Cyberspace For All Esther Dyson

Janet Abbate’s Inventing the Internet explores the history of the Internet as "a tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players." (3) Abbate’s writing concentrates on the Internet’s development through social and cultural influences. The book explores the evolution of the Internet from ARPANET to global networks. The Internet’s expansion has existed within an interworking web of innovators; government and military, computer scientists, graduate students, researchers, cable and phone companies, network users, etc. The details given by Abbate affirm the book’s claim that the Internet was not

In Esther Dyson’s “Cyberspace: If You Don’t Love It, Leave It”, the existence of the internet is seen as potentially dangerous to today’s society. Dyson insists that the internet was once a sanctuary for tech savvy individuals such as gamers and professionals like engineers. The author focuses on the negative websites and communities that are often found offensive to the majority. She thinks the World Wide Web harbors a lot of power. This power can be accessed and conquered easily by most of the population. According to Dyson, responsibility is the key to changing the future (295). Her argument is convincing but slightly unrealistic. The internet seems to be growing into a whole other alternate universe. Society’s rapidly growing technology industry will only be harder to regulate. Most people will do what they want, when they want especially when it comes to the internet.

The internet has become a popular source used by society of a worldwide computer network that provides a variety of information and communication facilities allowing individuals to communicate with one another easily. The internet it self has brought people together but has changed the way people interact with each other, created isolation, some addiction and being unsafe. Nowadays, anything can be shared to the wide world through any device that is able to connect to the internet; where this can lead to what Charles Seife terms as “no privacy” in his article, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected.” According to Seife, the Internet’s vast interconnectivity made it possible for everyone to hear everyone else - and to be heard by everyone else.

In his essay “The Net Is a Waste of Time,” novelist William Gibson analyzes the hidden potentials of the Internet in both its vastness and affect on society. He writes this piece at the dawn of the Internet, and during this undeveloped phase, he discusses its multitude of facts as is and will be. As hinted in the title of his essay, Gibson takes the stance that the Internet at its early stages is a waste of time -- an impressively large and complex waste of time -- but a waste of time nonetheless. He is ultimately concerned with how we are choosing to procrastinate through the Internet, and that our growing attachment and dependence on the Internet reveals a “fatal naïveté” (697) about us. Gibson also brings up the true enormity of the Web even at its premature standing, detailing how “the content of the Web aspires the absolute variety. One might find anything there. It is like rummaging in the forefront of the collective global mind” (697). Despite his concerns on what the Web might become, Gibson realizes that at the time of his writing, the Web was at a stage much like the larval stage of a butterfly’s life -- seems unassuming, but as he himself puts it, “The Web is new, and our response to it has not yet hardened” (697), and that there are “big changes afoot” (696).

There are few places on this Earth, if any, where the possibilities are truly endless. However, if you detach yourself from the physical world and emerge into the “online” world, you find that this just might actually be accurate in this realm. The World Wide Web has had so much to offer to us since the early 1990s, but with this comes controversy. Unleashed onto a plane of seemingly immeasurable freedom of anonymity, was the world ready for such responsibility? Since those early days when new emerging technology changed our lives immensely, have we at all become a better place, or have we bitten off more than we can chew, and doomed our human relations forever? Exploring these concepts are three in-depth articles, including: “Growing Up Tethered” by Sherry Turkle, “The Loneliness of the Interconnected” by Charles Seife, and “Cybersexism” by Laurie Penny. Although it is thought that the Internet brings the world together, it actually does not help us politically, culturally, and economically like one would believe, as it makes us unable to be independent, isolates us from different points of view, and encourages real-world violence against women and other minority groups.

The Internet has proven itself to be helpful, but it can also be a scary place. When the Internet first emerged, it was difficult to gauge its full potential. The Internet was actually created as a “military communications network in the 1960s” (Campbell et al., 2016, p. 41). However, the Internet became a more integral part of society around the 21st century when it transformed into a hub of information and entertainment. The film, The Net, features the early years of the Internet and the dangers that came with it. This film took a radical stance about how the Internet can damage a person’s life. The film remains relevant today since it inspires paranoia regarding the fragile safety

In her call to action, The People’s Platform; Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Astra Taylor addresses underlying social and economic forces of the internet and differential perspectives towards it. Taylor discusses the new internet in which content is king and, people are now the product, this is called Web 2.0. She discusses this topic from a couple viewpoints; those who would believe that the internet is truly the new people’s platform and that it is the golden age of sharing and collaboration, called the Techno-optimists. The counterparts of this interpretation of the internet are what she calls the Techno-Skeptics, who have a similar mindset in that of Nicholas Carr, an author about technology in the modern age, with the

21st century man has pondered in thought on a very important question that unconsciously affects their lives at every moment: Is the Internet our master, or a simple tool that we control? To the optimist, this very question is a complete joke. In their eyes, how can such a sweet, innocent tool of exploring specific evidence, paying one’s bill, and social networking become our master when we, as humans, created its very existence? To the skeptics, this question HAS to be answered. To them, it’s essential that we as a collective unit decide if the internet is controlling us so we can abandon it and have our mental capacities cleared up from

This text is an article by Nicholas Carr. The author discusses how the internet has changed the lives of people by requiring them to do less work and in turn making them “stupid”. In this essay, my focus will be the three appeals, the structure and the audience of this article.

Vanessa Jarman (Grandma Josephine) is thrilled to make her debut at the MAC after being away from theater for six years. She loves working with such a fantastic cast and crew. Her last play was a school production which also happened to be Willy Wonka where she was an Oompa Loompa.

Internet expands more each and every year. Although this is a good thing because we have way more resources now. It becomes way too progressive that humans get to into it. The government takes advantage of this. Humans have emotions and sometimes a way to let them out is to have the internet. People believe everything they post is safe but the government owns some of these websites we use. The government withholds a lot of our information, so it is questionable ton ask if what we put online is safe. The author extensively explores the role of internet censorship in the right to decide what art, or entertainment tool we use (1). This shows that not only do we think everything we post is safe but in the end it is our fault. We document part of our life and post on social media to make our life better or cooler in some ways. It is good to believe that most of the time the government will not do anything but it is also scary to know that they can track where someone is at any

Nicholas Carr’s “How technology created a global village -- and put us all at each other’s throats”, conveys the message that technology was contrived to join people together, but all it is doing is disjointing them. Conversely, a dark place was shaped online, over the years, and there is no sign of the situation resolving.

If there is anything we know for sure, it is that the internet will never be the perfect virtual paradise we want it to be. Those who advocate regulating speech on the internet are trying to create an online utopia: a place where all expression is positive and building. But we are humans, and when we desire to

In the end, while Lyon and Hafner give us an entertaining story regarding how the Internet was discovered, we are still left wondering about what effect the Internet is actually having. True, we see all of the hard work that occurred behind the scenes in the making of the Internet in this book, but now the question must be asked: where does the Internet take us? This is a very important question in the context of where technology takes our culture, and takes humanity in general. Indeed, every piece of technology has an effect on the people within the culture. There is, after all, certain political and social consequences to the progress in technology. In his essay "Do

Within the United States, the first amendment, freedom of speech includes the cyber-web. However, the government may try to examine personal information to protect its citizens from planned terroristic activities. Even so, these terrorists are allowed to say whatever they want, but it does not mean it will be ignored and not taken as a literal threat by the government. Throughout other parts the world, however, countries rely on communicating through means of the internet as ways to spread propaganda. In countries like China specifically, their government censors its citizens to prevent the spreading of propaganda or other radicalism. However, due to the fact that China’s strategy is so