I wrote about this on my MySpace blog, but I'll do it here, too.
You may have read this article, "Cyberspace is dead." Apparently the term is well past its expiration date; well, fine by me. I never really liked it anyway. I don't mind it now only because I'm so used to hearing it.
So all these eggheads are trying to come up with a new term for whatever we should call the electronic space we find ourselves in. As the article states, "Twenty years after William Gibson coined the term 'cyberspace' in his novel Neuromancer, we live in a world of smart objects, always-on devices, and perpetually open information channels. The Internet feels less like an alternate world that we 'go to' and more like just another layer of life."
They list several alternates, but unsurprisingly I don't like any of their suggestions. "Infosphere" is the least bad. Except there's nothing really spherical about it. And it's four damn syllables - way too long. "The World" is less awkward, except it's not really descriptive at all. So I have decided on my own term.
I call the stuff around us, the electronic interconnectedness of all things, the i-ther. It's the same concept as the ether, which a very few of you might remember as a somewhat archaic english word. Only now, it is the internet-ether. The I-ether. The ither.
I seriously do like this word - it's better than the alternates, at least. I think I'll start using it.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Something to think about
Let's say there's a family. The two parents are miserably bad: they drink a lot, and they beat their children without mercy. As one would expect, their oldest son hates and resents them, and spends his time fantasizing about the day he will be big enough to take them down. Would it make sense, or be fair, for him to beat his younger siblings? Maybe they also hate their parents, maybe they do not. Either way, being beaten by their brother will not make them want to fight their parents. Even if they were adopted it would not. Neither would it be right for him to beat his friends and neighbors. Would they see the injustice he suffered, and help him to fight against his parents? Of course not. They would fight him.
Or, let's say you want to destroy a house. Would you start by shooting the furniture and shredding the wallpaper? Would you burn the carpet? Crush the drywall into powder? Blow up the water pipes? These things are all part of the house, but they are not supporting it. You could take all these things away, and still the house would stand. If one wanted to bring the house down, it would make sense only to remove the structural supports. If there was time, and if one were wise, other parts of the house could be removed and reused elsewhere, or in making a new house.
I put forth both these examples for a reason. In both, there is something big - a family, or a house - composed of many separate things. In the first, the son wants to free himself from his parents' tyranny. In the second, there is a house that needs to be demolished, either because it is decrepit or in order to make way for something better.
Governments are very similar. But, those who resort to terrorist tactics to fight them - killing civilians and causing mayhem wherever it is easiest - are doing foolish things. They are beating their siblings. They are blowing up the pipes. If they truly desired the destruction of their targets, they would get the support of their siblings and neighbors; they would attack only the support structure of the house*.
Resorting to terrorist tactics is never right, never justified, never admirable, and is never effective.
*(The support structure of the government is not the people, and it is not businesses, and it is not hospitals or hotels or restaurants or oil wells or anything else. The one thing that gives the government its power is its ability to use force. So, the support structure of the government is the military, and the police. Without those the government has no power to enforce its will, and a powerless government is not a government at all. So if one truly wishes to fight, those are the things to destroy. Leave the rest alone, except where it is directly used by the armed forces. Why would anyone support you against the government if you are brutal? If things are bad enough that revolution is necessary, the people will not sympathize with those who kill them, even if they hate the government. Oppression is oppression.)
Or, let's say you want to destroy a house. Would you start by shooting the furniture and shredding the wallpaper? Would you burn the carpet? Crush the drywall into powder? Blow up the water pipes? These things are all part of the house, but they are not supporting it. You could take all these things away, and still the house would stand. If one wanted to bring the house down, it would make sense only to remove the structural supports. If there was time, and if one were wise, other parts of the house could be removed and reused elsewhere, or in making a new house.
I put forth both these examples for a reason. In both, there is something big - a family, or a house - composed of many separate things. In the first, the son wants to free himself from his parents' tyranny. In the second, there is a house that needs to be demolished, either because it is decrepit or in order to make way for something better.
Governments are very similar. But, those who resort to terrorist tactics to fight them - killing civilians and causing mayhem wherever it is easiest - are doing foolish things. They are beating their siblings. They are blowing up the pipes. If they truly desired the destruction of their targets, they would get the support of their siblings and neighbors; they would attack only the support structure of the house*.
Resorting to terrorist tactics is never right, never justified, never admirable, and is never effective.
*(The support structure of the government is not the people, and it is not businesses, and it is not hospitals or hotels or restaurants or oil wells or anything else. The one thing that gives the government its power is its ability to use force. So, the support structure of the government is the military, and the police. Without those the government has no power to enforce its will, and a powerless government is not a government at all. So if one truly wishes to fight, those are the things to destroy. Leave the rest alone, except where it is directly used by the armed forces. Why would anyone support you against the government if you are brutal? If things are bad enough that revolution is necessary, the people will not sympathize with those who kill them, even if they hate the government. Oppression is oppression.)
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