Since its inception, the Web has become a repository of quasi-religious aspirations. Actually, why not? For those who are looking for a transcendental breakdown beyond the real world, the Network is almost a finished promised land. On the Internet, we are all incorporeal - symbols communicating with symbols through symbols. The early texts devoted to the metaphysics of the Network (many of them were written by people who were somehow connected with the post-Sixties movement of the New Age or experienced its influence) are imbued with a sense of the future spiritual release. The transition to cyberspace is described as a process of personal and social emancipation, a journey that will free us from the traditional limitations of our mind, our communities, our very physical shell. We become "netizens", soaring freely in a certain brighter, almost angelic world.
However, as the Network “matured” by the end of the nineties, dreams of a “digital awakening” remained unfulfilled. It turned out that commerce was more important on the Web than spirit, that it was rather a supermarket and not a commune.
And when the new millennium arrived, it was not the New Age that came with it, but the depressingly banal something that had emerged from the bubble of worldly greed. Somewhere, somehow it is not clear when, however, the temple was captured by the merchants. The Internet has changed a lot in our lives, but not ourselves. We remained the same as we always were.
New New Age?
However, aspirations to a higher level of consciousness did not burst with the bubble. Web 1.0 turned out to be spiritually a double-edged phantom, but Web 2.0 is coming, and waves of shouts and doodles leap up.
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In an
article about Internet celebrity Tim O'Reilly in Wired magazine, Stephen Levy writes that “the idea of ​​collective consciousness becomes a real manifesto on the Internet.” Further, a quote from O'Reilly himself: “Today, the Internet is largely an echo of what we talked about at [the headquarters of the New Age movement] Esalen. In the seventies, except for the fact that technology will act as a mediator of all this. " Levy asks the question: “Could it be that the Network or what O'Reilly calls Web 2.0 will truly be the heir to the human potential movement?”
Levy's material turns out to be a reflection of Kevin Kelly
's explosive article,
“We are the Network” in the August issue of Wired. Kelly - the long-standing prophet of “Long-term prosperity”
(Long Boom) analyzes the development of the Network from the moment Netscape entered the stock exchange ten years ago and concludes that the Web has become a “magic window” from which an “eerily godlike” perspective opens up for our sinful world. “I doubt that angels have the best view of all humanity,” writes Kelly.
But this is just the beginning. In the future, Kelly believes, the Network will grant us not only the vision of the gods, but also their power. The web is becoming “an operating system for a mega-computer that includes the Internet, all of its services, all peripheral chips and devices — from scanners to satellites, and in addition, billions of human minds integrated into this global network. The Giant Machine already exists in a primitive, rudimentary form. In the coming decade, it will be transformed into a comprehensive addition not only to our feelings and bodies, but also to our minds ... We will live inside this colossus. "
We read the revelation further:
“Only once in the history of any planet did its inhabitants first join together to create one big machine. Subsequently, this machine can start working faster, but it is born only once.
Now you and I are exactly experiencing this moment.
We should have admired, but the contemporaries of the era usually do not understand this. Every few centuries, the sequence of successive events is interrupted, and it becomes a new reference point for the further course of history. Looking back on these fateful epochs, we ask ourselves what it was like to live in those times? Confucius, Zarathustra, Buddha, and the late Jewish patriarchs lived about the same historical era — a turning point called the axial age of religions. Only a few world religions originated at a later time. In the same way, the great personalities who converged during the period of the American revolution and the geniuses who joined forces during the birth of modern science in the 17th century, consecrated additional axial phases of the short history of our civilization.
After three thousand years, when sharp minds turn their gaze to the past, our time, our protrusion of the third millennium will be considered as the exact same axial epoch. At about the same time that Netscape entered the stock exchange, people began to “breathe” tiny particles of mind into non-living objects and collect them, and at the same time their own minds, into a coherent whole. And it will be considered as the most important, complex and surprising event for the entire planet. Weaving new nerves of glass and radio waves, our species has connected into a giant network all regions, all processes, all facts and concepts. From this rudimentary neural network, a colossal collaborative interface has grown, uniting the entire civilization, a mechanism capable of cognition and feeling, more powerful than all previous inventions. This Machine has opened up new ways of thinking (perfect search, photographic memory) and created a new mind for our old look. It was the beginning.
Agree, this is not a story. This is an enthusiastic hymn.
