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Old 07-02-2013, 08:30 AM   #1
Ninjalawyer
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Washington Post Editorial: "If I could, I would repeal the Internet"

Robert J. Samuelson has a pretty great (read: hilarious) editorial over at the Washington Post (here) where he opines that: (i) the Internet is an insignificant development compared to other revolutionary technologies; and (ii) the Internet is so significant that a cyber attack that cripples it could bring about the technopocalypse.

It's a pretty great article that tries to marry fear mongering over "cyberwars", the latest and greatest boogieman, with a quaint rant from your elderly grandpa that doesn't understand this newfangled "cyberweb".


For those that don't want to read the article, here's a summary:


Last edited by Ninjalawyer; 07-02-2013 at 11:14 AM.
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Old 07-02-2013, 08:50 AM   #2
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Ha. I read up to the point where he calls GPS a capability of the internet, then quit.

I agree with your summary.
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Old 07-02-2013, 09:13 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 5thWiggle View Post
Ha. I read up to the point where he calls GPS a capability of the internet, then quit.

I agree with your summary.
He said "convenience". And I can see his point: every/most/many smartphones/tablets has GPS built in, and the internet enabled everyone of them to have "free" GPS software/apps. Maps, POIs, location reminders, tracking, the internet makes all of these GPS related functionality convenient.

Heck, I don't even need "GPS" to have GPS convience, it can be done using wifi and celltower locators.

Also, I also stopped reading after the GPS comment.
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Old 07-02-2013, 09:32 AM   #4
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For those that don't want to read the article, here's a summary:
Indeed, he doesn't seem to have a clue.
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Old 07-02-2013, 10:05 AM   #5
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He said "convenience". And I can see his point: every/most/many smartphones/tablets has GPS built in, and the internet enabled everyone of them to have "free" GPS software/apps. Maps, POIs, location reminders, tracking, the internet makes all of these GPS related functionality convenient.

Heck, I don't even need "GPS" to have GPS convience, it can be done using wifi and celltower locators.

Also, I also stopped reading after the GPS comment.
True, but since I've been using GPS before the proliferation of all these free apps (getting updates "conveniently" through the mail on disc ), I read it a different way.

Gotta run, some kids look like they're step on my lawn...
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Old 07-02-2013, 10:58 AM   #6
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I took everyone's advice and didn't read the article.
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Old 07-02-2013, 11:01 AM   #7
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-

Gotta run, some kids look like they're step on my lawn...
Mon Dieu! Do they have a dog with them?
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Old 07-02-2013, 11:12 AM   #8
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Mon Dieu! Do they have a dog with them?
Worse - a soccer ball
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Old 07-02-2013, 11:18 AM   #9
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The internet hasn't been great for newspapers. But then, newspaper readership was in decline before the internet became as commonly used as a news source as it is today. But anyway I guess I'm not surprised that someone who works for a newspaper doesn't like the internet, just like I'm never surprised that someone who owns a bookstore doesn't like e-readers.
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Old 07-02-2013, 11:19 AM   #10
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I just skipped to the summary.
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Old 07-02-2013, 11:33 AM   #11
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Unfortunately, I went ahead and read it. One more page filler and another 5 minutes of my life that I won't get back.
Off course internet is not that a big deal just like a car is not for me. I don’t drive, so if all the cars stop tomorrow, I won’t feel the difference
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Old 07-02-2013, 03:23 PM   #12
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Off course internet is not that a big deal just like a car is not for me. I don’t drive, so if all the cars stop tomorrow, I won’t feel the difference
I think you'll notice when the roads start filling up with horse crap again!
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Old 07-02-2013, 04:56 PM   #13
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But the Internet’s social impact is shallow. Imagine life without it. Would the loss of e-mail, Facebook or Wikipedia inflict fundamental change? Now imagine life without some earlier breakthroughs: electricity, cars, antibiotics.
Twaddle. He could have written the same article about electricity. "What if our power lines are torn down? We'll be doomed! Doomed, I say!" People did rave against the car.

