I think we under-estimate the Internet

[Hoplite]

I think there is a constant problem of us as individuals underestimating the Internet, of selling it short.

There has never been anything like the Internet in the whole of human history. The only thing that even comes close is the dissemination of the written word after the invention and widespread adoption of the printing press.

The Internet has, in many ways, changed the way we look at the world and the way we think about the world around us. The average person today has more access to more information than probably anyone of any time period before.

With such an unprecedented shift, I think we now have to truly re-examine EVERYTHING we've thought previously about how feasible something is or how likely something is to happen. Trace your finger back through the monumental events of the last five years, how many of them have happened because of the Internet or been revealed and given publicity because of the Internet?

When we look at revolutions in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and now Libya, we see a common thread running through these events; the Internet. People use it to gather for protests, inform others of government troop movements, as a way to get information in and out of a locked-down country, and as a way to show the rest of the world what they're fighting for.

I suspect the Internet will play a key role in almost every future revolution, either in starting it with outside influences or by helping it along with easier access to communication and networking with other activists.

We cant say anymore "X wont work because it didn't work in the past." Except now we have the Internet which changes the rules of so many things and has even changed our very social consciousness and our social perceptions.

[Tablo]

I do think the internet changes the playing field a bit and we may be underestimating it, but the impact of the internet on the events in the middle-east are being heavily overstated. Revolution won't happen because of some internet thing.

[28350]

Not everyone can use the internet

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+%2F+global+population

[Tablo]

Not everyone can use the internet

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+%2F+global+population
Is this referring to just internet or the world wide web?

[Blackscare]

Not everyone can use the internet

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+%2F+global+population

Clearly you are very good at the internet, that is a cool site.

[Hoplite]

Not everyone can use the internet

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=number+of+internet+users+%2F+global+population
And consider how much of an impact the Internet has already had on human society. Access to the Internet is exploding.

[Quetzal]

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm

For Bahrain, it's known that google earth was a major change.
That was because they could see how the fertile land was divided among the royal family and their friends palaces, while everyone else is living packed together on dry land...

[28350]

Is this referring to just internet or the world wide web?

I don't know, but I doubt there's a sizable difference.

[Robocommie]

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm

For Bahrain, it's known that google earth was a major change.
That was because they could see how the fertile land was divided among the royal family and their friends palaces, while everyone else is living packed together on dry land...

That's pretty cool, actually.

[southernmissfan]

I think the ability to spread information, to communicate and network, to learn--all have been expanded greatly because of the internet. It is a whole new platform and tool for activists and I don't think we have really figured out how to fully utilize its potential.

[bcbm]

When we look at revolutions in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and now Libya, we see a common thread running through these events; the Internet.most of the people in those events did not have the internet and things like oppression and grinding poverty are probably a more likely common thread

[punisa]

Internet?! Screw it. Do a small test on Youtube:
Compare:
1) number of views all revolutionary, pro-working class videos have all together
VS
2) a single Justin Bieber video

Internet only makes people more alienated from each other which equals - more submissive workers.

[Amphictyonis]

Internet?! Screw it. Do a small test on Youtube:
Compare:
1) number of views all revolutionary, pro-working class videos have all together
VS
2) a single Justin Bieber video

Internet only makes people more alienated from each other which equals - more submissive workers.

It helps more people access information. It's our job to make that information be socialism in these coming times of hardship we're about to experience. Nothing beats face to face in the community/work place efforts though. People tend to be less rude as well.

[Delenda Carthago]

Internet?! Screw it. Do a small test on Youtube:
Compare:
1) number of views all revolutionary, pro-working class videos have all together
VS
2) a single Justin Bieber video

Internet only makes people more alienated from each other which equals - more submissive workers.
newspapers?screw them. compare all the revolutionary newspapers in the world with a single New York Times issue.

[ckaihatsu]

I think the ability to spread information, to communicate and network, to learn--all have been expanded greatly because of the internet. It is a whole new platform and tool for activists and I don't think we have really figured out how to fully utilize its potential.


