Age of Communication

Just think... 25 years ago in 1990 most of the general public did not have computers, cell-phones or any type of device that would connect you to the world other than television and radio. Google, i-phones, i-pads, facebook, and twitter all did not become a thing until years later. The world is more connected now (so to speak) than it ever has been (that we know of) due to the internet. We are instantly connected and informed to what is going on around us. With so many people with cameras and video players, a picture taken by a 12 year old girl in Helsinki or a video taken by an 86 year old man in Buenos Aires can be seen by millions in a matter of seconds. Knowledge and information is growing at an incredible rate. We are simply much more knowledgeable about the world now than we were in 1990 and prior.

The weird thing is... we're just getting started. We are at the very beginning of the age of communication. Imagine how we'll progress in the next 25 years, 100 years, 500 years... We may look back at the start of the 21st century as a major turning point in the way we view each other... person to person, city to city, country to country, and perhaps... world to world.

The question is... will we be more civilized, peaceful, and more in-tune with each other as a result of this age of communication?... Or will it lead to a more corrupt, greedy and divided world?... In the long run, which path will prevail? Or, will both paths lay side by side for the unforeseeable future with a constant "tug of war" duality?

The question is... will we be more civilized, peaceful, and more in-tune with each other as a result of this age of communication?..

Dude, have you ever seen a youtube comment section?
this age of communication is just a form of cancer. While some people brought up with a bit of a moral compass know how to use it, for most people, especially the kids of today, it's just a way to spread ignorance across the globe.
You know how people are the opposite of ants, right? 1 ant is stupid, 1000 have this sort of hive mind that allows them to survive, as for humans, the moment you put 1000 together, on a (message board or a twitter feed) you can PHYSICALLY feel the amount of stupid.
And the other problem, that not many people seem to be noticing is that because in written communication like this it's impossibly to convey tone of voice or facial expressions, people need to over explain things just to make sure they are not misunderstood.
Well, that is crossing over to real life, listen you your friends, or to interviews on TV and you will notice it soon enough.
We are forgetting our own body language.

"You know how people are the opposite of ants, right? 1 ant is stupid, 1000 have this sort of hive mind that allows them to survive, as for humans, the moment you put 1000 together, on a (message board or a twitter feed) you can PHYSICALLY feel the amount of stupid."

LOL!

Truth!...and nice post by the way.

a reply to: Nurelic

I think the road is clear but we have barely witnessed the beginning. Language was necessary for the growth of any manner of civilization. Do we as a general rule call the development of that feature of humanity bad, evil or a detriment? No. Language was a step up in a natural progression of intelligence that any creature would welcome. In our present situation, we are now savvy enough, learned enough to see our eventual future. It will come via an association with electronics mated with our brains AND minds.

Mass consciousness will happen and does happen to some extent today. You can literally feel if you have every stood around a piano and sang old songs with friends. You can feel it in church or from some great speaker talking to your heart. A parent of a young child knows it. It can't be defined and is almost always ignored if not denied, but it is a real presence if not yet measurable scientifically. Eventually, it will be captured and bottled as an electronically induced consciousness, taught and transmitted across the world without the aid of a single electron. That will be the final triumph of the human race.

a reply to: Nurelic

We've already seen the start of information revolution, this came about when Internet access was made possible for the average person, and it's ongoing.

People might not understand this in their everyday humdrum, but the Internet has been a massive step forward for the Human race as a whole.

People underestimate the power of the Internet, for example, it's directly influenced several revolutions, the decline of religious belief, the furthering of science in massive leaps forward.

People see the lives others are living in other countries and they (usually the young) want the same for themselves. Before the Internet, the people of Egypt were happy going along with their dictator, and the revolution probably would not have happened. Without the Internet, the people of Ukraine might not have known how much better the quality of life was in Europe. Without the Internet millions of people would have no idea about Snowden or the abuses of the state. Without the Internet, people would have no idea how common police abuse is. Without the Internet... well, there's probably thousands of ways the Internet immediately revolutionized the world, and continues to as more and more people and societies come on-line.

Information is vital to making an informed decision, and now that we have access to more information than ever before, we're able to see all options and far more possibilities, and people are more prepared to fight for justice to reach the level of another.

We're only just seeing the start of the economic revolution, where class systems are going to be brought down by those seeing the corruption and disadvantage and demand something different. Now we can see how the "other half lives" we know how they abuse everything to make their lives more comfortable at the expense of everyone else, and there will be a global revolution over this at some point.

Just as other countries have seen revolts against their despots and rulers when they've seen the outside world, we are discovering just how corrupt our own governments are. People of other countries might just be happy to not be killed by the state after their revolution, but we'll want more too now that we know what the rich get away with.

There's going to be almost a race to a perfect society. As other countries speed up their progress to full democracy and freedom, we'll be speeding ahead in accountability and the end of corruption and privilege. As tech becomes cheaper and new methods and tools are developed, this can only increase.

The downside is that this will also lead to massive changes in business, manufacturing, sales and service. This will lead to higher rates of unemployment as the work of ten can now be done by one. Again, this will lead to more instability.

The problem we face is how to offset this development and prevent massive turmoil as the Human race develops at ever greater speed. There are going to be a lot of problems we cannot foresee right now, but some we certainly can - like the push for vital assets.

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse

I think you're only seeing this from a specific age group.
The average YouTube video is not indicative of society as a whole, because the interest in said videos is going to be specific to a certain age group. If you change your viewing habits you'll see a change in commenting too.

The comments you see on a conspiracy video are completely different to those you'll see on a video discussing quantum physics.

In addition, I have seen no evidence to suggest that people are "forgetting" body language. This would be impossible in theory as long as we have bodies. What you perhaps mean is that we are evolving at a faster rate than we were previously, this is always the case when we are exposed to new environments, new situations and new experiences.

People seem to be so terrified of change they seem to forget that we have evolved over millions of years to get where we are right now, we didn't simply stop changing as a species, this is not how we will always be. If our body language is changing, that's called evolution and it's entirely natural and will lead to a different society down the road.

a reply to: Nurelic

The Age of Communication indeed!

I feel that there is a disconnect between the improvement in speeds of connection, and the improvement in the QUALITY of those communications.

Yes, nowadays you can have a Twitter account. But what does Twitter do for you exactly? There is a character limit of less than two hundred or so characters last I heard, and although, yes, you can take an image of some words, and link that or post the image instead of words (big whoop), I question the quality of communication that is prevailing on that site, purely because of its limited nature.

Similarly, the Facebook system seems to have destroyed personal, face to face communication. Where as five or ten years ago, one could have a face to face discussion with a friend at their home, now you wait until six status updates and five invitations have been answered, before continuing the chat you were mid way through, and that applies even if YOU have no Facebook account, because you can bet your bottom dollar that your friend will have one!

So yes, communication between people who are removed from one another by one or another amount of miles has improved in its ease of access, its fluidity. But its quality has diminished, and face to face communication has become more difficult, as some sort of Borg like hive mind seems to have established itself, and is extremely difficult to break into.

That said, here we are having a meaningful discussion about the nature of just one little facet of the human experience. This new paradigm is certainly a double edged sword, and I do wonder sometimes, whether or not the reward is worth the risk. I love coming here and talking about things in an in depth manner, with all the fantastic entities of which the membership is comprised. But, much as I love it, there are some days where I wish the phones were all silent, the computers all dysfunctional, the lights all off, and all that there is to do, is to talk.