Who *

What *

Where *

Why *

How *

By what means? *

Where to? *

Internet and people's network *

American Update *

Hi,

I'm Toni from an of Net People in Finland.

Most of everything is pretty undefined, an-defined, but homepages (NP, VU), the an-Inet98 presentation and an.org itself give hints.

The moment is amazing living in
(cyber city) Amsterdam. Home is
(hi-tech) Forest in Oulu, a lot of
(life) in Helsinki as well and all
(used to be) on the 'net.

Internet has tremendous effects on the society and I believe and feel having experienced many of them personally in my own life. There is a Dutch book called "The Net, that's me" that I haven't read but used to share the thought.

There is an-verse picturing how we both, the net and me, were born in the seventies and matured towards the nineties. First the net and me was a technical issue developed by programmers. Then we turned out to be a people's communication tool getting involved more into first literate worlds of philosophical, scientific and social communities. By developing more intuitive audio/visual tools and getting more popular different arts and culture, even law and politics came a part of the net and my life. And all the time economic aspects have been getting stronger so that the development of e-commerce is considered being the cornerstone of net development - including my life - at the moment.

Growing Up Digital, the book by Don Tapscott, is a good description of many things we net heads identify in ourselves. Computer worlds and especially the net has given us the freedom to grow the way we have felt like doing - I don't remember having any superficial restrictions in my life opposite to, for example, what a traditional catholic growing up would be like.

What is a grown up growing-up-digital kid like, then? What kind of adults do we make?

The net is confronted with new challenges. So called Technorealism being a trend in intellectual circuses this year, flattening net hype is the favourite hobby of many word-mastering people.

Of course they have a point: it has been about time to drop utopism that used to surround net things and is still deep in the minds of us net heads. The net evolves, sure, but still it's not a separate thing but must be considered in context, put into a place, establish in some sense to really grow up and take responsibility - face reality - like I'm trying to do in my own private life. (not always really succeeding, though, my flat mates could tell you more)

The features of the international people's network introduced in the following are real problems. IP, i.e. the Internet Protocol, however works fine. Does it help us? It has made my life possible and sure makes a difference but for what?

[then for something different: international relationships from a Finnish/(Dutch) European point of view - first inspired by the introduction of the Estonian participant and then something for our American friends]

It is said that us Finns are making the same mistake with the Estonian people that the Swedes made with us - thinking that "the little brother" is not only poorer but also stupid.

On the other hand many consider the hatred the Russian minorities suffer from in Estonian cities a threat for the safety in the area. I'm afraid that Finland, with our strong homogenous monocultural tradition, may prove to be as bad now that we are starting to have notable national minorities as well.

I don't know any Estonian people. It is actually quite weird - after all, we do belong to the same tiny-but-beloved Finno-Ugrian language group together with the Hungarians and have a lot in common in history.

Here in Amsterdam I've met people from all European countries and from all the other parts of the world as well but only one person from the Baltic, he was Lithuanian. The European Union with its exclusive politics has to do a lot with this, my being here is a part of their international exchange programs and Europeans outside the union don't really have this choice for other than rich or talented people. From my home town Oulu in northern Finland almost any student can go to live in any country within EU for a year with travel, housing, living and studying costs covered.

I have been in Estonia once with the Kirjakaapeli / Cable Book Library people in autumn '96. We staid only a couple of days hanging around Tartu and loved it. The only bad experience happened in a techno / drum&bass night party that we went to on the Saturday night. I was talking with one of the DJs there when a totally relaxed looking friend of his came to us, said something in Estonian which I couldn't understand a word, then grabbed by head with both of his hands and banged his forehead hard into mine. I fell down, almost lost consciousness, felt terrible and was bleeding. Some people took the freak away - he was probably on speed which is quite common in the ex-soviet areas 'cause the army always had loads of drugs for soldiers so it's available and cheap. I was lucky enough not to get too hurt and made it to the hotel, I think even the scarf in the forehead is gone now.

I vaguely remember from the newspapers that the Finns are called "poro", meaning reindeer, in Estonia. At least for me - being grown up not only digital but in the forests in Lapland where herding reindeers is one of the most common [ammatti] - they resemble the absolutely stupidest creatures on earth.

The situation is quite controversial:

I've gotten the impression that the people in especially other Baltic countries but also in Estonia feel closer to the Central Europe than we clumsy forest barbarians outside the borders of European maps do.

Yet Finland is a flourishing western democracy leading many developments and serving as a gateway for (and to!) the former soviet areas, like Estonia and also Russia itself, and is very attractive and that sense.

In the 80's Finland was referred as "the most American country in the world", USA being second I guess. People - including the ten-year-old me - were dressed in perfect TV-American way, eating hamburgers and travelling to the states. At the time most popular exchange programs in Finland were to America.

