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The Age of Paine Revisited
The InternetPosted by JonKatz on Thursday December 06, @11:30AM
from the still-waiting-for-the-Digital-Citizen dept.
Long ago -- so it feels -- in a galaxy far away, I wrote a story for Wired Magazine called "The Age of Paine" in which I prophesied a utopian outpouring of digital pamphleteering, individualism and democracy, all sparked by the liberating powers of the Net. Like other writers and editors at Wired then, I imagined a new kind of digital citizen, empowered by all the information the Net would bring him by the Net's distributed architecture. The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant. Maybe he or she will pop up, but probably not in my life.

I had no doubt that I was seeking the start of a transformative global revolution. The fervor and excitement I felt then are still fresh in my mind, though few of those fantasies have yet materialized and some, as the years pass, are seeming increasingly unlikely in my lifetime. And I'm still not sure I was wrong.

Many of the ideas in that essay were indirectly inspired by the hell-raiser of the American Revolution, a writer I've admired all my life. Thomas Paine, a media pioneer, one of the first people in the world to advance the notion of free information in an open society, of individual liberty flourishing amid the demise of institutions and monarchies. In my piece, I imagined Paine online, flaming and blasting away.

In the overheated Wired environment of the time -- some of the people running the magazine were true political radicals, a rare breed in popular media -- the prevailing idea was that the Net would sweep away hoary institutions like Congress, Big Media and Wall Street, changing more or less everything. Top-down, exclusive, closed and proprietary entities would tremble and collapse at the outpouring of ideas, intellectual property, education, democracy and ideas that the Net would provide. One magazine columnist even gushed that illiteracy among the young would vanish because kids all over the world would be so desperate to get online.

I was Wired's easternmost correspondent, based not in California but New York; as such, I got a first-hand look at just how the Net was traumatizing Eastern media. The spectre of all these weird kids hacking together this exciting new kind of many-to-many information culture really shook people up. The bland, filtered, from the top-down media, Wall Street, Congress -- they were all scared to death. They hated the Net then; they still do. (Though just this week, I noticed the stodgy New York Times op-ed page appending e-mail addresses to its regular columns; a landmark of sorts.) Yet as much as the Net has evolved, it's shocking to see how little traditional politics or the popular press has. Real interactivity, perhaps the most political idea ever in media, barely exists off-line.

In my essay, published in the April, l995 issue of the magazine, I wrote that the pamphleteering Paine, who had no children, did have a descendant

"where his values prosper and are validated millions of times a day: the Internet. There, his ideas about communications, media ethics, the universal connections between people, the free flow of honest opinion are all relevant again, visible every time one modem shakes hands with another. The Net offers what Paine and his revolutionary colleagues hoped for in their own new media - a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds. That was part of the political transformation envisioned when he wrote: 'We have it in our power to begin the world over again.' Through media, he believed, 'we see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; and think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used.'"

It isn't clear whether we -- you -- began the world over again. We do -- thanks to the Net -- see with other eyes and hear with other ears, and think new thoughts. Those are still prescient and timely words.

Paine's ideas about a free press, an outpouring of individual opinion and a ferocious sense of social justice seem especially alien to the corporatized, homogenized, blow-dried practioners of "objectivity" who have inherited the American press. The Net suggested a rebirth of Paine's fading values.

Did it deliver? For sure, the pamphleteering model was true. The explosion in weblogs, pages, mailing lists, groups, topics, threads, message boards and p2p systems has introduced nothing less than a new age of individual expression. The personal archives now on the Net are unprecedented in human history, from family bios to discussions of gardening, dogs, politics and sex. Sites like Napster, Deja and EBay -- even Amazon -- have revolutionized business and consumerism. Sexuality has been liberating online, and TV and other forms of entertainment are sure to become subordinate to the Web. Cultural movements like open source have spread far beyond software in terms of their impact on society. The Net has made anyone with a computer a world-wide communicator or entrepreneur, at least potentially. Individuals are freer than ever to talk about sex, engage in heresy, sound off, connect with others, and distribute their thoughts. People with unimaginably diverse interests can now find one another instantly. It's easier to be a gay teenager, a member of a militia, an ex-Marine, a rabbit lover, a scientific researcher. Thanks to computers, there are now a million Paines out there.

But some things have been lost, as well -- influence and commonality. This new individualistic medium is so personal it's become self-absorbed, almost narcissistic. Individuals are speaking out, but it isn't clear who, if anyone, is listening. And it isn't always democratic either. There are few common grounds, town squares or open spaces online. People frequently use blocking and filtering software and programs to stick with the like-minded, not explore the different or experience other points of view. Ideas fly all over the Web, but they often end up on the screens of people who already agree, otherwise they would have long ago unsubscribed. Teenagers and political fanatics have turned the Net's public forums -- on Slashdot, CNN, ABCNews and MSNBC -- into hostile electronic cesspools. To have actual conversations online, you're forced to join clubs where membership and speech boundaries are regulated, even to the point of specialized blocking programs that permit people to gauge levels of hostility or agreement. The digital citizen isn't always very free and open to new ideas. Some of those sites are great, but this doesn't exactly constitute an open and democratic environment, one of the great early dreams of the Net. Joining a rational discussion of a common issue has become virtually impossible on any Net forum that's not restricted by membership or other restrictive tools.

In practical ways, the Net has proved more revolutionary than most of us thought. In l995, few people imagined how ubiquitous e-mail would become, how much of a family communications tool, how natural a medium for teenagers and college students and for grandma and grandpa, how fundamental to research and text, how threatening to copyright and intellectual property traditions. I hardly expected within a few years that a U.S. President would be passing along URLs in a speech before Congress. The explosion in gaming and online entertainment was similarly unforeseen -- most people took the new medium too seriously for that. Almost nobody predicted how specialized online communications would become, how polished online retailing would get, or imagine the marketplace potential of an entity like eBay. We did lots of heavy breathing about the rise of the virtual community -- expectations that have not been met. The hostility bred by the Internet wildly exceeded anyone's expectations, and is nothing less than a tragedy for the idea of the digital citizen.

