As I sift the after-reports of the Poltical Conventions and the Great
American Experiment With Democracy winds down to a close (after 225? 100?40?
years) I realize all things must come to an end and I wonder how long cheap
open access to the internet which we now enjoy can go on.
I think of things once engines of limitless possibility--the automobile.
In the future, it was once said, everybody will have a car. Then came
problems with pollution, and gas shortages, and parking space problems, and
urban sprawl, and paving over fertile soil.
I consider the Internet as Media, and the role of media:
1) Vehicle for advertising
2) Cheerleader for and supporter of the ruling order
3) Entertainment and titillation
4) Town Crier, investigator, purveyor of Truth-with-a-capital-T to the
People
I consider that I placed #4, arguably the most important, dead last.
Right now the Net is open and expanding and the sky is the limit.
I consider that all things made by human hands are finite. I see how
electric power is growing scare--rolling brownouts and blackouts--how at
times Net access is slowed because there is so much traffic on the phone
lines--I consider we may be enjoying the Spring of this creation and that
there may come a time McDonald's Commercials will take precedence over
listservs
Should we just take advantage of this while we can fiddle like there is no
tomorrow?
Or should we, like the ant in the fable, be creating our own networks for
the coming winter?
Chris Hayden
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