We even started having competition and deregulation in telecommunication very unlike for example Germany, which was our most important trade partner, but more similar to the USA. All that shows still - not least in cheap telephoning and the world top penetration of the Internet accompanied with the success of companies like Nokia and success of projects such as Linux.

Now in the late 90's things have changed. Many people regard to the States as both ridiculous and scary as hell. They (we) are, at least to the extent that I have observed, proud to be first of all Finns, then a part of the Nordic Community with the Scandinavians and finally European Union. Rest is ... not us?

"God Less America" message appeals to the public here in Western / Central Europe and many voices in Finland as well. I've experienced even hate against the States during my stay here among all European nations.

It is hard to disagree: why would the American society, that stands for guns on the streets and in every house, schizophrenic hysteria about such natural parts of life as sex and drugs, single-minded capitalism and finally in the end of this endless list: ignorance.

Please don't get me wrong: I've been told and understand that the TV-America that most of Europeans know is only the TV. It is a huge continent you have there and undoubtfully it is diverse - some say as diverse as Europe or even Africa - even though you share lot more like one common language and have so amazingly little history.

As mentioned in the an-inet98 paper the old Net People T-shirt says:

I'm pretty happy that the message there shifts from national level down to us people. We must get to know each other. I'm lucky enough to have some American friends here and they have perfectly demonstrated how many of our stupid believes are simply not true.

The Internet holds a promise in enabling this kind of direct personal contact also in places like Oulu, my home up north. Even though the net is mainly used to communicate and get together with friends close by - like in the same school, company or other organization, it is also a way to keep in touch with foreign nations, cultures and people. Here in Amsterdam it is not necessarily such a big deal as they are around anyway but not every nice place is a cosmopolitan capital.

The old dream presented once again in the previous part repeats the utopist (McLuhanian) idea of World Village etc. Is it becoming true?

The world is small in the sense that global people, like many of my friends and to some extent me myself, have been all around and know people who they meet also by accident in the most surprising situations. Last summer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I got to know some Dutch / South-African people who I came across again here in Holland the following winter. Anywhere you go it's possible to find people from your own culture, meaning who listen to the same music, read the same books and - yes - use the same net services so that you can party together.

So, world truly is like a village and a fun place to go around. And that's definitely what we do. Most kids interviewed in the Growing Up Digital have friends cross the globe and want to travel to see them. That's, of course, also what the whole ISOC INETs are about. Why the world is not a village, then?

The tricky thing is that the geographical world and our political maps coloured with (nation) states - we have a couple of those titled "The World" on the walls here in our flat - are not the world. Yes, the earth is the home of humanity and all there is for us and yes, the states the political maps draw are meaningful - but all that is only a part of the social sphere we live in. And that world is not, unfortunately, a village. We don't know the people outside our own modern social classes. The net doesn't connect us with them.

All this is well recognized for years now and there are potential solutions, like the public library system in Finland, similar projects in the Netherlands in the US and other countries as well. A common term for the phenomena is the division to information haves and have-nots that [Sheva] mentioned. Tapscott writes about The Digital Divide in his book. I agree, and would put it this way: social discrimination is the number one threat to humanity. This sure is an-complex issue.

On Sunday and especially yesterday, this Monday that is, I met some new American people who made me think again. The person who happened on Sunday is American and the couple yesterday on Monday Canadian, all for their first time on this side of the Atlantic.

First there was this guy straight from Wall Street in New York where he has just started working in financing or some other typical Wall Street stuff. He joined us and came to our home for an afterparty from a club where we were with other international students.

Actually I didn't know he was coming so we just biked through the town back home quite fast as usually and I first saw him in front of our front door all sweaty from running after us. We were more than ten already and he seemed OK so we all went in.

Before falling asleep on our floor he talked a lot. It all was quite stunning from the very beginning. About the first thing he asked if there was a lot of neo-nazis or similar violent people in A'dam since it was his first day and he didn't really know anything. I told them there's none around in the center and that there is not really violence here.

He described his feelings of the first day, how it was like coming back in time to the 40's - how he could almost see the Nazis walking down the streets shooting people as had been shown for so many times on TV. It sounded like it was about the only thing he knew. When he asked about the Anne Frank house and I told that he had just almost passed it while jogging it went even worse.

He went asking about different places in Germany and how big the Neo-Nazis were there. I didn't actually know much but told that most places are as safe as any as far as I know.

The morning after it all felt quite awkward. I've never been really exposed to Nazism in any way in my life. I know there are skinheads beating people of frustration around even in Scandinavia, mainly because they are unemployed and don't have much future in life anyway. First I thought the usual, that he was just an ignorant American who knew nothing about what has happened in Europe since Hitler, but now I think he had a point. Nationalism is here, in me as well, and even if it's not violent it shows.

