Friday, February 28, 2020

THE INTERNET PROMISE.

   Ideas for the Internet were around in the 1950's . As with most things they start in a primitive form. Researchers kept pounding away on developing an internet where all people  could communicate with each other.

    I remember my first experience with the internet.  In 1995 one of our teachers ,who was the main computer expert in the school,  set up a noon hour where she would connect to the internet. She spent the whole noon hour hooking things up and getting a telephone line. What she showed us was an article in MacLean's magazine. The magical moment I was expecting turned out to be one of the bigger disappointments in my life.

    Well, all things on the technical side of the internet continued to develop. It became much easier to get on the internet and use the internet for data storage , research and communication.

    So before my first internet encounter in 1995 it was thought that the internet would draw us together as all people could communicate with each other. That sounded  like it would bring about much improvement to our world. Nothing but positive things were predicted about the internet.

   Then the internet got so good that a few sharp business operators thought of ways to make money on the internet. The hucksters decided that ads could be used to sell things. A guy invented Face Book so that we could say things to each other and he could make money ...lots of money. 

    The problem is that people felt free to say things...anything whether it was nasty, true or false. So we began fighting and in the process being divided and fighting with each other.

    So it is a disappointment that something that was designed to bring us together ended up being used to bring all kinds of harm to society.

   Now almost everything we do on the internet is traced and the sharp operator collects all our information and uses it to control our information. 

  At the present time I'm considering buying a recumbent trike. Guess what? I see many recumbent trike ads directed at me. 

    It looks like the genie has got out of the bottle. Will that genie ever be under control again?