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from the not-what-we-expected-but-is-it-bad? dept.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/06/is-the-internet-a-failed-utopia/
LONDON—At Shoreditch Town Hall on Thursday, at an event hosted by Intelligence Squared and Vanity Fair, the longevous British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman of University Challenge fame asked the audience of few hundred: "Is the Internet a failed utopia?" He asked us to vote on the matter by raising our hands. About two-thirds of the audience disagreed with the statement, a fair few (including myself) were undecided, and only a smattering of people actually thought the Internet was a failed utopia.
It was then the turn of four panellists, in the style of an electoral hustings or stump speech, to change our minds. In the failed-utopia camp were Andrew Keen and Frank Pasquale; in the not-a-failed-utopia faction were Peter Barron and Beth Noveck. They took it in turns to deliver quite rousing speeches.
The naysayers obviously had the harder job from the outset—we were at an event that was specifically tailored for fans of the Internet, after all—but they did a good job of reminding us that the Internet, as it stands, is not the elysium that we were all promised at its inception. Keen warned us that, while we think the Internet is an idyllic plateau where everyone is on an even footing, where two guys in a garage can compete with the monolithic, infrastructure-owning giants, we're all deluding ourselves: just like the real world, the Internet is now ruled by big corporations.
The utopian speakers, Barron and Noveck, mostly focused on all of the cool things that wouldn't have been possible before the Internet and World Wide Web were created. Noveck, who was a driving force behind President Obama's Open Government Initiative, reminded us that, with a smartphone in your pocket, you have access to more information than the president of the United States did 25 years ago. Barron, who is a public affairs bod at Google, spoke about the equality of opportunity on the Internet—and of course, about all the free services that we get to enjoy.
What does SN think?
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:04AM
Just some background on the word "utopia" - modern usage of the term derives from the title of a book from 1516 about a fictional 'perfect' society. But the most common understanding of the book is that the author was delibertely depicting something that was impossible. So, while most people know the first half of that meaning behind the word, the reality is (and not just in the book but in the real world too) is that anything intended to be a utopia is essentially doomed from the start.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:04AM
Actually, it was a common term used by Aristotle! Whenever he arrived at an impossible conclusion, he would say, " ατοπός", man! Topos is Greek for place, as in topographical, and the alpha privatum takes away the meaning, so ατοπός is nowhere. For some reason, barbarians of the Far West (English types) ended up transcribing the alpha privatum (and lots of other Greek letters) as "u", thus "utopia." Still nowhere, man.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:30AM
Not nowhere. No place*. Nowhere is indicative of a place where which is no particular location. No place is lack of existence.
It is Thomas Moore that used it in both senses but had a prose of nowhere. Amusing that you corrected a poster about that work (Brits claim to have coined everything don't they?) only to use it in the same sense as the 1516 author.
*For formal linguists it was translated as "not place" or "not a place". Properly being translated as not, absence, or without. The word inverts meaning with a logical not. Somehow this is not taught everywhere.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:37AM
Not in my understanding. "Nowhere" means "at no place". If nowhere there are dragons, then dragons don't exist, period. They don't exist at some place with no particular location, they don't exist at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:07PM
Never heard of the middle of nowhere? Never went "nowhere in particular"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @03:55PM
Words have multiple meanings. You know this, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @04:52PM
Yeah, they are idiomatic phrases. Those don't usually mean exactly what a literal interpretation would give you.
Never heard "it's raining cats and dogs"? Given that the person who utters this never means there are animals falling from the sky, should I conclude that meaning of the words "cat" and "dog" is "rain drop"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @01:24PM
nowhere, no place - same difference
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:09PM
Not in etymology, which is what we are discussing. The tech equivalent would be RAM, storage - same difference.
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:41AM
(Score: 4, Interesting) by aristarchus on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:17AM
Ah, but would that not be μή τσπός, with the proper negation? And besides, οὐ τσπός would just be a negation of a place, not of all place, which is what ἀτσπός would indicate. Μιλάτε ελληνικά; Ή αττική Έλληνες; I am very old, and Ionian was my mother tongue. It is actually closer to the Greek of Homer. But such is language, and I hear that the latest Apple language has rounded corners!
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday June 16 2015, @10:01AM
Many of the colonists to the New World were religious sects that aimed to established utopian societies. This lead to my now having a close friend whose whole extended family are a bunch of really, really disturbed people; my friend begged me never to call her by her childhood nickname of "Sadie" as she is a direct descendent of one of the Sadies who - as she said - was "burned at the stake" during the Salem Witch Trials.
In reality they were all hung.
Jim Jones attempted yet strictly speaking failed to establish a utopia at Jonestown, Guyana when things weren't working out for him and his followers in San Francisco, thereby providing the etymology to "Drink The Kool-Ade".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]