This is the start of a series we’ll be doing on the rising tides of globalization – as it applies to the internet.
Introduction – Lux Ferous
The study of internet diffusion isn’t all that big in the field of academia, as it should be. It deals with complex models, mathematics, technology, philosophy, law, and social science, and the very phenomena has radically transformed this world of ours. From revolutions in the Middle East to the Chinese website Baidu, internet communication has made a world of nations a world of people. Globalization made the League of Nations, the Warsaw Pact, the United Nations, NATO, OPEC, and others – “democracy” among countries and groups that may not be democratic themselves in a sort of global federalism. The digital age of globalization is changing things altogether again: international corporations and communication from one face of the planet to another – with no country involved. The democracy of the past, the democracy of nations, has become the democracy of people.
Of course, a new concept of democracy comes with drawbacks and paradoxes no one ever thought could happen. The digital age is just as contradictory as it is nonsensical: it raises hyper sensitivities just as much as it raises desensitization. It fosters communication and conversation just as much as it produces privacy invasion and copyright infringement. At the same time, communication between London and New York, perhaps, is faster than from Kabul to Karachi – the laws of Newtonian nature are completely eradicated, forgotten. Distance is not a factor of diffusion, and the speed of satellite communication negligible.
Human interaction and the interactions between humans is a topic that’s always fascinated me. The internet is one of those key factors, and a revolutionary one indeed. Its benefits, drawbacks, ironies, and ethics create serious questions for thinkers and laymen alike. How to make sense of it all and how it plays out in the future is essential, and it must be discussed. This set of essays will deal with that very issue: from Bacon to Quantum Mechanics. Whatever that means.
Whispers of Satan 