The first TED talk about the system
called “Sea Dragon” (I think) and the second about the physical side of the Internet
were related in that they both delved into the Internet’s relationship with the
real, physical world. Most of the time, one hears about “virtual realities” on
the Internet, such as “Sea Dragon” – virtual worlds that mimic the one in which
we live. Those are always interesting as well as unsettling, because they
suggest that we can create entire worlds with a couple of clicks. This kind of
awe-inspiring technology is nothing new to me, though it does impress. On the
other hand, the second talk touched on something that I hadn’t heard before –
the concrete aspect of the internet that makes it seem almost fragile. Because
we can literally snap a cord and render our virtual world incapacitated, it becomes
less of an amorphous all-powerful being. Its physical constraints remind us
that we created the Internet, for better or worse. We have the capacity to
destroy it as well. I think that is an important thought to keep in mind in
this day and age, where the Internet pervades our daily lives. We need to
understand that we can turn it off if we want to – a difficult message to
remember when we connect ourselves to it so much.
However, if I were to take a more
fatalistic approach, it would seem that the physical side that the second
speaker pointed out is interesting, but irrelevant. Unless we choose to stop
using the Internet all together, the mere physical vulnerability of cords and amplifiers
does little on its own to incapacitate the Internet. Yes, we can snap the cords
- but that decision is made entirely by our human brains and as long as we
continue to want to use the Internet, the physical presence in which it is contained
matters little.
