different parts of the world and universe that they would have not been able to otherwise in their entire lifetimes had it not been created. The sharing of thoughts and ideas amongst people has far surpassed the Renaissance of Europe, or the common places of Rome and Athens. Now instead of it taking days or even months to study and research topics for college thesis' or a career pursuit, man can readily access information within seconds.

In the same way though, with the use of good, this new found power has brought about bad things also. With almost little effort and time investment one can find how to make things that hurt people and destroy humanity. Things like guns, bombs, home made drugs, and the promotion of sex along with other unlawful activities, peoples lives become destroyed. Another way it is a bad thing is the more "tied" together the world has become, the quicker information's spread, the more negative aspects of human nature have come to the surface. For instance, during WWII and previous wars most Americans felt that the spreading of liberty was right at any cost. Why? they didn't know what that cost meant and looked like. Thousands upon thousands of people in the world died during this conflict, yet most claim it was the greatest generation to ever live in this country. Not more then twenty years later that same military and the leaders of this country where being ridiculed for the Vietnam war. Why? Because the images of what was really going on were being shown in the homes of Americans on the 6 o'clock evening news. Doubts and a change in at what cost is liberty to be spread began to occupy peoples thinking. The Internet is the same way. Or say for example someone reads something on the CNN web page, or any news source for that matter about a neighbor someone in their city, and this person has been accused of something horrendous. I say accused because its not fact nothing on the Internet is fact. This person then without rationalizing that this is the final outcome of the situation, acts upon his or her impulses to have justice on the situation with what they deem as an "acceptable punishment". What I am trying to say is that peoples lives get changed because of what is said about them, or what they read or see online and a lot of times its not for the betterment of them personally, or the society in which they live.
This new found power that we have a vast and its effects in the lives of most in the world is enormous. But at what cost?

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