The Net is, if anything, bigger than people thought it would be now, a part of more people's work and personal lives. Also their creativity -- art and writing flourish online, even when they can't make it off. But its primary impact has been practical, not ideological. Instant messaging has probably had greater import for younger Americans than digital pamphleteering has.

The hacker universe has sobered up as well. Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop? Or that that one of the primary champions of Linux would be IBM? In the post September 11 era, hackers are in for a rough time, and the environment of the Net may change again. In the name of national security, authorities will be more vigilant and visible online, with the authority to throw up roadblocks all over the Net. The consequences of cyber-terrorism would now be staggering, and the spectre of the Twin Towers will give government the upper hand politically in its long brawl with the free spirits online.

Nor did anyone quite expect the speed of the transition from capitalism to corporatism, an era in which global corporations acquire media, commerce and popular culture; control copyright and intellectual property; and become the primary funders and corrupters of the political system.

Despite the flowering of individual voices on the Net, we live in an arguably less democratic culture than we did a decade ago, even before Attorney General Ashcroft's sweeping actions.

So does this add up to grim news? I don't know yet, and may not know in my life. The rise of individualism online seems irreversible. If individuals can't reach mass audiences, they can't easily be shut down, either. It seems inconceivable that our society will ever return to a few-to-many model of information, when masses of people waited for a handful of information gatekeepers to parcel out information. But as for the contemporary armies of Paine's some hoped would emerge from the digital din, make themselves heard, even achieve influence -- I'm still waiting for them.

 

 
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    Update: 2001-12-29 by michael:

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    Email Turns Thirty | The LDP and Debian  >
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    The Age of Paine Revisited | Login/Create an Account | Top | 409 comments | Search Discussion
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    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
    (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
    l995? (Score:3, Troll)
    by umm qasr (<leith> <at> <bu.edu>) on Thursday December 06, @11:35AM (#2665302)
    (User #72190 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    In two places, There is l995, rather than 1995; an l rather than a 1. Did JonKatz just (poorly) OCR an old paper of his? tsk tsk tsk
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:l995? by Reality Master 101 (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @12:00PM
    • Re:l995? by StaticLimit (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @01:30PM
    • Re:l995? by look (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @01:44PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
    Had a major rant ready but.. (Score:2, Funny)
    by wiredog on Thursday December 06, @11:36AM (#2665307)
    (User #43288 Info | Last Journal: Monday October 01, @06:53PM)
    It's not worth the effort. We need a <Katz_Rant> template. Something about the obviousness of the theses. The nice bit of self promotion at the top of it. etc. etc.
    [ Parent ]
    Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
    by sulli on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665319)
    (User #195030 Info | http://www.sulli.org)
    Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop?

    IIRC MS-DOS and Windows 3.x were the leading OS in 1991. What's changed?

    [ Parent ]
    • OS/2 by wiredog (Score:3) Thursday December 06, @11:48AM
      • Re:OS/2 by onion2k (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @11:57AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:OS/2 by Kenja (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @12:00PM
    • Re:Microsoft by Havokmon (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @12:00PM
    • MS-DOS was a client OS. by oneiros27 (Score:2) Monday December 10, @09:48AM
    Whoa. (Score:5, Funny)
    by Gannoc on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665320)
    (User #210256 Info)
    It's easier to be a gay teenager, a member of a militia, an ex-Marine, a rabbit lover, a scientific researcher.

    Katz is one busy dude!

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Whoa. by bahtama (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @11:55AM
    • Re:Whoa. by duct_tape_n_wd40 (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @11:07PM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
    Ever heard of FreeRepublic? (Score:3, Informative)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665324)
     


    http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/latest?ao=1 [freerepublic.com]

     
     
    [ Parent ]
    • Um, What? by autopr0n (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @12:09PM
      • Re:Um, What? by mc6809e (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @01:05PM
      • Yeh, so? by autopr0n (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @10:06PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    human nature (Score:1)
    by oogoody on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665327)
    (User #302342 Info)
    Advances in technology only allows humans to
    be more of they are, not something different.
    [ Parent ]
    The more things change... (Score:1)
    by Atzanteol on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665328)
    (User #99067 Info | http://www.edespot.com/plaidhat/index.shtml)
    The more they stay the same. Technology doesn't change people. People use technology to do more of the same they've always been doing. 90% of that involves war.
    [ Parent ]
    Large Impact, not Wholesale Change (Score:3, Interesting)
    by stealie72 (carterm@toadprinc ... I'm not a prince)) on Thursday December 06, @11:38AM (#2665329)
    (User #246899 Info)
    If anything, the net has given us the ability to find just about any information we want. While the main news/political sites are still status quo, people who want to go out there and raise hell are able to find dissadent information a whole lot easier than before the rise of the net. At least this is true in the US.

    I work for an advocacy oriented nonprofit, and I can tell you that the net has had a huge impact on the way we interact with government, and the way we interact with grassroots supporters (getting them to write their Representatives, etc). Give the US government a few years to catch up.

    I do not think, however, that the net is going to change the way governments work wholesale. They'll still be corrupt and powerful, and they'll still be trying to screw you and me.
    [ Parent ]
    For Those Who Don't Speak Katz (Score:5, Funny)
    by PinkStainlessTail on Thursday December 06, @11:41AM (#2665338)
    (User #469560 Info | http://www.thereisnohomepagethereisonlyzool.com/)
    People frequently use blocking and filtering software and programs to stick with the like-minded, not explore the different or experience other points of view.

