Follow by Email

woensdag 29 februari 2012

From a historical view, it is a dangerous path we are going today. The wired connections we are facing, but do not see, is like an enormous city of alleys: narrow and dark. At least for most of us! There are some individuals, which are generally addressed as Nerds, who can shine their light on a doorstep or portal, now and then. They understand the techniques, but not what can be done with it.

No one invented or developed the Net to hide and seek, however an unknown amount of bytes and bits are used for it today. The average terrorist or child-pornographer does not have the skills, in spite of the fact that they work and play in the dark back-alleys, where even the geeks among us have trouble to enter.

Internet is not so much an electronic highway, as well a mathematical one, by which I mean: it is not about the way of transport, but about the vehicle that carries what we send.

Mathematics is endless. It won’t ever stop. Two parallel lines always cross in infinity, is a mathematical rule, but no one knows what infinity really means. It can be calculated, we even have a symbol for it, but it can’t be seen, and predictions which cannot be verified the hard way, are at least disputable… Infinity is, in a certain matter, the end of mathematics, but when we reach it, it won’t be infinity anymore. That’s the trouble with our glorified electronic highway. We see the wires and can tell how much cable is needed to connect every individual on this world, but we cannot foresee what transportation possibilities lye ahead. And it is not only transport in disguise…

When people hide something, it is never about hiding, but always about that “something”. Hiding itself, the way of transport, is not the goal. It’s all about the package within, which can be encrypted to make it even more difficult to find.

The world is changing, hasn’t really changed yet, because what is happening on the Internet, is still to much a copy of the hardware we know since mankind exists. I write this by hand, not just thinking and it appears. It is materializing in front of me on a white-sheet-look-a-like, and I will send and publish it in a very similar way, even if I do not have to walk to the post office anymore. The game we play is still the same, nothing has changed. Life has become easier, in a matter of speaking… But is that so?

Mankind always played hide and seek, as long as we exist, but we never had so many alleys and bushes to go for. Infinity could be nearer then we think, or believe, because the numerous ways of traveling this highway are literally endless, and won’t ever stop as long as we are here…

maandag 27 februari 2012

It is human to predict the future. It is also human not to believe in these predictions, but nevertheless it’s not so hard to foresee what is coming.

Since the Internet we experience the prologue of a brand new world, which, for most of us, is still hard to understand. We believe that things are going fast, to fast for a lot, but is this really so?

In spite of applications like Facebook or Twitter, the new medium didn’t change a lot. These hot items of today are nothing more then a globalization of what already existed. Where we are involved in now is nothing more then a wide spread school magazine, with personal stories and pictures of ourselves. Is this the ultimate of what Internet has to offer?

The answer is YES! At least if the medium itself doesn’t evolve. Internet today is just a bunch of connected machines which allow us to share sounds and images: a picture postcard of were we live, an expression of how we feel… It’s new that we basically can connect from almost every location in real time, and because it is new, we think of it as hot. In the past people had to travel, today we switch the button, and like to believe that it is the same, that we are really connected within a distance of half the globe.

There is, however, a major difference. What we express in our homes, we can freely do, because of the fact that those who we are expressing to, are not in front of us. We are still in the stadium that machines addressing machines, in stead of humans communicating.

One can argue that Internet allows world wide communication, and in a certain way this is true, but with the ability restrictions of the user.

In spite of all apps, most users today are unable to express or communicate the same way as they would in their own pre Internet environment. And that is were the future changes will be.

Internet is just the beginning of a narrower world where distance and know-how of techniques still make the difference. It still is a divided world with more walls then the middle ages ever saw. The individual in his cabin, facing the wall of his provider who can cut him loose if he doesn’t pay, or express him selves in a way the lordship doesn’t like. For the avarice user there is no way around. He has to obey the rules and regulations, but that will change…

Like the downfall of the music industry after the Napster war, in future the bricks of the protecting walls will collapse in every area as we know it. Not because of a www and the difficulties of global regulations, but because of expanding knowledge and simpler techniques, available to everyone. An ongoing development which is called evolution, gave power in the past to those who were physical strong, later to those who had access to materials, and today to the ones who have the knowledge skills. The evaluation is not hard to see. Even this fetus, the Internet truly is, gives access to all the knowledge an individual can dream of, which means that knowledge in future won’t be a reason for power anymore. Power as an expression for the individual ruling a group will disappear, which struggle we already see today. The next stage will be a true and worldwide anarchy. The question is, because of this, if mankind will survive or disappear as a victim of his own success…