The Growing Phenomenon of the Internet: The First CBC News Report
One of my Facebook friends posted this video of what is perhaps the first CBC News report about “the growing phenomenon of the internet.”
Though I still remember the time when there was no such thing called the internet, today this grainy video of CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge almost seems like ancient history from the time of the pyramids.
Now we take instant internet communication for granted.
Some of us have even called it a basic human right.
Radical new technologies usually start as geeky novelties but often become deeply embedded into the core meaning of what it is to be human. Thus, the trend of technological progress is to start from being geeky, grow to being widely useful and rather necessary, and eventually get to being mandatory and attain the status of a basic human right. (At which point the given technology becomes a part of the myth of what it is to be human.)
Radical as it was, the internet revolution will be dwarfed by what is to come.
What will happen when other budding technologies such as genetics, robotics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence start moving from their geeky phase into their mass-market phase?
How will those technologies impact the meaning of what it is to be human?
Do I have the right to be a cyborg, get uploaded or to live forever?
Will technology replace biology?
