So after condensing week one information into a single day i am feeling really good. The old grey matter is firing up and it lead me to thinking about what Mr Licklider and Mr Vint Cerf would be thinking about the evolution of their humble beginnings with "Intergalactic Computer Networks" and "packet switching". No one could have imagined a network so vast and instantaneous and sometimes a little bit scary.
When i think about the enormity and all consuming nature it has taken on I see an image of poet John Donne reciting "No man is an island entire of itself". Donne's idiom of the connectedness of lives has never rung so true as right here in the 21st century and our spiralling propulsion into the world of the Internet. Although some may argue that it inhibits true connection (physical) with others (we are all holed up with our laptops surfing the net while friends and family are talking / visting / playing sport) but on another level (a virtual level) we are all more connected that ever before in world history.
Someone sends one quick email with a clip of a baby's infectious laugh and they have literally started a ripple across the world of people downloading and feeling the warmth of that innocent moment
Unfortunately as with all good, there is bad (I eat an apple, i eat a chocolate bar) and this is mirrored in the virtual world of the Internet. If an item of communication is dispersed with the intention of doing harm then a little piece of Lickliders dream dies and we are all lessened by this malice, not just physically (OMG the blue screen of death!) but also spiritually, the overriding question posed by Donne at the conclusion of his poem is "ask not for whom the bell tolls - it tolls for thee" after all if were all so interconnected by the Internet then perhaps that malice diminishes us all.
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