    Translation: "Goddamnit! Stop choosing to block my articles from your front page view!"

    (Something I haven't done obviously. He's just too entertaining.)

    [ Parent ]
    Hello, kettle? This is pot. You're black! (Score:1, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 06, @11:43AM (#2665347)
    "This new individualistic medium is so personal it's become self-absorbed, almost narcissistic. It isn't clear who, if anyone, is listening. "

    Uh-huh.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Onion Headline (Score:5, Funny)
    by Kengineer on Thursday December 06, @11:44AM (#2665348)
    (User #246142 Info)
    Sounds like an Onion headline to me:

    Jon Katz Quotes Self

    - insert witty phrase here
    [ Parent ]
    Face it. Idiots. Everywhere. (Score:2, Insightful)
    by tjansen (tim@tjansen.de) on Thursday December 06, @11:45AM (#2665355)
    (User #2845 Info | http://www.tjansen.de)
    In any group with a sufficiently large number of people the majority are idiots. You can find this out by reading slashdot comments, and the quality here is certainly better than in the average AOL chat room. Interactivity doesn't make sense unless you find a good way to filter out all these idiots. Who cares about the ability to read the thoughts of 4 billion idiots?
    And even if you were able to filter them out, it would not really help to improve the world. Ok, you could read stuff written by non-idiots, but as long as the majority of voters can still be influenced by those few media corporations. Most of your examples are either "mass-media delivers to idiots" or "idiot to idiot" communication.
    Abolish the democracy, form a technocracy!
    [ Parent ]
    Oh gawd (Score:1, Insightful)
    by Zico (ZicoKnows@hotmail.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:46AM (#2665365)
    (User #14255 Info)

    Things like this, the whole digital-anarchist/netizen/dig-my-meme garbage, is precisely why I stopped subscribing to Wired within a couple of years of it starting out. "Transcending dogma and cant?" Give me a freakin' break, man.

    [ Parent ]
    Obviousness? (Score:2, Funny)
    by Violet Null on Thursday December 06, @11:47AM (#2665375)
    (User #452694 Info)
    But its primary impact has been practical, not ideological.
     
    Captain Obvious strikes again!
    [ Parent ]
    this applies to everyone in the USA (Score:1)
    by roryi (rory@klub.org) on Thursday December 06, @11:48AM (#2665384)
    (User #84742 Info | http://www.klub.org/)

    interestingly, The Declaration of Independence of the United States, in it's original form, was written by Thomas Paine.

    The proof of this appears in many places in the 19th century and even more clearly in the 20th century. William Van der Weyde had printed proof in the earlier part of the 20th century and Joseph Lewis wrote a full book on the subject in 1947.

    There was a committee of five in the Continental Congress (Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Sherman, and Livingston) who were responsible for ratifying the wording of this document, and several important sections were changed.

    Perhaps it is this mutilation that has gotten us into our current awful situation?
    [ Parent ]
    • American Aurora by poemofatic (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @12:40PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Why would the net make people more active? (Score:5, Interesting)
    by jonnythan (jonnyboy@bigfoot.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:50AM (#2665397)
    (User #79727 Info | http://www.boatertalk.com/)
    Whatever you like to think, people in general are still lazy, apathetic, and just plain don't care.

    No amount of information overload or internet connectivity will change basic human nature. Simply giving everyone net access (or whatever) won't turn them into caring, conscious, active, wonderful citizens.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Why would the net make people more active? by alkali (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @12:38PM
    • Re:Why would the net make people more active? (Score:4, Interesting)
      by Jason Earl on Thursday December 06, @12:40PM (#2665680)
      (User #1894 Info)

      Even more importantly, most of the people that are now getting onto the Internet don't share the same values as Katz. Instead of being excited about the "sexual revolution" they are trying to find ways to keep their children from being immersed in pornography. And they certainly aren't interested in what gay teenagers are doing online (other than trying to make sure that they aren't trying to solicit sex from their sons).

      Many of the caring, conscious, active, citizens that are using the Internet for information disagree with Katz and most everyting he stands for. For example, they see the fact that the U.S. government is a Republic (and not a pure democracy) as an important safeguard to their liberties. They believe that the government should take an active role in supporting morality. They support the First Ammendment, and would give their lives to defend it, but they are saddened that all too often the First Ammendment is used as a cover for pornographers instead of in support of actual political thought.

      Katz has made the mistake of thinking that his definition of the perfect society is universal, but it isn't, not by a long shot.

      [ Parent ]
    • Humans by Nature are ignorant and uncaring by HanzoSan (Score:2) Thursday December 06, @12:59PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Katz Notes™ (Cliff Notes for a Katz article) (Score:5, Informative)
    by Unknown Bovine Group on Thursday December 06, @11:52AM (#2665400)
    (User #462144 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Thomas Paine was a political revolutionary. Jon Katz worked with some would-be political revolutionaries at Wired. They thought the net would revolutionize the world, destroying all bad things and empowering the common man, who would somehow go from being a greedy bastard to being a righteous do-gooder. This hasn't happened. What's up with that?

    (These Katz Notes™ provided for those others who began earnestly reading the article only to have their eyes glaze over as they continuted to scroll down....)
    [ Parent ]
    The Internet changes nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Stiletto (stiletto_NO@SPAM_.mediaone.net) on Thursday December 06, @11:52AM (#2665402)
    (User #12066 Info | http://www.pompano.net/~stiletto)

    Before the Internet, most people were dumb, passive consumers. Let me just buy things and watch TV, and let others produces things, let others make decisions, let others tell me what my opinions are.

