The effects of the Internet

[JustAnotherINTJ]

I have recently just had this amazing infatuation with the Internet and thinking about how great it really is. I made this post for a discussion as to what you all think the effect it will have on our culture and humanity as a whole. We have already seen some of the drastic impacts it has made even on things as big as the American elections. How far do you think the influence of the internt will spread. Personally one thing I think it will change is our view of god. This is just biased of me but I think it will do for atheism as did the printing press did for religion. What I mean by this is the printing press obviously allowed the common man to own bibles and so on. With the internet it provides a ground to debate what ever we so choose anonymously. This will take away any social pressures or fears of rejection for holding such beliefs. I would like to know what you all think about it.

[Sinaitis]

Well while this stays serious, I will say that most already believe in an inevitable doomsday because of the internet. Through and by the internet we have created, manipulated, and exploited the idea that machines, programs, scripts, the entire internet can run as an organism, or well a cyborg... In this we think eventually the internet or machines that will have to use something like the internet or a network will gain its own consciousness, its own individuality, its own morality and wipe humanity for the better of everything else in existence (because seriously we suck at treating stuff good). The fear of an end to the world before the internet was rare. Only by crazy religious whack-jobs and now many people think that this will most certainly happen with the growth rate and how the internet is growing.
We can also speculate on how the internet has widen are knowledge base as a whole race, as multiple societies, and as of pushing new boundaries of the human mind and comprehension.
Is it for now.

[Goatboy]

To be honest, I don't think the Internet has reached even 10% of what it could realistically be by now. People are too slow to realize the potential. I still know some people who lack the ability to Google a question, or go on Wikipedia. And speaking of Wikipedia, some people are still under the delusion that anyone can edit an article to say whatever they want and it will go unnoticed and stay that way.

The truth is, the Internet is limited by society. I think Tim Minchin said it best:

"Does the idea that one afternoon on Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you, frighten you?"

[insomaniacal]

Ha, great quote. But seriously, that's one thing teachers need to realize. Wikipedia isn't a place for trolls to hang out and make ridiculous changes. If anything, it's rare for them to stay up for long, or get up in the first place.

[msbachman]

And speaking of Wikipedia, some people are still under the delusion that anyone can edit an article to say whatever they want and it will go unnoticed and stay that way.

The truth is, the Internet is limited by society. I think Tim Minchin said it best:

"Does the idea that one afternoon on Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you, frighten you?"

Hear, hear!

That reminded me of some words I had with an instructor back during school over using wikipedia as a source. Very rough transcript:
Instructor: You shouldn't use wikipedia, it's not a reputable source.
Me: Why's that?
Instructor: instead, you should go to the articles cited by wikipedia and cite them directly
Me: I see your point but in the cases of this paper I verified the original sources were used accurately in Wikipedia
Instructor: Yes, but it's still an academic consensus that wikipedia isn't accurate
Me: Those scholars know they can easily correct inaccuracies, don't they?
Instructor: Well yes, but most scholars use a real encyclopedia like Britannica
Me: I checked there but there were no articles for me to use. Plus I can't afford it.
Instructor: Alright, well next time just go to the library and use Britannica.
Me: Fine by me, would you care showing me one of Wikipedia's inaccuracies?
Instructor: Sure.

He proceeded to try but failed miserably. Still marked me down for doing that, I ended up with I think a C in the class because I refused to stop citing wikipedia.

Here's a comparison chart for why wikipedia owns the shit out of feeble competitors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ASize_comparisons#Comparison_of_encyclopedias


And this too http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as-accurate-as-Britannica/2100-1038_3-5997332.html, all the while boasting 60 times the articles!

[sanddbox]

Honestly, I think the internet won't reach its true potential until our parents have died out. They weren't born with this technology; they're not used to it and just see it as some cool (and scary) thing. This generation has actually known the internet since birth and so it's an actual part of our lifestyle.

[JustAnotherINTJ]

Many of you have mentioned it is not at its full potential, obviously, but if this is just 10% as Goatboy said what do you think of some of the things it could do later on when more powerful?

[sanddbox]

Many of you have mentioned it is not at its full potential, obviously, but if this is just 10% as Goatboy said what do you think of some of the things it could do later on when more powerful?

First of all, what's already there isn't being used enough. There are petabytes upon petabytes of information out there, but very few people can actually Google effectively or even have the desire to learn new things in the first place. The more people use the Internet, the more we'll see new, cool things being done with it. Honestly, I can't really imagine what awesome stuff lies ahead but I'm sure there will be awesome stuff.

Also: I'd put the figure not at 10% but at something like .000001%.

[TheNightFox]

Ha, great quote. But seriously, that's one thing teachers need to realize. Wikipedia isn't a place for trolls to hang out and make ridiculous changes. If anything, it's rare for them to stay up for long, or get up in the first place.

That's so true. I'm sure every one of us has explained that to someone at least once.

Thing about the internet is that it has great potential, but I'm not sure I do want every one on the internet. It's gonna happen, but is that a good thing? I'm sure you've all been on forums where there are 10 year olds just trolling around.

What I love most about the internet is that the internet is our domain; while none of us own the internet, we're the ones who understand it, we're like the vigilantes of the internet. To quote Mentor, "This is our world now."
And I must confess, I rely on people's ignorance. I own and operate a small business, and we teach people about computers and the internet (can't be bothered going into specifics right now).
The world is going to rely more and more on the internet, and we, as the ones who understand it, will become more and more influential. We're the future overlords of the world

The next ten years are going to be very interesting.

[Kwing]

The internet, to put it short, is a big thing. You have everything you could possibly want, and the problem comes in when you try and find information that's hidden in plain sight. But maybe this is a good thing; we might learn things we didn't think we would or didn't intend to. I just think it's ridiculous that people get so heated over what goes on, but I think if you said something abrasive you might find on the internet to someone in real life they'd get pretty heated too. The internet is a great thing and sort of a metaphor of what collective consciousness is, but people need to learn to swallow their pride and stop defending what they believe in, because it's really what someone else told them they believed in.