Topic: Could internet historian become a paid job some day?
N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
posted 15 February 2008 11:55 AM
I just had this idea. Perhaps it's been done already, I dunno. Discuss.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463
posted 15 February 2008 12:02 PM
Isn't the problem the terrible thinness of the original material? Unless what you focus on are the 'institutions', with queries such as "How did 'alt-news groups' die and why?", the problem is that, beyond the software and the corporations, the Internet is all talk, contrary to historic events, actions. A historical account of the rise and changes of the media would provide a standpoint of comparison, but do you see how it is already less defined and substantial than a history of journalism? Still, I imagine that someday someone will wonder how we came to simply babble aweay as the planet burst at the seams?...
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
posted 15 February 2008 12:05 PM
I think the first concern for me would be, whoever controls the internet would control history. Unless .., unless history, at some point in the future, becomes an interactive experience. Ya sure, that'll be the day when men fly like birds and sail to the edge of the world and not fall off.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
posted 15 February 2008 12:21 PM
martin, convergence of technology may very well make the internet more rather than less important in the future. Furthermore, I can see a future in which automated machines record our every word, from birth to death, a world in which privacy disappears. To paraphrase Huxley, it would be a brave new world. There would be instantaneous translation of every book, bionic interfaces as a routine matter, etc., etc..
Or fighting in the streets trying to save our planet from the current race to the abyss by the myopic corporate world. Damn. I was enjoying that for a second or two.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463
posted 15 February 2008 12:28 PM
Oh, it definitely will be more important. Few relationships will escape being mangled through some "interface" very soon. And I envision biological receptors for WiFi-irradiated cities... But in terms of "history", scrub your utopia into sense... who do you think would read all books being instantaneously translated into all languages? who would bother using all conversations and exchanges being recorded all over the planet? Law of diminishing returns. Garbage In means Garbage Out.
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
posted 15 February 2008 12:40 PM
Yea, well look at TV. That's mostly crap and it still keeps growing like some disease.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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martin dufresne
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11463
posted 15 February 2008 01:20 PM
Exactly. Can you envision a 'history of TV output'?
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted 15 February 2008 11:55 AM
