And may very well be inevitable. Some interesting speculations about where universal connectivity is taking us, can be found in the UK TV series Black Mirror - it's thought-provoking TV, which is always rare.the formation of a truly global culture is in reach this century.
I'll have to check that out - I've become quite obsessed with the idea that we should all be thinking globally and making it a goal to establish a real global culture this century. It's a big project - but as you say - it may be inevitable.
And, as I just got finished pointing out on mk's dropbox post, until a couple of years ago there were barely any laws that dealt with the internet. Online social norms are still being developed. The internet culture is in its infancy -- assuming the internet still exists in 2100, I would level a bet that none of the great websites have even come into existence yet, with the possible exceptions of google and hubski. We've got a fascinating social experiment with billions of players; let's not forget to study it until it's too late. EDIT: your articles dovetail so well with the thoughts that bounce around my head on a daily basis that they're rapidly becoming my favorite part of hubski. Keep writing!As inescapably pervasive as the Internet’s emergence has been, fewer scientists are studying it, than you would think. Even fewer scientists are attempting to situate its emergence within the context of our technological evolution, or understand its potential future development in the 21st century.
Thanks flagamuffin I appreciate it :) And I agree that we should direct a lot of our attention towards the way the Internet is transforming our planet globally (e.g., politically, economically, socially, etc.)
While it may be true that few scientists are studying the Internet, it is also seems to be true that advertisers are studying it quite intensely...
Does it concern you at all that the last truly private space, our thoughts, could be at jeopardy? Do you envision a future where we are so intertwined that we can literally hack into one another's thoughts, desires, fears and internal dialogues?
I think there will be privacy and security concerns at first just as we have these concerns now about NSA. The context will be different. After the transition it won't be a major concern. Decisions will be distributed collectively and we'll decide that we should have the right to our own private thoughts. No one should have access to them just as no one should have access to my fb private messages. What's more is that there will be no political centre who would want access to them because they won't exist. Will there be hackers or individuals who break into people's minds? Probably. But the punishments for doing it will be too great and the chances of getting caught too high for most people to bother risking it.
The punishment will be too great? What would the punishment be? Today, people murder, rape and do other despicable things despite the most severe of consequences. If history has taught us anything, it's that the potential consequences do not always dissuade evil.
It's hard to explain without a full blog post but always remember it will be a different system with different agents. My comment was specifically focused on the invading of someone else's mind files. Either way, people do make judgements about the consequences of their actions and the likelihood of "being caught" for "doing something wrong". With each successive system change it becomes harder to get away with something like murder, rape etc. If you were living in 1500 you could probably murder or rape someone and not get caught. Today, it is much harder to get away with (mostly because of system-changes related to technology) (consequently both murder and rape happen less frequently than they did in the past). In the next system there will be no chance to get away with harming another consciousness. All of our consciousness's will be deeply linked. If someone gets harmed in anyway, whatever agent did the harming will be marginalized in some way (I don't know how they will do this exactly). But it is entirely possible that murder and rape just won't exist at all. Our minds will be significantly different. Rape won't exist for sure because sex will be infinite (via Virtual Reality). Murder is harder to explain away but I doubt murder will happen very often, when it does happen it will be an tremendous tragedy for the entire global brain (untimely death has become more tragic with every system transition because we are living progressively longer so more consciousness was lost). If history has taught us anything, it's that we have become more cooperative and peaceful. The rate at which we are becoming more peaceful and cooperative is astounding. There is no reason to think a world with ambient intelligence, artificial intelligence, and abundant energy will also be filled with the psychological baggage that caused violent and abusive behaviour.Today, people murder, rape and do other despicable things despite the most severe of consequences.
If history has taught us anything, it's that the potential consequences do not always dissuade evil.