Lawley's Web Design Class

I think I should really try to get Weinberger's book because I don't understand how the web can be related to a utopia. The web is just as, if not more unorganized as today's society. We as humans can never be perfect. I will try not to get too philosophical here, though.

I agree that some of us would find it hard to give up the internet, such as myself. The internet just has so much information and connects people. It's a very effective and quick way to communicate with others. Also, it allows a lot of exposure to a lot of different facts and ideas.

How important is the internet in your life? Do you think you would still be the same person without it? Would you know the same people if the internet didn't exist? It's a strange thought, but it's something to think about anyway.

How important is the internet in my life? In many ways, it's the most important non-human aspect of my life. It's how I met my husband, it's the core of my job, it's how I communicate with friends, family, colleagues, it's my source of entertainment, news, and often inspiration. It's the medium I use to teach, to write, to read, and even to think.

One blogger whose site I read regularly, Jeneane Sessum (who, btw, is originally from Rochester!), recently wrote on her blog:

RageBoy said to me last week that blogging is redefining human beings (and I think he means right down to our DNA), that our "containers don't fit anymore." Crazy? Let's wait and see.

Most recently I have been carrying a book around with me that I just happen to pick up at Borders that sounded very interesting dealing with important topics called The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig. I'm not too far into it but I wanted to relate it to this topic.

The internet has provided the greatest resources for me as a designer/artist/creative being, not only by providing me with amazing tools to bring my ideas to reality with little upfront cost, but has connected me to millions of other people and ideas to "up" my creative potential.

But getting back to the cost factor... In the beginning, mostly everything about the internet was free, and I am not really just talking about money. Much of what Lessig's book discusses is the tension of the issue of copyright and how the internet has made it an enormous issue of it and how rediculous it has gotten. The freedom of the Internet lead to the dot.com's which was an amazing time and ideas flourished. But that's no more. The big corperations that lost the spotlight for that small time didn't like it one bit. This book discusses this tension between innovation and the past. Apparently this book has some kind of following, while reading one of the blog articles it randomly talked about it as a hot blog topic. I feel it has a lot of important issues inside for our majors, no matter what your speciality may be.

-Greg

Mind if I jump in? There are so many points to talk about!

1. FWIW, Lessig is a hero of mine. The book he wrote before "The Future of Ideas" -- "Code" -- is just as important. It argues that the Net is just sw code so the freedoms that we take for granted could be lost simply by rewriting the sw, which is precisely what Hollywood and Congress would like. (No, not everyone in Hollywood and Congress, of course.) This is a battle we are losing everyday in large part because the citizenry (= you & me) isn't doing enough lobbying.

Lessig's blog is here: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/

Electronic Frontier Foundation: www.eff.org

Also, I just came back from a conference where I got to meet Cory Doctorow, an indescribably amazing person, who works for the EFF as well as being an award-winning sf writer. Here's his blog:
http://boingboing.net/

2. The piece I wrote on Web as Utopia plays a trick in order to be able to make a controversial statement. I.e., it's intellectually dishonest. On the other hand, I did it on purpose because it was a paper I gave at an academic conference where sometimes scrupulous academic honesty bleeds the life out of a topic, especially in groups. Also, I wanted to seem smart to a group that is smarter than I am. (Note: When people offer two reasons for something, the second reason is almost always the real one. :)

The trick is that I redefine "utopia." And I look not at the content of the Web (which obviously is filled with tons of hateful stuff) but at its architecture, as JoeF says. This repeats the argument of the final chapter of "Small Pieces" which says that the Web's architecture consists of links that point away from the site their on. Every link is a wee act of generosity and self-denial, a tiny gesture away from oneself towards others and towards a shared world. And that, I believe, mirrors what is best about human nature.

3. JoeF, why do you think the Web is "technically" not a place? I think that technically it is. (It's 94.6% certain that we're going to turn out to be differing over the meaning of the word "place.")

4. I read Jeneane's blog also and have gotten to know her a bit through cross-blogging and email. She's someone I would never have met without the Internet, and I'd be poorer for it. (I'm sending Jeneane a link to this discussion.)

Maybe I meant the web is "technologically" not a place. But that might draw ten more comments. David, your intuition or whatever you used to come up with your percent confidence, was correct. I definitely see where you are coming from and 50% of me agrees entirely, the web is a place. The other half knows way too much about the networking side of the internet and what goes on behind the scenes. This causes me to see the web (the actual information that makes up the web) as being so unstable, it doesn't really have a home at all.

Dictionary.com defines 'space' in 17 alternative dimensions...the first two possibly convince me that the Web IS "technically" a place.

1. An area with definite or indefinite boundaries; a portion of space.

2. A building or an area set aside for a specified purpose.

Definitions aside, my life would be drastically different without the web. I would know different people. My daily activities would immediately change. I wouldn't mind living without it though. On average, amish people are happier than everyone else. I learned that in Psychology of Motivation (don't have info about the study that was conducted though). I wouldn't mind being happier. :)

When reading these comments, specifically the one that Joe makes about knowing to much of the technical side of the Internet, I really began thinking about whether or not the Web is a place.

When I think of the Web, I just think of a giant network of networks, servers hosting pages, packets of data making their way along any medium (ie cable, fiber, copper, etc.), hopping from router to router before making it to their final destination.

When I think of a place, I think of something tangible, like my house. My house is a place, the mall is a place, etc. I use my car to get me to these places.

Is the Web a place. Sure. The Web is made of a large number or routers, servers, cables, etc. and is that tangible? Yes. Can I touch it? Yes. That cable coming out of my computer is a place and it part of the Web. The Web is a place that spans the entire Earth and I use my computer to get me to it.

JoeF and MattG, I think the 5.4% chance has occurred and we are *not* differing only over the meaning of the word.

You two are looking at what the Net is as a physical thing, and so you see routers and wires. Obviously that's a valid way of thinking about the Net and there would be no Net without routers and wires, etc. I, on the other hand, am looking at the Net in terms of our experience of it as users/inhabitants. There's no contradiction between these views any more than between thinking of "War and Peace" as being about Russia and thinking of it as ink on paper.

Having said that, my book argues against reducing the Net to routers and wires and bits. In our culture, we tend to think of the material stuff as real and the rest as "merely" subjective. I think that's a mistake (and I don't mean to imply that *you* are making that mistake). In fact, I spend more time in my book than I should arguing that bits themselves depend on subjectivity (human awareness) to exist; they're only bits because we take them as such, just as words are only words because we humans hear them as words and not as noises.

And I think the same is true for "place," as I use the term. A place (in my usage) is a segment of space that has meaning to us, as opposed to mathematically-defined Newtonian Cartesian space. A place is something like your living room, a grocery, a playing field, a warehouse, the corner you get sent to when you're bad, the beach you go to on vacation, etc. Places have qualities, emotional tone, significance. In that they are like Web pages and other Net places. (So at last we come back to a difference over meanings of the word!)