    The Internet hasn't changed this. It's turned into Just Another Medium through which we dummies can be told what to wear, what soft drink is cool, who to vote for, who to fuck, and consume, consume, consume!

    Today, like years ago, we are told that the masses are meant to be all-consuming pac-men, and the few are meant to produce, lead, and make decisions.

    The Internet is not going to bring about a global outpouring of creativity and information sharing, simply because most people can't be bothered to come up with an original thought, much less published writing or software. How many people post to /. as opposed to how many who read it? I bet I can take a pretty accurate stab at the ratio, and I bet it's about the same with most "open forums" on the net. I bet it's the about same with USENET too.
    [ Parent ]
    I'll make the obvious observations... (Score:3, Interesting)
    by MillMan (millbizzatyahoodotcom) on Thursday December 06, @11:52AM (#2665403)
    (User #85400 Info)
    Technology doesn't change the world, people change the world. Or insert any similar one-liner of your choice.

    Things have changed for the better in some ways. Media consolidation has been very rapid the past 6 years or so. Yet anyone with interenet access has access to independant media outlets that ask questions and dig deeper than the mainstream media, who are spoon fed by the pentagon and are quite conciously ok with that.

    The problem is that people have to know about these sites and want to go to them. If the entire population is brainwashed to follow one point of view, it won't matter if the plain truth is right in front of them. That is a problem technology can't solve.
    [ Parent ]
    People are still human (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Reality Master 101 (RealityMaster101.hotmail@com) on Thursday December 06, @11:53AM (#2665410)
    (User #179095 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 16, @04:53PM)

    Why would anyone expect the Net to "change everything"? People have always had the ability to stay informed through the quality newspapers, magazines, etc, but very few take the time to try and understand complex issues.

    On the one hand, the Net gives us the ability to ready any Joe Blo's rants about subjects he knows nothing about, which actually reduces how informed the average citizen is because of all the noise.

    On the other hand, if you are selective about what you read and believe, you can occasionally find gems of wisdom that give you information that might not have otherwise found. Take Slashdot -- the editor's are HUGELY ignorant and foolish about things (*cough*michael*cough*), and the posters are usually even worse. But where the editors do a good job is in their story selection. That attracts the smart, knowledgeable people that occasionally post these gems.

    The question is whether the Net is a net loss or a net gain in educating the public, and I'm just not sure.

    [controversial opinion alert] One huge win in my opinion that the Net has been a great influence on bringing the American ideas of freedom to the rest of the world. The greatest evil of the world, next to communism, is Socialism and I would like to see it finally die like it should have died last century as the failed experiment it was. The more socialism, the less freedom. [/alert]

    And please spare me the "America WAS the home of freedom" blah DCMA blah blah. That's a great example of the narrow-minded, single-issue ignorance that I'm talking about. If you think any of these minor issues are significant in the big picture of freedom, then you need to expand your views are what freedom is.

    [ Parent ]
    Osmosis Science Experiment (Score:1)
    by Catiline (a_krumbach@NOsPaM.yahoo.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:54AM (#2665419)
    (User #186878 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday January 28, @08:26PM)
    There's a great little science experiment demonstrating how plants get nutrients by osmosis; you stick a flower into a cup of colored water and the next day you can see the colors that were in the water in the flower.

    The same thing is true of government; and keeping in mind that a lot of politicians (in fact, a lot of people in generic seats of power) are a lot more reactionary than your average /.er, or even just the average citizen; it will take a while longer yet- children who grew up not knowing why the letters on a keyboard are in alphabetical order will be the ones who change the politics.
    [ Parent ]
    If the net has taught us anything... (Score:1)
    by Cruciform (cruciform@NoSPam.digitalextremes.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:54AM (#2665421)
    (User #42896 Info | http://www.digitalextremes.com/)
    It's that information travels at the speed of light, but ignorance bends time and space.

    The enlightened net user will remain a myth as long as Britney Spears and her ilk remain the most sought after subjects of search engines.
    [ Parent ]
    Netizens are people too. (Score:1)
    by El_Smack on Thursday December 06, @11:54AM (#2665424)
    (User #267329 Info)
    The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant.

    It sounds to me like this is a vision of a great homogenization, and that the only reason this hasn't happened yet is that people haven't had free access to information.
    This isn't going to happen in cyber-space, meat-space or deep-space. People have their own views and perspectives on issues.
    Some feel crime will go down if people can carry guns, others envision a "WestWorld" type cityscape where battles rage continuously. Just because I have access to charts and graphs of crime rates and concealed carry statistics doesn't mean I can change either sides mind.
    I am the same guy offline as I am online, except I don't make my wife call me "El_Smack."
    Talking to you via electrons and pixels vs. sound waves and ink doesn't change anything. That is the point that has been, and I fear, still is lost on many who think the Net will fundamentally change people and how they interact.

    [ Parent ]
    Bzzt.. Bzzt.. (Score:1)
    by jspectre (jspectre@Nospam.mac.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:55AM (#2665431)
    (User #102549 Info | http://homepage.mac.com/jspectre)

    We worry now about cell phones and the radiation they produce or not (depending on who you believe). I have to wonder what "studies" will come out in a few years telling us that our PAN is frying us from the inside out. You have to wonder what all that EM radiation up close and personal is going to do to you.

    I wouldn't carry my PAN hub in my pants pocket, um, too close to some sensitive areas.

    [ Parent ]
    Unrealistic Expectations (Score:1)
    by joehoya on Thursday December 06, @11:56AM (#2665435)
    (User #541611 Info)
    Can there be any wonder that the prognostications of a group of "true political radicals" on the future of a technology that they had already embraced would not play exactly as they had foreseen? Of course not!

