It seems to me that no one saw anything like this happening, before it showed any signs of happening that is (e.g. globalisation in an information age) Would of been pretty epic if literature like 1984 and Brave New World talked about and integrated this stuff and its implications, rather than just assuming printed media would continue and touch the furnace whenever undesirable information was discovered.

Did anyone ever predict anything like the internet? Yes (http://ask.metafilter.com/92942/Who-predicted-the-existence-of-the-internet-as-a-web-you-can-dip-in-and-out-of).

And dont mention 1984 - it couldnt predict it if it tried, because the net has no place in that kind of govt setup.

I believe Alvin Toffler did, but I'm not positive. If he did, he would've been pretty vague about it, so I don't think that's what you're looking for.

Better question:

What medium could possibly replace the internet?

The internet, despite all its retardedness, is a peak of humanity. Everyone on it is connected nearly instantly. There has never in the history of man been such an exchange of information, culture, every emotion possible.

The internet will amass knowledge. As long as the saying "Nothing that's been on the internet will every truly be off it" is true which it probably will be considering all the servers and hard drives one would need to physically destroy, it will eventually attain an unlimited amount of human knowledge.

The internet will become God. It will be a gallery of the highest human achievements.

Does anyone see the irony?


I find it hillarious. The internet is probably the greatest tool we have at this stage. Its amazing to say the least.
But did someone miss Big Brother?

Can no one see what is happening? Look at google for instance, everything is cached. Everything we say and do here is stored on some server somewhere, and will be around longer after totse is dead and burried. There'll be a record of everything. It's freaky.

Just imagine what kind of loss of privacy this is.

Not many predicted the internet, but everyone predicted the evil of google as big brother.

But how useful is it exactly? How much is BS? Everyone with a computer can produce and distribute whatever crap. Not all kilobytes are equally important. In 1999 I could search on something and get 20 hits. Now I could search on the same thing and get 5,000 and most still would not have the details I want.

The name "dal timgar" came from the first sci-fi book I ever read. In 1999 I could not find that name on the net which is why I used it. Now the entire book is out there for free and the audiobook. LOL

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18492

http://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/

That is nice but is it IMPORTANT?

Suppose one important piece of information is worth ten pieces of moderately important information and one moderately important worth ten pieces of trivia. The spectrum is broader than that but just as a working hypothesis.

What percentage of information on the internet do you think fits into each category? How much really important inf isn't on the internet at all because the people that know it would not put it out there?

The net changes things but probably not as much as we would like. Of course even good info won't make some people think.

DT

^ All knowledge is useful dependent on your situation. You may think something trivial until there comes a time you need it. Then your fucked, unless you have the internet.

I'm sure the internet per se was no thought of but the concept of storing and sharing all information over some communication network probably was.