The country of origin is the first thing we international students ask when we first meet each other. Many people tend to stick together with people from home or neighboring countries even though we share the same city with people from all over.

With those thoughts in mind I had written the notes for most of this text yesterday. Then we went out to the movies with some friends living here in the evening. The movie was American as well, Chasing Amy that was, from the same brilliant people who made the Clerks before. It was really an important movie for me .. even so that we perhaps go to see it again already this week. More of that perhaps later - I have the poster of the movie in my room from the Rotterdam film festival in February which became a case in the an-inet98 paper.

After the film we went to a cafe called Lux on our way home and met this Canadian young couple there. They were for the first time in Europe which I always find extremely interesting. They had been travelling all around Canada, the States and Central America a lot. Being performing artists, jugglers to be exact, they had really been all over the continent perhaps more than anyone else I've ever met before. Their nomad lifestyle also shows them a lot more of the places than for an average transport-shop-stay_in_a_hotel traveller.

Let's start from the nationalities which seems the way now: the girl is Icelandic Canadian and the guy of (Kazakstan?)-Irish blood. It was fun to see how they really looked like that - the girl was obviously Scandinavian type and the guy was drinking in the most Irish and talking in a perfectly Russian way. I've met Irish Canadians here also before and have been to Russia a couple of times - not anyway close to Kazakstan though but only in St. Petersburg close to Helsinki.

We talked a lot about all kinds of different thing and it was really stimulating on the whole. We told about Europe and Scandinavia, where they are touring in festivals soon, and they got into all kinds of stories about the places they had been to.

Their yearly rhythm sounded interesting: they enjoy all the summers in Canada, which sounded really similar to Finland with all the lakes and forests. The the autumns they have been touring around the States ending up in Mexico to spend the winters in the warmth there - hopping home to Canada to spend the Christmas with the family just like I always do - and returning to the Caribbean back again to wait for summer. From now own they were planning to continue staying in Central America over the winters but come to Europe - instead of the States or Canada - for summers.

After a while we got into politics. The guy told that his father is an important politician in Canada and he seemed to be quite aware of everything himself. Soon we ended up talking the same Europe-America issue again but I could've not imagined before what a shock it finally was. He was a bit of the exaggerative type - one of my flaws I'm afraid although I'm trying to be as honest in all this as possible - so I would appreciate all comments concerning the following facts we got to hear in the cafe yesterday night: (I must tell you, at a point I got so angry about all the things they told that I could sit still anymore..)

First shock was their explanation of the American police force and jail system. The guy told and the girl verified that in the states people get first arrested for stupid reasons, are put to jail for a long time for small questionable crimes and that the jails are run by private companies that use the prisoners as workforce.

The example they told was AT&T which I'm supposed to know relatively well. They said that AT&T has built private jails where the police force supplies people to work in their cells making telephone calls to customers, like direct marketing I guess. Is this true? I couldn't believe.

Another issue was the mass media in Canada. They told that it is owned by one guy, I forgot the name. This is actually pretty much the case in Finland also. Anyway, they told us about a major (labour?) demonstration in Canada recently, like within a year, that was actually the biggest in Canadian history with about 300,000 people on the streets if I remember correctly. In the news it was hardly mentioned and the figures were changed so that only 30,000 people would've been there. They said at even today most Canadians don't know what happened. I'm gonna meet some Canadians tonight and will ask them.

Is there a new law in California called "three strikes in a row" or something similar? It should mean that by committing three federal crimes there you get jailed for 25 years. The shock was that, according to them and which we again couldn't believe, such crimes as stealing a car (the modern horse of a cowboy), having cocaine (the stuff that used to be in coca cola) or misusing a credit card (pickpocketing some money). That would mean that committing those three crimes would destroy your life - without you touching (harming) a single person.

This is the only thing I had read about before. The couple had actually met - if I remember correctly - some people in the States whose friend, a 19-year-old boy, had been put to jail when a CIA agent (?) had bought LSD from him. The agent had been in the same festival asking around where to get drugs and had happened meet the poor guy whose life is now ruined.

There has also been even nastier rumors about the CIA people getting involved on the dark side of the drug scene selling the substances they get from the people they arrest etc. They said that in Mexico it's quite common for the police to sell the drugs even back for the same people they took it from.

I wrote all this text at once and am probably not going to update it. I hope it starts different kinds of communication [a friend stole the keyboard and the following came: I think it's about time that someone else adds a little to this masterpiece of yours. At the moment it sounds like you are writing down the various stimuli of your experiences here down in a stream of consciousness. And it would be very interesting to have a separate entity within this work. An entity that exists on its own, outside of the realm of your consciousness, yet somehow still within the reality of your daily life. A stranger in the… own house (I added to the end)]

yes, I agree, communication about these things is what I hope ;)

(yes, this page was created with the legal help of MS Word Wizard, gee)