Cult of amateur
Well, now, so that you do not write me off as ordinary cynics, and even into fallen angels, let me clarify: I’m entirely for the search for transcendence, whether it be church life, retreat in the forest, sitting at the Maharishi’s feet or meditating on pixels LCD -display Everybody collects manna from heaven where it finds it. And if this notorious higher level of consciousness is attainable, let's look for ways to it. The problem is different: when we dissect the web with religious categories, when we fulfill it with our own thirst for transcendence, we cease to perceive it objectively. As a result, we inevitably view the Internet as a spiritual force, and not just a collection of inanimate hardware and software. No self-respecting person will worship the soulless piling up of technology.
And then everything that is Web 2.0 - complicity, collectivism, virtual communities, dilettantism - is undeniably positive phenomena, which should only be fully approved and supported, because they, they say, symbolize the movement to a more enlightened state of consciousness. But is it? Is there anything to argue here? But can it not turn out that the practical effect of the Web 2.0 impact on society and culture will turn out to be not only not positive, but, on the contrary, purely negative? To treat Web 2.0 as an animated force is to become completely deaf to such issues.
Let's go back to the root cause of the discussion. If you read at least something about the Web 2.0, you probably met a lot of panegyrics about Wikipedia, this glorious symbol of the “century of complicity”. Wikipedia is an "open" encyclopedia, where anyone can write their article or correct an existing one. O'Reilly, in his
brilliant essay about Web 2.0, claims that Wikipedia marks "profound changes in the dynamics of content production," rapidly outgrowing the Britannica Online model, characteristic of Web 1.0. According to Kevin Kelly, Wikipedia shows us how any of us, thanks to the Web, can add personal intellectual potential to the gigantic collective intelligence. This, therefore, is a precursor of the Machine.
In theory, Wikipedia is a wonderful thing. And it should be so if the Web really leads us to a higher level of consciousness. In reality, however, Wikipedia is not as good as we would like. Moreover, not good at all. Of course, it is useful. I regularly consult with her to get at least a superficial idea of ​​a particular issue. However, at the actual level, it is not reliable, and her language is often simply terrible. I would not use it as the main source of data, and, moreover, would not recommend it to a student writing a thesis.
Here, for example, the literal quotation from the biography of Bill Gates in the form in which it is presented in Wikipedia [from the editorial board: It should be clarified here that all the passages that Carr brings are already corrected. However, no less confused than that quoted by Carr, the biography of Bill Gates is preserved in the Russian version of Wikipedia]:
Gates married Melinda French on January 1, 1994. They have three children - Jennifer Katharina Gates (born April 26, 1996), Rory John Gates (born May 23, 1999) and Phoebe Adela Gates (born September 14, 2002).
In 1994, Gates acquired the Leicester Codex, a collection of works by Leonardo da Vinci. In 2003, it was exhibited at the Seattle Museum of Art.
In 1997, Gates fell victim to a strange extortion by a resident of Chicago, Adam Quinn Pletcher. Gates spoke at the ensuing legal process. Pletcher was convicted and sentenced in July 1998 to six years in prison. In February 1998, a certain Noel Godin put a cream cake in Gates. In July 2005, Gates resorted to the services of the famous lawyer Hesham Foda.
According to Forbes, Gates donated funds to the 2004 George W. Bush presidential campaign. According to the Center for Responsible Political Activities, Gates, in his own words, donated at least $ 33,335 to more than 50 political campaigns during the 2004 election race.
Sorry for the banality, but this is all - garbage, an incoherent mixture of dubious facts (who the hell is the famous lawyer Hesham Foda?), In the aggregate meaning even less than any of them individually.
But an excerpt from an article about the life of Jane Fonda. The quote is, again, verbatim.
In childhood, she was called Lady Jane, which she was said to dislike. In 1964, she visited Communist Russia and was deeply impressed by local residents, who warmly welcomed her as the daughter of Henry Fonda. In the mid-1960s, she bought a farm near Paris, rebuilt it and looked after the garden herself. In 1966, she visited the Andy Warhol factory. Regarding the assignment of an Oscar to her in 1971, her father Henry declared: “How the hell do you feel yourself, after working so much in this industry and seeing that your children get an Oscars before you?” On March 29, 1968, Jane's photo appeared on the cover of Life magazine.