    What is amazing that the Net has come as far as quickly as it has. The future is inherently murky, but the freedoms enabled by the Net are just now beginning to impact traditional social and political structures and practices as Katz pointed out. Who knows what the future will bring, but one thing is sure: it will bring changes. This is true of the Internet also, we can only guess at its final impact, but we can and do influence this impact everyday.
    [ Parent ]
    Wired really sucks (Score:2)
    by pubjames on Thursday December 06, @11:58AM (#2665444)
    (User #468013 Info)
    I just brought my last copy of Wired magazine a few days ago. It's got to a point where it's just not worth buying anymore - I could hardly find an article I could be bothered to read. It used to be that upon buying a new issue of Wired I would read it cover to cover in one sitting.

    What happened? It used to have writers who were passionate about technology, had interesting opinions, and had their fingers on the pulse of change. Now it's like a product catalog for gadgets and 'cool stuff'. About half the articles seem to be 'advertising features'.

    I think the rot set in during the dot-com boom. The writers stopped talking about the technology and started focusing on making a fast buck.

    Sorry Wired, I used to love ya, but we've just drifted apart, ok? Time to move on.
    [ Parent ]
    not the tech, but the way it's used (Score:1)
    by flashpoint (rx@function0.spam.com) on Thursday December 06, @11:59AM (#2665454)
    (User #221479 Info)
    the same agrument has been made about the printing press and the radio at various points in history. mass communications technologies have huge potential to enhance democracy and redefine citizenship-- consider, for example, how the printing press was in many way a technology which enabled the Protestant reformation (or, one could argue, the whole enlightenment).

    the hitch that the internet hit, as i see it, is essentially a technological limitation: the need for a gatekeeper. what i mean is that posting a web page is like tacking up your Paine-esge flyer to a lamppost in Times Square. people will see it, sure (whether they will care or not is another debate). but very few will notice it, because it is lost the the clutter of the millions of other flyers. the way we index the internet is through search engines, which saw some of the first corporate influence on the net and suffer from a range of issues, for capitalist bias to simple technical limitations.

    the other way to "catalog" the internet is to use sites like slashdot-- but then you have an editor and a moderator and the whole Paine metaphore has vanished.

    and besides, can you honestly say that you read news on the indymedia.org wire and believe it before you double-check with corporate outlets? we're trained to see information distribution as very hierarchical and this is difficult to overcome.

    coupled with the rapid and unhindered commericialazation of the medium, the choice between clutter and moderation has left internet has become a lot less decentralized in practical terms, a strange irony given its architecture.
    [ Parent ]
    It's a different age right now (Score:1)
    by Nikau on Thursday December 06, @11:59AM (#2665460)
    (User #531995 Info | http://www.uncultured.com/)
    "The Age of Paine" in which I prophesied a utopian outpouring of digital pamphleteering, individualism and democracy, all sparked by the liberating powers of the Net.

    Currently: "The Age of Pain", in which I see a hellish outpouring of digital marketing, censorship and draconian tactics, all sparked by liberating powers of the Net as used by idiots.

    Cynical? Nahhhhh...

    [ Parent ]
    Isn't that the way it always goes?? (Score:2)
    by ch-chuck (nonono@nonononono.no) on Thursday December 06, @12:00PM (#2665461)
    (User #9622 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    that the inventors and purveyors of some new technology (fire, bronze, the printing press, radio, TV, uP's, etc) envision it as some sort of gateway to an Utopian existance, ushering in an age of peace, harmony, understanding, an end to wars and hunger, blah blah blah - only to have it end up being used for some individual's or group's advantage in gaining wealth, status and power over others?
    [ Parent ]
    Need an e-enabled government (Score:1)
    by macemoneta on Thursday December 06, @12:00PM (#2665469)
    (User #154740 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    If our government were properly e-enabled, including electronic instant runoff voting [instantrunoff.com], then active participation would be much greater. Just take a look at the response the ./ polls get :-)
    [ Parent ]
    Changes on the way (Score:3, Insightful)
    by fireboy1919 (unlisted@@@rustyp...hn...org) on Thursday December 06, @12:02PM (#2665477)
    (User #257783 Info | http://rustyp.hn.org/)
    30 years ago, science fiction was kid's stuff - only children wanted to watch it, only children liked it, etc.

    30 years have passed, and the children have grown up. Now Sci-fi is a complex medium intended for the use of adults - it grew up with its fans.

    15 years ago video games started getting to be more than just 'Pong,' and the children started to play them. Now games are complex, and getting more so. Today, games are still for the young - but not just for kids.

    A mere 10 years ago the net started to become a popular means of [everything the wired article talks about]. It has powerfully transformed the world BEFORE a generation has come to power. That is truly amazing, but you can't expect all of the changes that are on the way to happen overnight.

    In 20 years, after the internet has had as much time as Sci-Fi to become commonplace, we will be an internet generation. Then all the people who are using this as their media outlet will have it, and just like the stock market, it will become a chaotic tyranny of the majority's decisions swayed by the charisma of those who write well.

    Bring it on. The written word has always been my favorite medium of information exchange.

    On the side: I don't care if this issue is last year's news, or last century's. Its relevant today, and there are more things that cna be said about it now than could be said last year!
    [ Parent ]
    Not for the first time... (Score:1)
    by Skinny Rav on Thursday December 06, @12:02PM (#2665483)
    (User #181822 Info)
    Many times it seemed that something (i.e. industrial revolution, Enlightenment) would change the humanity, that people would start to think by themselves, not just listen to authorities (the Church, the Goverment, media). But then always the result was the same: most people just want to be told what to believe in, what to do, what is good or bad, and they want to have simple pleasures (circus or instant messaging).

