Sure, you can say that. There is a writer in the US (it's either Kevin
Kelly or Howard Rheingold, but I can't remember which) who thinks of the
net as a collective intelligence, sort of like a beehive. This has scary
implications for me (as in "the borgs" of Star Trek), but I do think there
is a kind of net consciousness that is amplified by the speed and
openness of the communication.
[...]
>
>Fortunately being in the computer class tought also something so
>askjeeves.com just told me to look at
>http://www.perspicacity.com/elactheatre/library/pedia/greek.htm which
>explains:
Yes, this below is just what I meant. All humans are prone to this sort of
thing: somehow thinking that nature's rules will exempt them, or that they
know enough to control what everyone else should do. Because programmers
are so close to one of the most powerful technologies of our time (and a
technology whose importance is hyped by the media every day), they can
begin to think of themselves as little gods.
>"The tragic protagonist is one who refuses to acquiesce to fate or life's
>rules, either out of character weakness or strength. Most often, the
>protagonist's main fault is hubris, a Greek (and modern English) word
>meaning arrogance. It could be the arrogance of not accepting the hand
>that life deals (i.e., fate, as in Oedipus Rex), the arrogance of assuming
>the right to kill (Agamemnon), or the arrogance of assuming the right to
>seek vengeance (Orestes). Whatever the root, the protagonist's ultimate
>collision with fate, reality or society is inevitable and irrevocable."
>
>(...)
>
>I quit agree that what you said about people focusing in technical
>expertise goes well with that. It doesn't mean that pure tech
>people are evil or anything, they just don't take the
>responsibility. Technical is easy and often not about real problems.
>
>I think that's the case with the Internet now, or has been for some time
>already. All the technical solutions are there, some have been for almost
>25 years now, and many have really useful and easy for many years already.
>So the issues are, like I guess ISOC knows better than anyone else, mostly
>political, juridical and social. (or what would you put here?).
And economic :-)...
>This always reminds me of the African Network Symposium in Inet'97 in KL
>last summer. I don't know how the situation has changed since but then
>they had some severe problems. For example in Ghana there was 5
>independent ISP's or so and all the traffic between them went all the way
>to somewhere in England and back and cost them a lot. Also when connecting
>from e.g. South-Africa to some country next to it the traffic went to the
>U.S. and back which of course cost them a lot.
>
>My impression, without really knowing the facts, was that the AfriCIX and
>AfriNIC plans were technically OK but the people couldn't agree on them
>because of political and other "soft" reasons. Hopefully the next AFN in
>Geneva will reveal more of that..
I don't know about this conflict but I do know about some of the problems
with networking in Africa generally... the phone systems were set up to
facilitate communication with the colonial overlords, hence lousy service
among African countries and good service from the African capitals (where
the money and the expatriates were/are) to France, Belgium, London,
Germany, etc. The lack of a middle class in many of those countries and
the difficulties with infrastructure development in rural areas make it
unattractive economically to develop good national networks.
As for the rest of your message... you seem to be trying to figure out many
things instead of taking them for granted. This is a good thing! We need
technically sophisticated people with big hearts and large horizons... One
of those Greek guys said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."