Although Jane Fonda grew away from her father and was very critical of him, in 1980 she acquired the rights to the play “On the Golden Pond” only to play a role in the performance with her father, in the hope that he , will award an Oscar, which until then he could not get. It happened, and when Jane received an award on behalf of her father, she declared: "This is the happiest night of my life." The director and first husband of Jane Fonda, Roger Vadim, once said about her: “Living with Jane was difficult from the very beginning ... She had too much, so to speak,“ bachelor habits ”. Too organized. Time is its enemy. She cannot relax - there are always urgent matters. ” Vadim also noted: "She always tried to bring everything to the limit."
This is not bad, but very bad. And, unfortunately, this is quite indicative of the general negligence of Wikipedia. Do not forget, however, that this product of the collective mind did not appear two months ago. "Freak" is about five years old, and many thousands of zealous inhabitants of the Network have put their hands on it.
At the moment, it seems quite appropriate to ask the question, when will the rationality of the “collective mind” begin to manifest itself? When will the great Wikipedia finally become a quality source of information? Or is “quality” an old-fashioned concept that should not be operated at all, speaking of new phenomena like collective online encyclopedias?
Web 2.0 apologists admire the amateur and are suspicious of the professional. This is manifested in their enthusiastic praises to Wikipedia, open source software worship and a myriad of other examples of “folk art”. However, nowhere is their love for dilettantism manifested so clearly as in the promotion of the blogosphere as an alternative to what is called “traditional media” (mainstream media).
To quote O'Reilly: “While traditional media may consider private blogs as competitors, competition with the blogosphere as such is most frustrating. This is not just competition between individual sites, but the confrontation of two business models. The world of Web 2.0 is also the world of what Dan Gilmore calls “We, the media,” a world in which a “former audience”, rather than a few people in the back room, decides what is important and what is not. ”
I am totally for blogs. But I am not so blind not to see the limitations and shortcomings of the blogosphere — superficiality, emphasis on opinions, not facts, echolalia and a tendency to increase rather than weaken ideological extremism and segregation. Of course, exactly in the same terms one can (and should) criticize individual segments of traditional media. But, in general, at its best, the capabilities of traditional media are completely different from those of bloggers, and the results from their activities matter more. Those most despicable "people in the back room" can fund detailed coverage and in-depth research on problems. They can be taken at their own risk and risk for projects that may take months to complete or may not take place at all. They can hire and pay for the work of talented professionals who themselves would not have survived on the web. They can seek out and recruit editors, proofreaders and other unsung guards of quality work. Moreover, without any prejudice, they can place conflicting opinions and ideologies on the same page.
And if I have to choose between reading blogs and subscribing to, say, the New York Times or the Financial Times, Atlantic and Economist, I will choose the latter. I prefer professionals to amateurs.
But I do not want to face such a choice.
Awesome economy
Well, finally, we came to the most important thing that I wanted to say. The Internet is changing the very economic side of creative work or, more broadly, the economy of culture. Moreover, these changes may not lead to the expansion of freedom of choice, but on the contrary, to its narrowing.
Wikipedia may be the pale shadow of the Britannica encyclopedia, but since it was created by amateurs, it can be used for free. And this gratuity constantly beats quality. What happens to those unfortunate "nerds" who make a living writing encyclopedic articles, if the free will completely prevail? Will die of hunger. The same happens when a direct confrontation of blogs and other free sources of information and "old-fashioned" newspapers and magazines begins.
Naturally, mainstream media views the blogosphere as a competitor. Yes, that is what it is. And, given the economics of competition, the blogosphere can emerge a winner. The cuts that we recently saw in major print media are perhaps only the beginning. Only this is not a reason for satisfied giggling, but for despair. For enthusiasm for the Web 2.0 lies the hegemony of the amateur. And nothing more frightening I can not imagine.
In the article “We are the Network,” Kelly writes that “because of the simplicity of its creation and distribution, online culture is culture itself, and there is.” I really hope that he is wrong, but I am afraid that in fact the truth is on his side. Or be there in the very near future.
Like it or not, but like Web 1.0, Web 2.0 is soulless. This is a set of technologies, a machine, and not a machine that changes the shape and economy of production and consumption. The web does not care whether the consequences are positive or negative. He does not care whether he will lead us to a higher level of consciousness or, conversely, to a lower level. He does not care whether he enriches our culture or impoverishes it. He does not even think about whether he leads us to a new Golden Age or into darkness. So let's put aside the rant about building heaven on earth and let us see the Web as it is, and not as we would like it to be.
Translation by Yuri Ilyin.
Source:
www.computerra.ru/think/239597