Some contributions, for whatever they're worth....


[17] Prioritization Chart

http://postimage.org/image/35hop84dg/


[16] Affinity Group Workflow Tracker

http://postimage.org/image/1cqt82ps4/


Rotation system of work roles

http://postimage.org/image/1d53k7nd0/

[ckaihatsu]

Internet only makes people more alienated from each other which equals - more submissive workers.





Nothing beats face to face in the community/work place efforts though. People tend to be less rude as well.


I think we need to take the overall material *context* into account in our estimations here -- obviously the net is the greatest communications *medium* to-date, for sheer technological prowess. And, obviously, plenty of high-powered corporate business takes place over this medium each and every day, thus exhibiting efficacious social relations of some sort.

So, respectfully, if people are alienated it's not due to the communications *medium* -- it's due to society's system of social relations that interchanges through the economics of commodity production.

And if people are seemingly less rude, face-to-face, at the workplace or in some other in-person context, it's probably because there's *more at stake* in such an immediate physical situation. Use of a *virtual* social nexus like RevLeft is excellent for *higher-level*, more-generalized discussions that are abstracted from specifics of person and place.

If people are more rude in a virtual space I would take it to mean that there's not as much at stake and/or they're not as personally invested in whatever the matters under discussion may happen to be -- possibly understandable in such a non-physical environment that may itself be transient / volatile.

[Robespierre Richard]

I think there is a constant problem of us as individuals underestimating the Internet, of selling it short.

There has never been anything like the Internet in the whole of human history. The only thing that even comes close is the dissemination of the written word after the invention and widespread adoption of the printing press.

The Internet has, in many ways, changed the way we look at the world and the way we think about the world around us. The average person today has more access to more information than probably anyone of any time period before.

With such an unprecedented shift, I think we now have to truly re-examine EVERYTHING we've thought previously about how feasible something is or how likely something is to happen. Trace your finger back through the monumental events of the last five years, how many of them have happened because of the Internet or been revealed and given publicity because of the Internet?

When we look at revolutions in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and now Libya, we see a common thread running through these events; the Internet. People use it to gather for protests, inform others of government troop movements, as a way to get information in and out of a locked-down country, and as a way to show the rest of the world what they're fighting for.

I suspect the Internet will play a key role in almost every future revolution, either in starting it with outside influences or by helping it along with easier access to communication and networking with other activists.

We cant say anymore "X wont work because it didn't work in the past." Except now we have the Internet which changes the rules of so many things and has even changed our very social consciousness and our social perceptions.

So what are you saying, that the APL is basically the best party with the most potential because it's entirely on the internet?

[PFay]

If we can conclude anything at all from these protests, it is that the Internet is not at all significant - rather the working class organizations are what dominate the uprisings. Read my detailed examination here:
theclearview.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/leaders-of-egyptian-uprising/

[MarxistMan]

--Wpz4NAHtY
That's why Karl Rove and other Republican Party thinkers hate the internet. Because the internet is revolutionary and is waking people up from their slumber !!



Indeed, before the internet i was a right-winger, and not even a right-winger, i even praised dictators like Franco, Alexander the Great and Fujimori. I thought that right-wing dictators were like Hugo Chavez liberators.

And thats why i am tolerant and compassionate with right-wingers, because many people in the USA who still praise Ronald Reagan and Bush view Reagan and Bush as Hugo Chavez populist liberators.

But with the internet i woke up to the truth about the capitalist system and why this system concentrates lots of wealth in a few and misery in the many. I think thats why Karl Rove and other Republican Party intellectuals hate the internet


.


I think there is a constant problem of us as individuals underestimating the Internet, of selling it short.

There has never been anything like the Internet in the whole of human history. The only thing that even comes close is the dissemination of the written word after the invention and widespread adoption of the printing press.

The Internet has, in many ways, changed the way we look at the world and the way we think about the world around us. The average person today has more access to more information than probably anyone of any time period before.

