Digital Humanity
Will we in our lifetimes see the Internet blossom with a new humanism? Is the Matrix a giant incubator for another renaissance?
Will we in our lifetimes see the Internet blossom with a new humanism? Is the Matrix a giant incubator for another renaissance? Or is humanity simply feeding machines that are ultimately serving themselves rather than our creativity? The Oracle of history looking at the past two decades gives a double answer: Yes if we look at the rapid evolution of the Internet. No if we look at the performance record of human beings.
A "brief history of the Internet" began with "geeks," the tech-minded minority who taught computers to communicate, first mainframe then desktop computers. Geek theorists like Douglas Engelbart at Xerox Parc (Palo Alto, California) spun intricate ideas about "amplifying human intelligence." [Note: A geek is someone who follows the Wiki directions on "How to Make a Wallet Out of Duct Tape" and then actually uses the wallet as a fashion statement.] Engelbart’s hopeful vision of scientific collaboration followed the metaphysical footsteps of Gottfried W. Leibniz. Government-sponsored and academic researchers sent the first emails and created collegial online groups.
Then in the early 1970s, CompuServe Information Services (CIS) opened a new market by selling dial-up connections to hobbyists so they could use email, news groups, and file-sharing at home. CIS also led the way for businesses to authorize credit-card transactions by dialing-up Visa International. By the early 1990s, CompuServe was swallowed by America Online (AOL), which replaced the minute-based price of a dial-up connection with hourly rates. AOL became a huge success and soon inspired several direct-to-the-Internet companies, like EarthLink. Customers fled from private pipeline services to the broad open superhighway with its infinite choices and software options. What was formerly geek hobby became a major commercial enterprise. In 2001, the media giant Time Warner merged with AOL which during the 1990's bubble held higher stock value than Time Warner itself. Time Warner planned to consolidate commercial advertising across print, TV, radio, and the Internet. Geeks went shopping and millions became online consumers.
As broadband connections spread through cable, phone, and satellite, the dial-up access to the Net was doomed. By July of 2006, dial-up subscribers to AOL had shrunk to less than 19 million subscribers in the same year that saw PC World Magazine declare AOL "the worst tech product of all time.” The bulletin boards and magazine racks simulated by AOL could not compete with the customers who were neither geeks nor simply shoppers. The new customers wanted bulletin boards, yes, but bulletin boards flexible enough to be shaped and managed by users themselves. The customer was no longer passive but an active participant with a home page that responds to changing needs, whims, and interests. Google and Yahoo enabled that shift and presented a portal that asked "Where do you want to go?" This replaced the AOL model that had asked "What do you want to buy?"
Increasingly active, the new generation of users became more than shoppers and information consumers. The evolving users want to shape "MySpace,” sharing photos, event logs, and personal commentaries. MySpace now outstrips Google, Yahoo, and all other portals on the Internet. Coming up quickly behind MySpace since 2005 is the the video-sharing YouTube which, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, has almost 20 million visitors each month. Even major TV networks like NBC and CBS have dropped their copyright restrictions on video footage so that their clips can be downloaded for free at YouTube.
This “brief history” shows the momentum of active humans applying creative impulses toward free expression and toward community building. All this has happened within two decades. So, the Oracle says Yes to a coming renaissance of humanity through the Internet. Unfortunately, after the Yes, there also comes a No.
The tremendous pressures on American culture after September 11, 2001 might have raised expectations for new initiatives in international communication. The Internet is the ideal framework for trans-national initiatives. As a response to cultural hostilities, the Net might have served as seedbed for innovative communities of young people across all nations through game-based avatars (virtual identities). Such “avatar diplomacy” could create friendships not unlike those of the paper-based “pen pals” movement of the early 20th Century. During a three-year period, plans for avatar diplomacy were indeed sketched, detailed, and pitched to institutions like colleges, universities, and UNESCO-sponsored conferences. Despite many presentations and discussions in the U.S., Europe, and Scandinavia, none of these plans went beyond the stage of “nice idea.” The existential will was simply not present. Instead, even academic institutions took an attitude of business as usual: “We must continue to pursue our mission and do what we do best – what we have always been doing. Transnational initiatives are uncharted waters and the risks are many. We are a business after all.”
Such a cowardly performance is not surprising when viewed in the light of human history’s Age of Iron. The No to renaissance is a solid wall of complacency that stops momentum. Yet No to a Matrix renaissance only calls for the music of another voice, the poet Wallace Stevens:
“After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.”