Are we building our own heaven?
Things are getting out of hand. Ever read mashable.com? Just try and keep up. Everyone is buying everyone, everything is integrating with everything else. Its a Web 2.0 orgy and honestly, it feels less like there's some master corporate plan and more like a self organizing monster. Except for Google, I don't think any company has any idea exactly whats happening (and even they goof often). CBS just bought Last.fm for 280 million, in cash. Wait... what?
Its not just that there are new technologies and new web apps pushing the internet. Its that things are being made to plug into and tap whats already there in new ways. Information is being created by the masses and then being organized by the masses. And no one person or company controls that.
My head is spinning.
My high school history teacher, Mr. Sutherland, used to say, "One reason people had so many kids back then is because your offspring were your health insurance when you got sick and your retirement plan when you got old. The other reason was because it was cold and dark and really, what else are you gonna do?"
No wonder people in the internet fueled world are having fewer kids. There's just so much to do. You can spend your whole life being entertained and catered to and I wonder, is that so bad?
We're talking about the infancy of the Internet here. Web 2.0 might as well be called the Internet at age 2. A little toddler of information, the neural networks just starting to really engage the information coming in, tiny limbs just starting to tug at the world. A body still too small to get hurt when it slips and falls.
But the metaphor falls apart when I think about life ever coming to an end. Does the web ever get old? Or is it a fountain of preserved youth?
In a way, we're uploading our minds to this vast network and plugging in in such fantastic new ways. Imagine 10 billion minds all considering each other. What couldn't be known? Could this be eternal life?
Are we building our own heaven?
Its not just that there are new technologies and new web apps pushing the internet. Its that things are being made to plug into and tap whats already there in new ways. Information is being created by the masses and then being organized by the masses. And no one person or company controls that.
My head is spinning.
My high school history teacher, Mr. Sutherland, used to say, "One reason people had so many kids back then is because your offspring were your health insurance when you got sick and your retirement plan when you got old. The other reason was because it was cold and dark and really, what else are you gonna do?"
No wonder people in the internet fueled world are having fewer kids. There's just so much to do. You can spend your whole life being entertained and catered to and I wonder, is that so bad?
We're talking about the infancy of the Internet here. Web 2.0 might as well be called the Internet at age 2. A little toddler of information, the neural networks just starting to really engage the information coming in, tiny limbs just starting to tug at the world. A body still too small to get hurt when it slips and falls.
But the metaphor falls apart when I think about life ever coming to an end. Does the web ever get old? Or is it a fountain of preserved youth?
In a way, we're uploading our minds to this vast network and plugging in in such fantastic new ways. Imagine 10 billion minds all considering each other. What couldn't be known? Could this be eternal life?
Are we building our own heaven?