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.

[sanctus]

I don't know if we can be that fatalist. But I agree to improve general intellectual capabilities gives a bigger chance to change society.

Also internet discussions are in my view only one of the many ways to achieve this intellectual improvement. Discussions amongst friends and their friends etc. (so there is a higher probability to not have only similar ideas) can achieve it as well. Suppose for example, you hear something you would never have believed to be possible, this may then trigger you to a more profound research on that subject...just an example.

[LaurieAG]

Originally Posted by sanctus

Suppose for example, you hear something you would never have believed to be possible, this may then trigger you to a more profound research on that subject...just an example.

A good example Sanctus.

As long as you, or your group of friends and their friends, don't think that the 'unthinkable' is purely that, unthinkable.

[TheBigDog]

I think you are giving the Internet too much credit.

Imagine that the world could build a "collective mind". So that all the thought and all the beliefs of the world were all known to everyone. And everyone could tap into that collective for information, or add to it through their own learning and research. Sound great? Here is the problem. The world is full of people who believe nonsense. In some cases the nonsense is the majority belief. All the internet does is make it so that the differences in human beliefs are clearer to everyone. It does nothing to educate *everyone* in a single factual way.

After all, we faked the moon landings.

Bill

[Turtle]

Here's hoping I'm allowed to discuss a lack of merit in the claims laid out in post #1. The title on the other hand I find completely agreeable. I see the internet as a compunded version of the printing press. The content is compounded, the readership is compounded, and the breadth and the speed of dissemination is compounded.

We have the mitigating factors of literacy and internet access, but so too is the case with books and other printed media. Still, the world wide web certainly makes for qualification as a catalyst to me, but I will hold the overall nature of the change is an emergent property not subject to our divinations.

From the earliest writing, to the claims in post #1, people are going to hell in a handbasket. I've suffered worse modes of transportation. So it goes.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by 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.

You had to have done a degree 40 years ago to realise how hard and long research was.
To get the latest on a topic you had to find a journal index, hunt though thousands of references, then trot off to find the Journals and one by one eliminate them or incorporate them into your essay.
You would go back and forth from the various indexes to the Journals all day. It took weeks.

Now I can google a few words and have everything delivered in nice little summaries to my desk.
(Many students even have their final essay delivered to their desk! )

I just love it. It is like having my own Great Library of Alexander at my fingertips. Then I love useless information. I call it education.
I have just discovered "Stumble" and am totally addicted. My poor unfortunate daughters get a dozen emails a day 'caus I need to share my latest stumble find.

Don't blame the institutions for poor education. Most students see their 'education" it as little more than a meal-ticket.
So too does government when funding education. Philosophy, Communication and Politics courses are last in line for the $.

The old Oxford/Cambridge idea of "reading for a degree" turning out "well- educated" people has gone by the board. There is too much to know in too little time to become proficient in any career.

Forums like Hypography help you sort out your ideas, be exposed to new ideas, have your ideas challenged and therefore probably help the "education" process- whatever that is. But there is a lot of crap out there too. I am told that the most popular sites are porn and probably gambling.

Education means to "lead out" and this it should do; but some forums become obsessed with the minute of their interest to the exclusion of anything else (eg Terry Prattcett & car forums), leading to a narrowing of vision.There is a lot of autism out there

Professional people often clump together because they can talk in the professionals' shorthand. Exchange of ideas is quicker and easier. Like belonging to a Rap group? But it also excludes and isolates professionals from others who have not learnt their specialised language. Often that is all Higher education is- learning the argot, the jargon, the language of the profession whether it be botanist, psychologist, historian, journalist, doctor etc

You also have two changes happening to the internet that will change it forever.
Firstly the increasing trend for Journals and News sources to demand payment for their information thus restricting its flow
and
2 It is now changing into a visual medium. I guess within 5 years it will be like a dial up TV service. Today the net is still very wordy. Tomorrow it will be visual. Enfranchising some and disenfranchising others.

Remember too that in may countries the net is controlled.
Try looking up "democracy" on a Chinese server.

A lot of people cannot afford the net. I have friends who can't.
I can't afford broadband.
A lot of Outback Australia has old telecommunications infrastructure, so are doubly isolated from the world, by distance and by technology.
The "third world' 3-4 billion? how many don't have access to a computer let alone the net?

What is the net like in other languages? Do you know?
What sort of information are Chinese or Japanese seeing?

What are we NOT doing because of the net? EG Bushwalking, woodworking, painting, acting, singing, learning to juggle, reading books made of paper, etc.,. How is that changing our " education"

Finally you need some education and training to deal with all that info. and make some sense of it.
.
See also my quote from Douglas Adams below.

[orbsycli]

Now we are connected.
The internet is raising our collective intelligence at a severely fast rate!
We now have the ability to learn anything at any time.
Say anything to anyone at any time.
Evolution is so vividly imminent!

[sanctus]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

Now we are connected.
The internet is raising our collective intelligence at a severely fast rate!
We now have the ability to learn anything at any time.
Say anything to anyone at any time.
Evolution is so vividly imminent!

Well, look at Michaelangelicas signatures just above. You should rephrase your thing saying "now we would have he potential to..."