The social impact of the internet is deep. Instant access to an incredible amount of information is a deep impact. So is the ability to communicate instantly around the planet. People would write to pen pals across the ocean. It took some work and a lot of time to find a pen pal, and once you did, communication was very slow. There are many young people using the internet who have never even heard of a pen pal. And why should they? They can talk to someone across the ocean as quickly and easily as they could someone across town.

Before eBay, if you had a valuable item, it could be very difficult to connect with someone who wanted to buy it.

Soda machines can be hooked to the internet so the vendor can know when to refill it. No more empty vending machines because the company didn't know it was empty.

We can check the weather for any location in the world. No need to check the local news. Taking a trip? You can find out instantly what the weather will be like.
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Old 07-02-2013, 10:35 PM   #14
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The article is also missing out on key points.

Even without the Internet, a lot of this infrastructure would still use computers and telecommunications equipment to increase automation. The only difference is that it would have been done over the telephone networks. Those networks would have the same issues with security. (Why would they do it either way? Cost. You don't need as many people to do the work. You don't have to pay people to travel to facilities.)

Convenience may sound trivial, but it allows us to do more. Research that once took hours, or even days, of being hunched over books can now be done in minutes. You no long have to spend half an hour traveling to a public library and back, or an hour traveling to a university library and back, simply to access resources. Library hours aren't an issue either, if you're doing personal research when your not at work.

Access due to availability and cost is also a huge benefit. I've lived in communities where the only library was a poorly managed elementary school library. The nearest real library was several hundred kilometers away. In one community, reaching that library would involve an expensive flight. Books by mail would be an alternative, but that involves an expensive long distance phone call to access the catalog while being unable to explore the options yourself. (Librarians may be good, but they aren't mind readers!) In that sense the Internet is a boon to business and education.

Is the Internet as important as electricity and antibiotics? Well, we can't have an Internet without electricity and electricity has other uses. I suppose that electricity wins out there. Antibiotics, well that sounds important cuz it saves lives! Or maybe not. I'm pretty sure that sanitation saved more lives than antibiotics. Sanitation is mostly about information and can be reduced to simple social/physical engineering in many cases. Properly used, the Internet may be of greater value than antibiotics when it comes down to saving lives because it provides access to the necessary information.
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Old 07-03-2013, 12:12 AM   #15
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Oldsters like me remember telephone connections

Quote:
Originally Posted by BWinmill View Post
The article is also missing out on key points.

Even without the Internet, a lot of this infrastructure would still use computers and telecommunications equipment to increase automation. The only difference is that it would have been done over the telephone networks. Those networks would have the same issues with security. (Why would they do it either way? Cost. You don't need as many people to do the work. You don't have to pay people to travel to facilities.)

Convenience may sound trivial, but it allows us to do more. Research that once took hours, or even days, of being hunched over books can now be done in minutes. You no long have to spend half an hour traveling to a public library and back, or an hour traveling to a university library and back, simply to access resources. Library hours aren't an issue either, if you're doing personal research when your not at work.

Access due to availability and cost is also a huge benefit. I've lived in communities where the only library was a poorly managed elementary school library. The nearest real library was several hundred kilometers away. In one community, reaching that library would involve an expensive flight. Books by mail would be an alternative, but that involves an expensive long distance phone call to access the catalog while being unable to explore the options yourself. (Librarians may be good, but they aren't mind readers!) In that sense the Internet is a boon to business and education.

Is the Internet as important as electricity and antibiotics? Well, we can't have an Internet without electricity and electricity has other uses. I suppose that electricity wins out there. Antibiotics, well that sounds important cuz it saves lives! Or maybe not. I'm pretty sure that sanitation saved more lives than antibiotics. Sanitation is mostly about information and can be reduced to simple social/physical engineering in many cases. Properly used, the Internet may be of greater value than antibiotics when it comes down to saving lives because it provides access to the necessary information.
Way back in 1969 I was in a Data Processing class in a small town and the connection was a teletype machine using punched tape over a land line lol.

As long as we don't "burn the hardcopy books" we will do fine. It would be harder without cell phones, tv, etc but no worse than without electricity, cars and other 20th/21st century improvements.
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