Sunday, November 7. 2010History - The Most Important 'Subject' In Any CurriculaJohn Linton Have you ever wondered what effect the internet has had on people's lives? If you have, did you come to the conclusion that overall the internet has had a beneficial or detrimental effect on humanity? It is a thought that occasionally crosses my mind and the reason it was prompted this time was that I accompanied Annette to see "The Social Network" yesterday (I really didn't want to go) and was again reminded of how the internet keeps changing the way people relate to each other and to ideas and events generally. Now I could go on to write some very negative things and make a de facto case that the internet is the most deleterious 'invention' the planet has yet seen but there would be no point in doing that.....so I won't. Instead - have you ever thought about how the 'invention' of the internal combustion engine has actually destroyed the planet to a point where the human race may not survive? Probably not. But it is possible to trace the increasing damage to the planet itself and to the human race in particular and directly correlate those effects to the number of automobile engines manufactured each year. As it's a pleasant Sunday morning why not take a few minutes and have a brief think about how your own life and the lives of those closest to you may have been negatively affected by owning or having access to a car (and when you were too young to drive yourself, a driver). How much fitter would you be and much less would you eat and drink if you didn't have access to a car? When you consider how much less you might eat and drink think how much less of the planet you would have destroyed by not requiring those acres of farmland and other food producing resources to have been destroyed by your personal consumption. Then go on to consider how many less trucks, roads, fertilsers, rain forest destruction and carbon emissions would be required if you didn't ram those completely unnecessary bic macs and fries down your throat to satisfy your fat cravings? You wouldn't be eating those terrible products, and their equivalents, because without car parks for cars the factories that make them the places that 'manufacture' them wouldn't exist. The point applies to all 'fast' foods equally. But that is only a starting point and indication of the closed circle of how the car has irretrievably damaged your personal health and ruined the planet generally. If you have ever visited Los Angeles, Taipei, Cairo or thousands of other cities in the world you would have, literally, found it hard to breathe because of the exhaust fumes. It's easy to , again literally, see the pollution in the air in those cities but, between them all, they have far less than 1% of the cars on the planet with the other 99%+ doing the same damage throughout the rest of the world but not as obviously. However it's the collateral damage done by your requirement to drive a car that causes the real damage....the need to use oil to 'make them go'. Apart from the gigantic ecological damage caused by exploring for, retrieving, transporting, refining and then again transporting oil around the planet have you ever considered how many wars have been initiated to gain control of oil resources? In fact have you ever thought about how many fewer wars would have been fought if their were were no internal combustion engines? Better still, have you ever thought whether there would have been any wars at all fought on the planet after 1918 if there were no internal combustion engines? Almost certainly not - but there would have been very , very few - if any. Think about the benefit of no Nazi Germany and no Pol Pot just for a start History is the only aspect of human learning where it takes time, perspective, to begin to take any view on the positive/negative effects of any given event.....by which time it is too late to change the effects themselves in any meaningful way. So that means, overwhelmingly, no-one at all gives any thought to whether something is "good or bad" - usually just how much personal benefit any involved individual can derive from it. Greed and waste drive humanity and, like the Aztecs it's what will end humanity's dominance of the planet. (do you know what ended the Aztecs total dominion over the part of the planet so abrubtly?) The internet may be the major reason why humanity ceases to exist....but in memory of Chris Wright (the most effective teacher of history to adolescents I could have ever have hoped for) I will not attempt to influence your views on that...even if I could do that. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2010 Trackbacks
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Arguably the internet reduces the need to travel to meet and cooperate with others socially, intellectually and economically. The internet also allows the direct delivery of many intellectual products and commercial processes without the need for physical objects.
There may also be hope for democracy when media barons are not the sole arbiters of content Comment (1)
"the internet reduces the need to travel to meet and cooperate with others socially, intellectually and economically."
I very much doubt that's a benefit. I would think it probably destroys the very core of humanity. Comments (4)
It appears that ideas like yours have been around for some time – one of the most radical thinkers along the same lines being a Finnish hermit Pentti Linkola.
He started as an ornithologist, known for his deep love of birds. Then gradually his ideas became more and more radical. Two quotes: 1. “big cities should be attacked by some transnational body like the UN, with nuclear weapons or with bacteriological and chemical attacks, so that the human population be reduced to about ten per cent of what it is now . Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed." 2. "Traffic should be mostly done with bicycles and rowing boats. Private cars are confiscated. Long-distance travel is done with sparse mass transport. Trees will be planted on most roads.” But my favourite is this one: "That there are billions of people over 60kg weight on this planet is recklessness." http://www.penttilinkola.com/pentti_linkola/ecofascism/ Comment (1)
.....and there I was thinking I was writing on the value of historical perspective being the only way to assess the merit/worth/cost/etc of things that were deemed to be either 'good' or 'bad' at the time of creation by people who no perspective other than their self interest.......
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The Internet is the most amazing thing invented in my lifetime easy.
Prior to the internet getting knowledge was difficult and time-consuming. You had to go to the library, spend hours and maybe still not get the answer. Now you Google it and bingo anything that happened post internet is there and much of what happened prior is there as well. No censorship, easy and free communication thrown in for good measure. The internet can only help mankind, less travel, less paper, more ideas the bad things you mentioned were there already and the spotlight of the internet should lead to improvements. Comment (1)
Perhaps you were less fortunate in your history teachers than I was.
Perhaps history is unimportant nowadays. Perhaps you are unable to diffentiate between truth and fiction; fact and spin? Comments (4)
Was it because they polluted the water or used it all up? I'll check the Internet after making this post.
Forget the Internet, the toilet and sewage is definitely the best 'invention.' I saw the movie last night. I enjoyed it but now think Mark is not a nice person. I came out thinking why can't I be a billionaire, and being slightly miserable. I think it was because my sewage was blocked because the guys who cleared the rear of my land, blocked it up and poo has been building up for 7-8 months now! Comment (1)
I don't think anyone knows but all the reputable views I have read point to self destuction:
1) Depleting the soil content by not rotating crops and resting the land 2) Running out of water by over population or diverting too much to agriculture in the wrong ways causing some irreversible change in the water table. 3) Not understanding the effects of sensibly disposing of waste and creating a disease that de-populated faster than re-population could occur. ....or whatever takes your fancy. Comments (4)
I couldn't agree more. And whilst I use the internet quite frequently for my degree I do think it would be much better if we had a world where it wasn't here.
Recycling is even flawed in the fact that nothing (plastic anyway) is really 100% recyclable. The problem with this is as you said, it's motivated by greed and profit rather than a desire to be ethically sustainable. And until there is a parity between the sustainable methods and unsustainable methods, the cycle will continue. Unfortunately a quick buck will dominate over anything else because of so much greed. Comment (1)
I took my 13yo son James to see the film on the 9th -- three days later than you, I have only just gotten around to reading this blog entry now.... so that is a bit of a co-incidence [by two if you include we both have sons named James].
I wondered how fictional the film was, but looking at the IMDB resource [1]; it seems there may be more truth in it than Mark would like to admit. We came away thinking that Mark was a very ingenious arsehole, and that was the main reason why I thought it was more fictional than fact. It was quite a story -- it is often said that fact is stranger than fiction though. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/faq#.2.1.4 Comment (1)
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