Because this place has a high geek density

[Prince of Kitties]

Discuss:

 

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Turned-Jaron-Lanier-Against-the-Web-183832741.html?c=y&story=fullstory

[Actaeon]

I am very split on this issue. On one hand, I appreciate the ability to discuss issues with an assortment of people from around the planet (as I am doing now), access more information than I could ever comprehend, and keep in touch with friends and family.

 

On the other, I have seen groups of otherwise rational people turn into mobs on more than one occasion. I cannot help but be a little afraid of what might happen if the powers of the Internet gain too much traction in the real world. Additionally, though I sound like a old fogie for saying it, I worry that our dependence on the Internet for information and interaction is eroding our ability to function offline.

 

In the end, it's a tool, and its morality is defined by its use. Its wealth of information could enlighten us or brainwash us. It's ability to transcend national boundaries could be the key to true global government, or it could become a route to an anarchist dystopia. The web is what we make it. It amplifies our innate tendencies the same way agriculture or the assembly line did. It's always a mixed bag.

[Randomizer]

The Internet makes everything easier for good or bad. You can now access information in seconds that would have taken days and trips to different locations to look through paper files. Gather research for a paper or information to steal someone else's identity are both easier.

 

So gathering up a lynch mob is the same since now you can find like minded idiots all around the world.

[Alorael at Large]

The internet is a powerful thing, but I think it does more good than harm. Social media I'm less certain about, but I'm also an asocial curmudgeon. Time will tell, I suppose.

 

—Alorael, who does know that efforts to roll back the clock on technology have a poor track record. But notes of caution are always worth listening too even if they're not always exactly the right words, especially in a medium as freewheeling and as powerful as the anonymous internet.

[keira]

As someone who is more at home on the internet than IRL, meh.

[Harehunter]

When it comes to technology, I am to some degree a Luddite. I don't have a smart phone, I don't text or tweet, and I feel no need to do so. As someone who spends all day on computers (plural), I need to unplug for at least 4 or 5 hours a day, talk with people, read a book. I have a facebook page, but I check it only once a week. This forum has been my one indulgence in online interaction, until recently when I got into LinkedIn. But LinkedIn is too closely associated with work. This is just for fun.

[Student of Trinity]

The linked article that starts out being about the dangers of online culture ends with reminders about the all-too-very-IRL pogroms and concentration camps that we used to have long before the internet. The horrible cruelty of mobs has been with us all along. So has the impoverishment of previously comfortable people, to enrich a few fat cats.

 

Both of those bad things also have good counterparts. People have become a lot more educated. Society is a lot less cruel than it used to be. There have been economic waves that have lifted the lower boats more than the higher.

 

Does the web do more good than harm? Of which will it do more in future? I don't know, though it is an important question. For what it's worth, though, my initial reaction is that this Lanier guy hasn't really discovered that the web does more harm than good — only that it does more harm than he used to think it did.

 

If anyone thinks that the internet is utopia, they should think again. Depending on where you live, and on what online communities you know, I think I can understand feeling more at home here than offline. The internet isn't really anyone's home sweet home, though. Use it for what it can do, but don't stop looking in the real world.

[Lauren CW]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_Player_One

[*i]

History shows that every new technology brings with it benefits and new problems. For good or ill, the internet is here to stay. As a society, we need to strive to maximize the benefits while keeping the drawbacks to a minimum.