With such an unprecedented shift, I think we now have to truly re-examine EVERYTHING we've thought previously about how feasible something is or how likely something is to happen. Trace your finger back through the monumental events of the last five years, how many of them have happened because of the Internet or been revealed and given publicity because of the Internet?

When we look at revolutions in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and now Libya, we see a common thread running through these events; the Internet. People use it to gather for protests, inform others of government troop movements, as a way to get information in and out of a locked-down country, and as a way to show the rest of the world what they're fighting for.

I suspect the Internet will play a key role in almost every future revolution, either in starting it with outside influences or by helping it along with easier access to communication and networking with other activists.

We cant say anymore "X wont work because it didn't work in the past." Except now we have the Internet which changes the rules of so many things and has even changed our very social consciousness and our social perceptions.

[NGNM85]

The internet is fundamentally antithetical to totalitarianism. Historically, one of the most vital bulwarks of police states has been strict control over the accessability of information. The kind of control enjoyed by despots and tyrants in years past simply isn't possible, anymore. Police states have tried creating blocks and firewalls to keep their people in the dark but these obstacles have been a pathetic failure, they just can't stop it. I think the impact of the internet is massive, often underestimated, and that the greatest repurcussions are yet to come.

[ckaihatsu]

The internet is fundamentally antithetical to totalitarianism. Historically, one of the most vital bulwarks of police states has been strict control over the accessability of information. The kind of control enjoyed by despots and tyrants in years past simply isn't possible, anymore. Police states have tried creating blocks and firewalls to keep their people in the dark but these obstacles have been a pathetic failure, they just can't stop it. I think the impact of the internet is massive, often underestimated, and that the greatest repurcussions are yet to come.


The *greatest* effect that the Internet could still have -- since we're all just sitting around here anyway (grin) -- is for it to become the substrate for *all* material / economic interchanges. Post-commodity-production there's no reason why we couldn't all just have everything reduced to individual "favors owed" and "to-do" lists, respectively, on each of our own personal wiki pages, while retaining a fully globalized mode of industrial production and distribution.

I advocate the public administration of all assets and resources through publicly viewable wiki pages for the same, led by the world's collectively self-liberated laborers.

Also, please see:


communist supply & demand -- Model of Material Factors

http://postimage.org/image/35sw8csv8/

[B0LSHEVIK]

I dont think we underestimate the internet more than we actually underuse it. But, it cannot be a revolutionary tool. I think the queerest thing we can deduct from these mid-east revolts is the acknowledgement that the internet can easily be switched off as if with the flick of a switch; thanks of course to parasitic telecom conglomerates assisting their puppets in government. Those same rebels in Benghazi are about to be wiped out and they currently have no cell phone, internet, satellite communications. So, dont count on your iphone app to aid you in revolt.

[MarxistMan]

I think that punisa might have a point there. In fact many thinkers like Nietzsche, Weber, and others have said that modern technology, and industrialization of societies was also leading to a state of anomie and alienation of individuals. That's why political writter Joe Bageant said that Arnold Shwarzenegger was correct when he claimed that the modern technological revolution in America of computers, laptops, facebook, youtube, playstations, video games, cell phones, ipods, blackberries and digital TV is turning american people into people low in determination, drive and will power unable to have the necessary working spirit that the world demands. He claimed an excess of computer addiction and video game addiction might also lead to physical weakness and low will power.

So i think that the internet is good but remember that not everybody uses internet for philosophy and knowledge. Many people also use it for entertainment and pleasures, like video games, porn, chatting, music etc. And some people even spend the whole day in facebook and social network sites, and not really talking about philosophy and politics

So again internet might be good but it might also lead to porn addiction, PC game addiction and chatting addiction.

another negative impact is that it might also kill book-reading skills, book-reading habits. Because of the video and audio technology of internet, many people are even forgetting how to read printed texts.

So again internet can be good but also can be detrimental for the mind and body

.

