Response to TED Talks

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.