Ken writes:
> The internet's ability to store and make available huge amounts of
> information makes it also ideal for spreading disinformation.
The most refreshing characteristic of the Internet is it's lacking claim
to uncontaminated truth. A source of pure knowledge in a highly connected
and deeply fragmented world is as unlikely as a source of clean water in a
flood zone. The World Wide Web is the first mass medium that places truth
completely in the hands of the reader. There is no canon, no central
keeper of knowledge in a network, only curators of particular views.
Distributed, headless, emergent wholeness displaces the self annointed
high priests of rational, objective truth.
To Martin O's point, the past year has seen an explosion of affordances
for online commercialism and commodity exchange. This has not squelched
the voices of common people participating as never before in the Great
Conversation. The Internet is a subjective medium in every sense of the
word. While it hosts highly mediated environments that promote passivity
and consumerism, it also opens countless opportunities for active human
expression. With such expression comes fallibility and misinformation.
But with it comes the awakening of a subjective voice that has been too
long silent.
Martin R.
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