.



It helps more people access information. It's our job to make that information be socialism in these coming times of hardship we're about to experience. Nothing beats face to face in the community/work place efforts though. People tend to be less rude as well.

[punisa]

And, obviously, plenty of high-powered corporate business takes place over this medium each and every day, thus exhibiting efficacious social relations of some sort.

Why are corporations always to blame when our crucial segment (working class) dozes off into the oblivion of stupidity?
Here in my country - in the wake of street protests and sharp declining economy - the majority of people still spend their time watching Big Brother on TV and similar crap on internet.

[MarxistMan]

Lu9Ycq64Gy4
Subdivisions by Rush. A song about how the american way of life turns the oppressed majority of USA into detached and subdivided zombies and conformist apathetic exhausted drones


humans have limited resources of energies. And i think that one of the main reasons of why many workers and people in the USA spend hours on TV and computers in their free time is because of tiredness. You have to realize that millions of american people literally have 2 jobs (regular jobs and domestic chores like cooking and cleaning at home).

So i think that the real reason of why millions of people in USA watch so much TV at night, is because of physical exhaustion caused by a whole day of working, chores and driving in ugly, boring cities full of sensory deprivation.

Life in America for most americans is not a walk in the park, it is not a piece of cake

.

.



Why are corporations always to blame when our crucial segment (working class) dozes off into the oblivion of stupidity?
Here in my country - in the wake of street protests and sharp declining economy - the majority of people still spend their time watching Big Brother on TV and similar crap on internet.

[ckaihatsu]

---





Why are corporations always to blame when our crucial segment (working class) dozes off into the oblivion of stupidity?
Here in my country - in the wake of street protests and sharp declining economy - the majority of people still spend their time watching Big Brother on TV and similar crap on internet.








I've never really understood how vanguardists simultaneously lionise the working class while holding them in utter contempt. It would give me a headache...





As a vanguardist myself I'll offer that any point in time can be seen as a "fork-in-the-road" between the past and the future -- certainly only the world's working class is capable of its own liberation from capital, but that potential is far from realized in the present day.

You're also exaggerating, for dramatic effect, but your point is well-taken.

[Hoplite]

I dont think we underestimate the internet more than we actually underuse it. But, it cannot be a revolutionary tool. I think the queerest thing we can deduct from these mid-east revolts is the acknowledgement that the internet can easily be switched off as if with the flick of a switch; thanks of course to parasitic telecom conglomerates assisting their puppets in government. Those same rebels in Benghazi are about to be wiped out and they currently have no cell phone, internet, satellite communications. So, dont count on your iphone app to aid you in revolt.
Even with internet service restricted, information still got out of places like Libya, Iran, and Egypt. You cant ever completely shut the internet access for an entire country down.

[greenwarbler]

Because of the video and audio technology of internet, many people are even forgetting how to read printed texts.


Which people are you referring to?

[B0LSHEVIK]

Even with internet service restricted, information still got out of places like Libya, Iran, and Egypt. You cant ever completely shut the internet access for an entire country down.

Yeah, but out of independent news sources with their own connections and contacts from within. Egypt and Libya pulled off very surprising complete shut down of their communications industries. Thats at least what I read, I wasnt there. But yeah, shutting down or censoring the news is hard, but definitely do-able from we've seen.

[greenwarbler]

How long did it take news of the concentration camps and gas chambers to get out of Germany? That would be a useful bit of ammo to the argument that the vast majority of people -- in any living arrangement -- either mute / hush themselves against, or in regards to controversy /scandal, of any sort, or alternately are complaisant viz. such scandals /controversies.

Now, granted, things / words /language /news travels much faster in a world as saturated with portable PDA /guillotine machines as ours, but you still have the general problem of self-censorship and/or complaisance viz. injustice / controversy, etc.. (I think, at least)

[greenwarbler]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Pilecki he helped in the process, apparently, as did Ike's cameras, when he decided to pull them out (he brought in the cameras)