    Just read some texts from the eighteenth century and compare them to Wired style - the same hope for "the new epoque", common discussion, extinction of extremes, liberty and fraternity. And then came 1815 and later Victorian Era, Bismarck and World Wars. And now we have Sept 11th and anti-terrorist regulations.

    Nothing new, just the same crap again and again

    Rav

    P.S. Though, I must say, it's one of few Katz's articles I read with interest...
    [ Parent ]
    Well, duh (Score:5, Insightful)
    by autopr0n on Thursday December 06, @12:05PM (#2665495)
    (User #534291 Info | http://autopr0n.com/)
    on Slashdot, CNN, ABCNew and MSNBC -- into hostile electronic cesspools. To have actual conversations online, you're forced to join clubs where membership and speech boundaries are regulated, even to the point of specialized blocking programs that permit people to gauge levels of hostility or agreement.

    What did you expect, for all your utopian dreams, you forgot one thing. Most people are fucking stupid. And a great many of them are annoying as well. "giving everyone a voice" (the phrase) might sound good, but actually giving everyone a voice won't. leveling the playing field for everyone and you end up with a world awash in moronic penis bird posts and SPAM promoting porn sites.

    The hacker universe has sobered up as well. Who would have thought, a decade back, that one company, Microsoft, would in fact achieve everyone's paranoid fantasy and conquer the global desktop?

    What is this supposed to even mean? The "global desktop"? Lots of people run windows on desktops across the globe, but M$ hasn't got central control over much of anything, just lots of revenue streams. And its not like their market share has gone up much since the DOS days anyway.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Well, duh by writertype (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @02:44PM
    • Re:Well, duh by ruzel (Score:1) Thursday December 06, @06:07PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    The dream is over.... (Score:2)
    by reaper20 on Thursday December 06, @12:05PM (#2665496)
    (User #23396 Info | http://www.whiprush.org)
    Yep. The net is a commercialized extension of existing systems in The Real World. More spam for everybody...

    No utopia of free thought and expression, with furious online debates in a sort of "Digital Renaissance".

    How did it get like this? How is it that most internet traffic ends up at either an AOL or MSN owned site? (according to some report I read somewhere, don't remember).

    Surely, the Internet is populated by people intelligent enough to know when they are being corralled and taken advantage of? Where did it all go wrong?

    I have always believed that people watched the garbage on Network Television because of the influence of the networks in the history of the development in television. The net was supposed to change this, allow individual people to express their opinions, and allow netizens to get information from ANY source. The geeks were in charge, and here first, we would show people the way to digital enlightenement ... Now the masses are 'stuck' with AOL/MSN and don't even know/care enought to know better.

    That's what we get for making this stuff "easy to use" ... more spam for everybody ...
    [ Parent ]
    The FOREST Got BIG! (Score:3, Interesting)
    by 3seas on Thursday December 06, @12:05PM (#2665499)
    (User #184403 Info | http://www.mindspring.com/~timrue/ | Last Journal: Friday January 18, @01:44PM)
    From the intro to the original Article in Wired.

    "Thomas Paine was one of the first journalists to use media as a weapon against the entrenched power structure. He should be resurrected as the moral father of the Internet. Jon Katz explains why. "

    Let me suggest that size and force of the "media" has simply become ubiquitous. Can't see the forest that has grown, for the single tree you are looking at one foot in front of you, Jon.

    Consider this forest enabling us all to integrate information in ways that would be impossible to even dream of before, not to mention now having the ability to share that new information with others so that they can help make productive use of new integrations.

    As an Example [mindspring.com] integrating the world information to the computer industry to the individual....
    [ Parent ]
    Age of Paine? Not quite... (Score:1)
    by LenE (lje6.cornell@edu) on Thursday December 06, @12:07PM (#2665512)
    (User #29922 Info)

    As far as I can tell, Thomas Paine was famous for writing Common Sense. Anyone who's ever read all of Katz's collumns knows that Jon's authority on this subject is fleeting.

    Seriously though, Paine was a revolutionary who used fact and logic to form opinion. I think that this is unfortunately lacking in today's Web.

    Just because someone can rant on their web page or in the blurb of a slashdot article about any subject does not make them either convincing or revolutionary.

    -- Len

    [ Parent ]
    Is has liberated the people! (Score:1)
    by Hoi Polloi on Thursday December 06, @12:08PM (#2665518)
    (User #522990 Info)
    Never in history has such a wide variety of porn been so freely available to so many in such vast amounts!
    [ Parent ]
    Oh lighten up, things aren't so bad (Score:2)
    by Ars-Fartsica on Thursday December 06, @12:09PM (#2665528)
    (User #166957 Info | http://slashdot.org/~Ars-Fartsica/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 05, @10:57PM)
    There are plenty of places on the net that you can find halfway interesting discourse between normal everyday folks. This is one of them.

    As for useful discourse from "professioanl" editorial sites, sure there has been a bloodbath in the online content market, but sites like Salon are still limping along with useful original writing, and most print magazines have expanded online with interactive publishing.

    With the rise of the web, usenet has actually become more intelligent and useful and the true wankers have moved on.

    [ Parent ]
    Just had to get a swipe in... (Score:4, Insightful)
    by toupsie on Thursday December 06, @12:10PM (#2665531)
    (User #88295 Info | http://www.junkscience.com/)
    Despite the flowering of individual voices on the Net, we live in an arguably less democratic culture than we did a decade ago, even before Attorney General Ashcroft's sweeping actions.

