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+--- Thread: 36 ways the WWW has changed us (/thread-2265.html)
36 ways the WWW has changed us - Magical Realist - Apr 12, 2016
The WWW has added a whole new dimension to socializing for one afflicted with social anxiety disorder. I remember my first post on my new Webtv back in 1998. I posted a comment in a philosophy group. I was so nervous to put my innermost thoughts out there online. Someone named "Some1" responded and politely helped me clarify my thoughts.
Ever since then my conversations online have been an integral part of my life, allowing me to learn, speculate, debate, think, write, and share deeper aspects of myself that would never get past the superficial flurry of chit chat that dominates our daily interactions. Bonds have been formed with likeminded users, dramatic conflicts with trolls and bigots have ensued, and a therapeutic outlet for my own many-splendored dysfunction has evolved over time. It reminds me of the old salons of pre-revolutionary France where thinkers and activists and common folk gathered together to process their frustrations and hash out relevant issues of the day. We are not who we used to be, that's for sure:====================================================================
"On March 12, 1989, British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee wrote an arcane-sounding paper that would launch a revolution. It was called “Information Management: A Proposal,” and it basically laid out the structure and theory of the Web as we use it now.
Choosing a “birthday” for the Web is a rather arbitrary task; contrary to urban legend, former Vice President Al Gore didn’t just flip a switch and send the whole thing into existence — rather, the World Wide Web (and its predecessor, the Internet) evolved over a series of years — and over a wide, dispersed network that included thousands of computer scientists and engineers.
Still, Berners-Lee’s paper was a critical turning point, and 25 years later, it makes as good a time as any to reflect on the changes the Internet hast wrought..."====https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/03/12/36-ways-the-web-has-changed-us/
RE: 36 ways the WWW has changed us - C C - Apr 13, 2016
(Apr 12, 2016 09:01 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: It reminds me of the old salons of pre-revolutionary France where thinkers and activists and common folk gathered together to process their frustrations and hash out relevant issues of the day.
Daniel Dennett: "Comparing our brains with bird brains or dolphin brains is almost beside the point, because our brains are in effect joined together into a single cognitive system that dwarfs all others. They are joined by one of the innovations that has invaded our brains and no others: language. I am not making the foolish claim that all our brains are knit together by language into one gigantic mind, thinking its transnational thoughts, but rather that each individual human brain, thanks to its communicative links, is the beneficiary of the cognitive labors of the others in a way that gives it unprecedented powers. --The Role of Language in Intelligence