[Solar-general] Does the use of the internet automatically force us to accept certain values?

Mie Ene 19 16:32:50 CET 2011

ninguno dijo... "el hombre transforma la naturaleza y a su vez es
transformado por ella", no?

Title: Does the use of the internet automatically force us to accept
certain values?
Author: Michel Bauwens
Date: miÃ©, 19 ene 2011 01:32:09 -0300
Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/P2pFoundation/~3/B6whNikgZZw/19

A contribution by Roberto Verzola, previously published in a dialogue on the 
p2p-foundation mailing list:

â€œI find myself agreeing somewhat with Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse, 
who said we shape our tools and our tools then shape us. He talks of 
co-evolution of the human and their tools. We might call this â€œmutual 
determinismâ€. When he says â€œshapes usâ€, I presume â€œusâ€ includes social 
relations.

E.F.Schumacher (Small is Beautiful) went further and I strongly agree with him 
too. He wrote (in Work) that when we adopt a technology (shaped by someone 
else, presumably), we absorb the ideology (mindset, value-system) that comes 
with it. Schumacher believed that many technologies come embedded with 
ideologies, and those who think they can import a technology without also 
importing the ideology that comes with it are mistaken. This is probably more 
â€œtechnologically deterministicâ€ than Engelbart, but I think E.F.Schumacher is 
correct, for some technologies at least.

In fact, I did an analysis of the Internet, using Schumacherâ€™s perpective, and 
found several embedded mindsets/value-systems that Internet users are *forced* 
to absorb, often without realizing it. (For the complete piece, see 
http://www.scu.edu/sts/nexus/summer2005/VerzolaArticle.cfm[1]) Let me just list
three:

1. the universal dependence of Internet technology on the English language, 
down to the microcode inside microprocessors, forces us to learn English. If 
you learn the Anglo-Saxon tongue, you are bound to acquire the Anglo-Saxon 
taste. Learn the language, pick up the culture.

2. the automation mindset: to replace people with machines. This might make 
sense in a country rich in capital (though thatâ€™s still debatable), but less so
in countries rich in labor. When we replaced muscle-work with machines, we 
became less physically fit, what would happen as we replace mental-work with 
machines?

3. a built-in bias (in fact, subsidy) for global players and globalization.This
is best seen in the Internet cost structure of flat rates regardless of 
distance. A 1mb file sent to a colleague using the same ISP costs as much as a 
1mb file sent to someone at the other side of the globe. Yet the latter uses 
much more network resources (servers, routers, communication channels, etc.) 
than the former. So local players are charged higher per unit resource than 
global players, a subsidy for globalization that is built into the Internet, as
designed today.

So, do we reject the technology then? Schumacherâ€™s 1970s response was 
intermediate/appropriate technology. Today, Schumacher remains relevant, 
through the vocabulary might be different; I would say that we must also get 
involved in the redesign of the technology. This is why the talk about an 
alternative Internet on this list interests me a lot.

I would not bind myself a priori to a fixed perpective that â€œthingsâ€ determine 
social relations or that social relations determine â€œthingsâ€. I would explore 
these perspectives on a case-to-case basis, and make use of whatever new and 
useful insight can come from either (or both).â€
[image 3][2][image 5][4][image 7][6][image 8]

Links: 
[1]: http://www.scu.edu/sts/nexus/summer2005/VerzolaArticle.cfm (link)
[2]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?a=B6whNikgZZw:TdiR0vlLHFg:7Q72WNTAKBA (link)
[3]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?d=7Q72WNTAKBA (image)
[4]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?a=B6whNikgZZw:TdiR0vlLHFg:D7DqB2pKExk (link)
[5]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?i=B6whNikgZZw:TdiR0vlLHFg:D7DqB2pKExk (image)
[6]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?a=B6whNikgZZw:TdiR0vlLHFg:2mJPEYqXBVI (link)
[7]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/P2pFoundation?d=2mJPEYqXBVI (image)
[8]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/P2pFoundation/~4/B6whNikgZZw (image)
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