    You just had to get a swipe at the AG in there, eh? All this digital hand wringing about the High Lord of Evil, John Ashcroft, is really stupid. I live about 1/2 mile north of what was the World Trade Center. I lived through military checkpoints and police blockades for 2 weeks to get into my apartment. Outside those that lost loved ones, were injured by the attacks or lost jobs, I have had a lot to put up with to get my life back together the way it was before 9/11. None of the barriers were created by AG John Ashcroft. His actions have actually made me feel more comfortable about my situation.

    But then I have to listen to the Chicken Little's of the Civil Liberties gang. The group of "well meaning, good intentioned" Americans that only believe that effective policing can occur when the "Cops" are handcuffed and blindfolded. You got to love their arrogance when they proclaim that non-US citizens are guaranteed protection of our Constitution even though they never lived in the US. I am sure that would be a shock to those folks living in China that were run over by tanks 12 years ago.

    The amazing thing at the end of the day, no matter what Ashcroft w/ Congress has done, I feel no loss in liberty. No evil corporation is holding me down. Jack booted thugs haven't beat down my door or surrounded my place of worship with tanks and set it on fire. I have no fear to speak my mind. And to prove it, I am going to say the most controversial thing I can imagine, "John Katz is an insightful, intelligent, fully informed writer focusing on the issues that matter to citizens of Cyberspace and his witty commentary is a favorite of all Slashdot readers." It might not be true but I have no fear in saying it. Just like Jon Katz, I have the Constitutional Right to be full of sh*t and spout it out to the masses. Don't worry Jon the High Lord of Evil, John Ashcroft, is not going to gag you no matter how bad your writing is.

    P.S. Jon if you are talking about the US, I need to remind you that we are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic. If we were a democracy, evil would reign via the power of the ballot box -- majority gets to force the minority to do anything it wants.

    [ Parent ]
    Is it just me, or.... (Score:1)
    by Orne (bennes AT pjm DOT com) on Thursday December 06, @12:10PM (#2665532)
    (User #144925 Info | http://www.geocities.com/polysillycon)
    Why is it that people in the Media are so surprised at what the 'Net has become?

    The printing press: originally invented to standardize the font of books, because there were too many spelling errors in copying by hand.

    In the late 1700's, everyone used Newspapers to spread information. New techniques of overlaying images with the text helped spawn the advertising age, then (1800s) the "catalog" was invented to bind a lot of advertisements into one book. Of course, people still wrote normal books, but wow, you can sell stuff remotely by displaying it! What do we get today: tabloids, leftist newspapers, conservative newspapers... a pretty good representation of freedom of the press.

    Then you have the radio (late 1800's) where suddenly you can get your news by huddling around a wooden box at home, and soon "this program brought to you by..." took over, yes, advertising. People bought newspapers so they could see the event, and radios so they could hear it. What do we get today: Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, John Katz... all's fair in free speach. We don't have to agree with it all, but at least in America we CAN listen if we want.

    Movies appeared in the 1900's, black and white, and from 1910 to 1950's, they were the main method of explaining world events to the masses. Again, advertisements in the form of "shorts" which appeared before movies. What do we get today: Sex & Violence. In the US, we're free to speak what we want, and Hollywood gives it to us (even if they do slant it left a bit more than the average American).

    Then the television appeared, and became affordable, in the 1950s. It was supposed to be the END OF THE MOVIE THEATERS, we can stay home and get our evening news. What do we get today: Friends, MTV, crap. But they're free to show it to us, and we watch. We also have Discovery channel, and a lot of other "higher-quality content" channels.

    Lastly, the internet. Again, we have 10,000 expectations, it'll IMPROVE OUR LIVES, except that right now, all we see is pr0n, banner ads, junk mail, private sites... and believe it or not, there's actually a lot of good information in there too.

    When you offer free speach, don't be surprised at those that actually show up to use it.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    The Revolution Will Not Be Downloaded (Score:2)
    by albamuth on Thursday December 06, @12:12PM (#2665539)
    (User #166801 Info | http://www.azone.org/)
    As an active political radical, I cannot stress enough that overuse of the internet is running rampant among other radicals. Sure, listservs [ainfos.tao.ca] are useful and all, but beyond simply informing other radicals, there's not much use to the internet. Indymedia [indymedia.org] certainly tries to not be big media, but again -- news by activists, for activists, and about activists. If they would at least admit that, then people could no longer complain about the bias!


    The true changes in society are made face-to-face with people you see everyday. Memes are so much more contagious when you are sharing the same air with someone.

    [ Parent ]
    wrong? nah! (Score:1, Redundant)
    by Reckless Visionary (me@noSPam.recklessvisionary.com) on Thursday December 06, @12:14PM (#2665548)
    (User #323969 Info | http://www.recklessvisionary.com/)
    And I'm still not sure I was wrong.

    Has Katz ever been sure he was wrong?

    [ Parent ]
    Education is the key to freedom (Score:1)
    by clarkie.mg (mg.02NO@SPAMwanadoo.be) on Thursday December 06, @12:17PM (#2665560)
    (User #216696 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday March 02, @10:05AM)
    Internet or not, the best tool for a making

    a new kind of digital citizen,
    [empowered by all the information the Net would bring him by the Net's distributed architecture. The digital citizen would be smart, civil and rational, outgrowing labels like "liberal" or "conservative", engaged in civics, technology, business and government; transcending dogma and cant.]
    ,

    that tool is education. The internet can be a great chance for education but it's not a starting point, the human transmission of knowledge is still a must. We are not computers, we are humans. Open mindness does not come de facto with an open network but has to be learnt by human ways (at least for now).

    Societies and individuals who invest massively and intelligently in education are and will be the most successful ones.
    [ Parent ]
    Nice to see an admission (Score:1)
    by epepke on Thursday December 06, @12:20PM (#2665575)
    (User #462220 Info)

    Whatever one may think of Jon Katz, however obvious one may think this article is, however irrelevant Wired has always been, it's still nice to see him admit it.

