The Fish 9328 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Why the Web Won't Be Nirvana By Clifford Stoll Filed: 2/26/95 at 7:00 PM | Updated: 12/10/13 at 4:04 PM Clifford Stoll YouTube AA Filed Under: Tech & Science After two decades online, I'm perplexed. It's not that I haven't had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I've met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I'm uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic. Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works. Consider today's online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure. What the Internet hucksters won't tell you is tht the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don't know what to ignore and what's worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them—one's a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn't work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, "Too many connections, try again later." Won't the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen. Point and click:Then there are those pushing computers into schools. We're told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software.Who needs teachers when you've got computer-aided education? Bah. These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training. Sure, kids love videogames—but think of your own experience: can you recall even one educational filmstrip of decades past? I'll bet you remember the two or three great teachers who made a difference in your life. Then there's cyberbusiness. We're promised instant catalog shopping—just point and click for great deals. We'll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obselete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet—which there isn't—the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople. What's missing from this electronic wonderland? Human contact. Discount the fawning techno-burble about virtual communities. Computers and networks isolate us from one another. A network chat line is a limp substitute for meeting friends over coffee. No interactive multimedia display comes close to the excitement of a live concert. And who'd prefer cybersex to the real thing? While the Internet beckons brightly, seductively flashing an icon of knowledge-as-power, this nonplace lures us to surrender our time on earth. A poor substitute it is, this virtual reality where frustration is legion and where—in the holy names of Education and Progress—important aspects of human interactions are relentlessly devalued. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 I've definitely found I have less patience with people in real life since the Internet. I mean imagine having to devote ALL your attention to one person for an hour or two. People just aren't that interesting and I can't do 15 things at once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 9328 Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 The problem isn't less human interaction, it's just less substantive human interaction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom 13915 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Tom LIKES This Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 The problem isn't less human interaction, it's just less substantive human interaction. Humans are wildly overrated man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 9328 Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Humans are wildly overrated man. I know, but I don't have to pick up their shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 (edited) Honestly think the Internet has changed the way our brains work. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/aug/15/internet-brain-neuroscience-debate Edited January 16, 2014 by Park Life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Done an incredible amount of research on the net today. Proper research on understanding the statistical relationship between measures of tumour progression in cancer studies and patient survival. Also beefing up a document finding references on the use of Karnofsky Performance Status in cancer patients as a means to validating psychometric instruments to capture quality of life. The ability to capture that knowledge, access it and summarise it in minutes is a phenomenal sea change in research. Maybe you needed the skills developed from deep immersive reading more in the past to have the patience it would have taken to traipse round the various libraries and waiting for inter-library loans to undertake the work that took me less than 30 minutes this morning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Done an incredible amount of research on the net today. Proper research on understanding the statistical relationship between measures of tumour progression in cancer studies and patient survival. Also beefing up a document finding references on the use of Karnofsky Performance Status in cancer patients as a means to validating psychometric instruments to capture quality of life. The ability to capture that knowledge, access it and summarise it in minutes is a phenomenal sea change in research. Maybe you needed the skills developed from deep immersive reading more in the past to have the patience it would have taken to traipse round the various libraries and waiting for inter-library loans to undertake the work that took me less than 30 minutes this morning. Don't tell the boss though. It took weeks right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 I went shopping and then had lunch with our lass at my mates restaurant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 14168 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Honestly think the Internet has changed the way our brains work. As has the way the Internet has changed. Or at least you notice a different approach to things among people who've always had the internet in their lives and people who discovered it at a later date. I think, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hostile_statue 0 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 The desktop of a scientist that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 As has the way the Internet has changed. Or at least you notice a different approach to things among people who've always had the internet in their lives and people who discovered it at a later date. I think, anyway. You mean Christmas Tree and the rest aye? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 14168 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 For once I wasn't actually having a go, though I'm happy enough for my words to be taken that way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 9328 Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 The desktop of a scientist that. Way too cluttered if you ask me, all those icons should be in folders on the far left. Unless those are the documents he's been working on today? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meenzer 14168 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Or he's just triggered a nuclear meltdown on a screen-sized 8-bit game of Sim City. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hostile_statue 0 Posted January 16, 2014 Share Posted January 16, 2014 Way too cluttered if you ask me Well, that was kind of my point. I have this conception of scientists being confused and absent-minded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fish 9328 Posted January 16, 2014 Author Share Posted January 16, 2014 Well, that was kind of my point. I have this conception of scientists being confused and absent-minded. ... I meant his screen, not the top of his desk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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