#EgyptShutdown: A global conversation
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Mikedelic
so things are hot in egypt right now. people are protesting in large number. the government is surrounding them with tanks in tahrir square in cairo right now. it's 4 a.m. where i am, in upstate new york. far away from the unrest of the world in the quiet snowy wastes of the jefferson county winter. but i can get instant updates because we have wireless.
i am still impressed by how fast news spreads now and how certain world news items become popular. we have a constant large scale -- huge scale -- international conversation going on now on the internet. it's a huge paradigm shift in global culture and we're right in the middle of it. things like wikileaks and the egypt internet shut down that i am trying to get around to talking about are very significant in terms of understanding where the world is at and where it is going. these are not singular problems they are just early episodes of a type of problem that will become more and more frequent as technology advances, in particular telecommunications media. one of the things that frustrates me when i read a lot of commentary on this kind of topic is how little people seem to understand about how much the world is changing. freedom of information is going to be a really big deal for a long time.
right now, this thing i'm writing is part of the big conversation going on. hashtag it #foi #cablegate #egyptshutdown #etc i dunno. over the internet via computers and smartphones, at all hours of the day, all over the world, a conversation. this is leading to new developments in culture, politics, the economy, everything. it's transforming the world. egypt as a nation had previously shown a lot of interest in getting on board and have a growing tech industry that they'd hoped would grow even more, but things have changed. because during their political turmoil, protesters were organizing via social networks, so egypt shut down the internet and cellphones. i think for a large scale thing like this in a place like egypt you just contact service providers and tell them to stop providing service.
in the u.s. it would be more complicated but this incident should raise questions about our own policies and possibilities as regards this stuff. in egypt it doesn't seem to have worked. it was bad for public and international relations and will probably end up being bad for business as well. big tech companies wont be as interested in bringing business there. they already have a pretty poor human rights record.
i personally like seeing how much the internet scares The Man sometimes, and how internet activity can provoke from authority the kind of reaction that once can consider a win for civil disobedience in the age of information. i worry sometimes that too much freedom of information will cause huge backlashes of oppression on a global scale and lead to a dystopian future in which only the rich and connected will get to have social networks and status updates. judging by a lot of the comment threads this does not seem likely. not because of the power of the people, lol, but because i don't think governments will need to repress people. so many people just choose to conform. and this is amplified by the very things on the internet that also make fast and effective grassroots political activism possible. we are in the time in history now where we are choosing collectively how it will happen. some people out there are trying to choose revolution, or evolution, or whatever, while some people are caught up in the massive flow of consciousness that new technologies have made possible. that is a big part of the worldwide conversation we are having even if not always addressed directly.
the craziest thing about this all is how it is tied to stuff like facebook, twitter and youtube. those were the main platforms that became socially threatening during this time of civil unrest. they became culturally and historically significant in a way that i don't always associate with them. so much of what you read on both places is just completely meaningless ephemera. these are the homes of farmville and bieber fever for crying out loud.
i guess it's like with other communications advances in some ways. look at television. 95% dog shit but really good when you need to broadcast one thought to the entire groupmind in a hurry. the internet is of course different in many ways from television but i think they share a similar chaff/wheat or noise/signal ratio. but then, so does dna, from what i've read. i dunno. whatever. finished randombling. i'm chilly and need to go start a fire. i like these quiet winter mornings. later.
#nerdsunite