    Consider the previous unrealistic Utopian dream: the 1960's. The people most responsible for that still refuse to admit to this day that there were any flaws and continue mindlessly to blame others, even as they pump up the War on Drugs to support a kind of racism no less vile but considerably less honest than what they criticized in their parents.

    As for Thomas Paine, while he was unquestionably a powerful writer, describing the King as a "sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man" or writing "The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries 'Tis time to part.'" do not seem to me more rational discourse than typical USENET, though better written.

    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Jon Katz says... (Score:2)
    by geekoid (notities@yahoo.com) on Thursday December 06, @12:20PM (#2665576)
    (User #135745 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 21, @04:37PM)
    ...see, I'e always been wrong, please keep reading my stuff.
    [ Parent ]
    Here's the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
    by gilgamesh2001 on Thursday December 06, @12:20PM (#2665579)
    (User #313066 Info)
    I think the nub of the problem is this:

    A person is smart. People are stupid.

    One on one you can reason with people. En masse, you can only emote with them.

    Emotions have huge bandwidth but tiny frequency ... in other words: they're very powerful but they're incredibly stupid (low infomrational content).

    Changing that reality would entail re-engineering the human race.

    [ Parent ]
    You're proving his point. (Score:1)
    by WarInc on Thursday December 06, @12:23PM (#2665600)
    (User #541831 Info)
    Look at the number of junk reply for this article. Doesn't it kind of prove his point that it's very difficult for an individual to make his opinion known to mass media? For every interesting comment made in this thread, there's 10 replies: "His gay..", "Let's ban him...", and the kind.

    It proves that for a discussion to be interesting, it needs to be moderated and moderation can mean censorship. If you don't agree with the guy, at least articulate your opinions in a constructive way, don't just attack him personally because it doesn't get us anywhere.

    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    Media (Score:1)
    by anpe on Thursday December 06, @12:26PM (#2665612)
    (User #217106 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    Internet is just a medium, don't even think about revolutions when the media is owned by the major telecom companies...
    [ Parent ]
    Katz needs to changes his preferences (Score:2, Funny)
    by bigdreamer on Thursday December 06, @12:29PM (#2665623)
    (User #465083 Info | http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday February 27, @05:07AM)
    Teenagers and political fanatics have turned the Net's public forums on Slashdot into hostile electronic cesspools.

    That's what you get for reading Slashdot posts at -1...

    Until Katz is willing to accept that no one says brilliant things all the time, then he'll never have the nerve to read the generally higher quality posts ranked 3 and above and ignore everything else.
    [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    The crossbow and the long gun (Score:2)
    by wytcld on Thursday December 06, @12:32PM (#2665634)
    (User #179112 Info | http://slashdot.org/)
    At the close of the 16th Century, Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council met and decided that henceforth English troops would use muskets rather than crossbows. What remains unclear was the rationale behind the decision. Crossbows shot farther and more accurately, reloaded faster, and had been key to English victories in France and elsewhere - the English had the best bow technology. Long guns remained technologically and operationally inferior to the crossbow for many decades afterwards. (Pistols had the small advantage of being small - but there's a reason real soldiers continued to carry swords along too.)

    Evidently you could do enough of the sort of thing you'd do with a crossbow with a long gun that it the difference wasn't fatal to England, and the guns must have seemed gee-wiz modern and cool, at least. But the change in technology didn't really gain anything for the English, beyond the psychological, until guns improved to a point past prior crossbow technology in the 19th Century. The realities in the field remained much the same - except you had to get closer to hit anything with the gun, and it made noise that more easily gave away your position.

    So in networked computers we've got this new weapon with which to penetrate people with our ideas. But does it penetrate better than the front page of the Times or a well-printed book? Or is the advantage more purely psychological - "Look, I've got the new thing!"

    In any case you've still got to marshall your troops, engage the enemy, retain the support of your hinterland ... and have a strategy that actually can conquer and govern. A change in weaponry doesn't compensate for weakness of strategy and execution, even when the weapons are better. Building a free land is no more a matter of just giving everyone computers than it was of just giving everyone guns.

    However, given the right strategy and leadership, computers and guns have their obvious place in social transformation. Since Ashcroft refuses to match gun purchase records with arrested terrorist suspects [nytimes.com] - claiming that would infringe on gun rights - but wants to closely monitor the Net - it's clear which he and his friends are more scared of. Thinking that a computer is scarier than a gun is about as rational as prefering a musket to a crossbow. Isn't it?

    [ Parent ]
      Re:The crossbow and the long gun (Score:4, Insightful)
      by Tackhead on Thursday December 06, @01:47PM (#2666164)
      (User #54550 Info)
      > Since Ashcroft refuses to match gun purchase records with arrested terrorist suspects [nytimes.com] - claiming that would infringe on gun rights - but wants to closely monitor the Net - it's clear which he and his friends are more scared of.

      1) The terrorists we're looking for probably aren't worried about acquiring their guns illegally.

      2) The terrorists we're looking for probably are using the publicly-available communications infrastructure, even if they're not using crypto. We also know they're using it for money-laundering, even if they're not using it to discuss their operational plans.

      Ergo, if you want to find the terrorists, monitor the communications infrastructure, not gun purchase records. > Thinking that a computer is scarier than a gun is about as rational as prefering a musket to a crossbow. Isn't it?

      Who was the mobster who said that he'd teach his son computers rather than bank-robbing, because you can steal a lot more money with a computer than you can with a gun?

      I'd say Ashcroft's on the right track. We use guns on the battlefield today, not crossbows, no?

      [ Parent ]
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
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  • (1) | 2 (Slashdot Overload: CommentLimit 50)
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