tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post2014215907964593546..comments2024-03-27T12:56:38.992-07:00Comments on The Skeptical Bureaucrat: The Internet Changes NothingTSBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02790614121966204073noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-88898056514795819762010-11-30T11:14:12.472-08:002010-11-30T11:14:12.472-08:00NoDoubleStandards,
Government control of informat...NoDoubleStandards,<br /><br />Government control of information is pretty much a thing of the past, which is definitely good. Not even China or Saudi Arabia makes a great effort to block internet access anymore. <br /><br />That doesn't mean regimes can't stay in power anyway, or that they can't use new media to their own advantage. See Evgeny Morozov, for example, on that:<br /><br />http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/<br /><br />Here's an odd bit of historical trivia. When Lenin was told that the new Bolshevik regime was planning to put a telephone in every Russian village in order to modernize the peasantry, he replied that the idea of every peasant having access to a telephone was the most counterrevolutionary thing he could imagine. That's pretty much the situation totalitarians face today. They're dealing with it, but the tide is running against them.TSBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790614121966204073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-79103198064165648182010-11-30T10:16:49.762-08:002010-11-30T10:16:49.762-08:00I think he's saying that the Internet is diffe...I think he's saying that the Internet is different in degree - faster, easier, etc. - rather than "new" in the way that movable type (plus wide-spread literacy) was new, or in the way that the Industrial Revolution was really a revolution in human affairs. <br /><br />After twenty years of the Internet, I still don't see the new part. Actually, my pet theory is that the great connectedness and dissemination of it all re-creates the situation we had back before mass production and mass communications homogenized society. We used to have neighborhood stores, regional and ethnic/linguistic specific products, many competing local newspapers and radio stations, very local entertainment venues, and so forth. Now we have that again, in a virtual sense, with e-marketing, Skype, social media, podcasting, even homeschooling. <br /><br />The internet is killing mass marketing and mass communications, which I count as a good thing. It is also killing the political systems that depend on large top-down institutions and favoring individuals and small groups. This is one place where I think the Marxists are right: society's economic base drives its political superstructure.TSBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02790614121966204073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-19359896223817806542010-11-30T09:54:53.752-08:002010-11-30T09:54:53.752-08:00The crippling stomach punch inflicted upon totalit...The crippling stomach punch inflicted upon totalitarian regimes, who prior to the advent of the Internet had little more to do than jam VOA to control information, is the WWW's greatest achievement. The days of keeping entire populations in inpenetrable darkness are over....Matt Keenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12763775457513623087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-1490644548613382502010-11-30T05:31:19.800-08:002010-11-30T05:31:19.800-08:00Sorry, unfinished sentence/thought there... [previ...Sorry, unfinished sentence/thought there... [preview should be my friend.] <br /><br />After "Guy clearly expects" should read - that technology's use is only consumerist in nature. It is to some degree, but connection and dissemination are its core competencies, so to speak.Rob Pughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18355643989278053777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5803385070922797451.post-65979252395942775842010-11-29T23:38:40.085-08:002010-11-29T23:38:40.085-08:00What the internet changes is ease of distribution....What the internet changes is ease of distribution. Gutenberg to the nth power. And the ease of archiving material. And the ease of connection. Never have so many been connected to so many. [That they choose to engage in LOLcats or WOW says more to the human condition than the technology.] Poe doesn't seem to get it, imho. He deems something a failure because it fails to accomplish only that which he feels is significant. He's missing the point. And there's no such thing as "stealing mp3s" - that's why the law treats it as copyright infringement, not theft. Guy clearly expects <br /><br />In other news, grandpa wants the kids off his lawn, thinks all their new fangled music is garbage.Rob Pughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18355643989278053777noreply@blogger.com