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The Internet of Things

4
TammyBPerson was signed in when posted
09-20-2003
04:11 PM ET (US)
Hmmmm, emergence principle, how so? Does this mean that, indeed, resistance is futile as Bernard wonders in his blog? And there is no stopping this momentum towards a quantum age as long as electricity continues to flow?
Edited 09-20-2003 04:38 PM
3
DdeK
09-19-2003
10:44 PM ET (US)
I am not sure that our minds are controlled by a few people who just happened to know how to manage what technologies. Those people who could entertain that fantasy tend to be just as used by the technologies as the rest of us. The technological environment emerges and self-organizes capitalizing on conscious and semi-conscious human intentions. It is the emergence principle at works, stronger and faster under electronic conditions than ever before.
2
TammyB
09-18-2003
10:39 PM ET (US)
You know what Mark? You are so right. It's so seamless I didn't even realize. Downright insidious in fact. So that means whomever controls the medium (technology) controls the message (effect), right?

Apparently, our brains have become so massaged over time by mass media and massive use of technology that we don't even realize we are being controlled by a few minds behind the strategic use of media and technology.

I wonder if that is why blogging has such an appeal. It's certainly a realtime stream of consciousness of a human voice reflecting a human mind. But it's also a use of media and technology that is raw, fresh, and current, which originates directly from the source and breathes authenticity. Perhaps as a society, it is our way of saying enough is enough, we want to hear the truth and we also want to be heard.
1
Mark FedermanPerson was signed in when posted
09-18-2003
07:20 PM ET (US)
You ask: "Are we accelerating towards an era where the mind will control machines that will control the mind?" We have been in that era since the dawn of language, which was the first technology that structured our mind. The phonetic alphabet was a technology - machine of sorts - that the mind controlled, which in turn controlled the mind. And it has been such through the various technologies we have experienced: The Gutenberg press (moveable type), telegraph, telephone, radio, television and on to the future.

In the accelerated future, when it may well be that the machines I think you envision will exist, we still won't recognize that our minds are being controlled by our technologies.
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