Internet Forum: a catalyst for change

[coberst]

Internet Forum: a catalyst for change

I claim that the educational institutions of all Western democratic nations are very conservative. They are designed to foster the status quo. As such they are focused upon graduating individuals with the means to maximize production and consumption.

Our technology has provided us with the capacity to easily slip into a condition that will end human life.

We must provide a means for our citizens to quickly recognize this fact and to develop a new path for human enlightenment following the end of school days. Only with a significant advance in our general intellectual sophistication can we hope to develop a basis for restructuring society and thereby save humanity from a quick extinction.

I see no other vehicle than the Internet discussion forums presently available to provide that catalyst for change.

If you find merit in this claim I would like to discuss it further.

[PairTheBoard]

I think the Internet has profound implications. When I was a kid, if I wanted to look something up in the Encylopedia I had to take a trip to the library. Now we have them at our fingertips. The acceleration of Information access and Global Exchange of Ideas among masses of people rather than just the elite brought about by the Internet dwarfs even the invention of the printing press. When participating on Internet Forums I sometimes get the feeling that I'm taking a peek into the group mind of humanity. Not only do we get a chance to exchange ideas, but to clarify our own and have them transformed by the experience. It really is amazing.

Then there's also things like Myspace and U-Tube. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Who knows what other Internet Genres might pop up in the future. I suspect in the future historians will look back and classify events by way of Pre-Internet and Post-Internet. They might even invent a new common era. BG and AG, Before Gore and After Gore.

PairTheBoard

[Mr. Now]

Pair,

You might want to check out this scholar:
http://www.gaiamind.com/Teilhard.html

[ QUOTE ]

....he suggested that the Earth in its evolutionary unfolding, was growing a new organ of consciousness, called the noosphere. The noosphere is analogous on a planetary level to the evolution of the cerebral cortex in humans. The noosphere is a "planetary thinking network" -- an interlinked system of consciousness and information, a global net of self-awareness, instantaneous feedback, and planetary communication. At the time of his writing, computers of any merit were the size of a city block, and the Internet was, if anything, an element of speculative science fiction.


[/ QUOTE ]

[PairTheBoard]

Yea. Very good stuff Mr. Now.

PairTheBoard

[EGO]

And here I thought you were talking about the Internet forum. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=inet)

[coberst]

Mr Now

Thank you for that reference. I have book marked it and shall read it later.