[9898] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Still Glowing Embers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bruce Gingery)
Wed Jan 26 02:58:28 1994
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 00:55:42 -0700 (MST)
From: Bruce Gingery <lcbginge@antelope.wcc.edu>
Reply-To: Bruce Gingery <lcbginge@antelope.wcc.edu>
To: stpeters@dawn.crd.ge.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <9401251554.AA07526@spare-parts.crd.Ge.Com>
On Tue, 25 Jan 1994, Dick St.Peters wrote:
[early message and quote-backs omitted]
>-> Now, with this Administration's vigerous advocacy and
>-> leadership in getting everyone on the 'Information Highways', and
>-> use of technology and telcom in its zeal to 'Reinvent Government'
>-> are we not about to see a very large *investment* by government in
>-> getting its millions of uniformed, civilian employees, contractors,
>-> and hangers-on online? Not with necessarily large by the
>-> 'population' standards, but if the kind of big bucks the Federal,
>-> *and* State, *and* Cities are capable of spending will that distort
>-> the economics, the services, the culture?
>
> "Distort" is a pejorative way of saying "change". Things are most
> certainly going to change bigtime. There will be ups and downs, but
> letting everyone on, indeed encouraging them to be on, can hardly
> help but be for the better overall.
>
> Dave, you wrote a great posting noting the civil and military loss
> from the absence of cross-fertilization of ideas and cultures. I
> believe that having all those federal, state, and city (and county
> and business and academic and foreign and ...) people out milling
> _together_ on the net will be good for us all.
As we've seen over recent years with greatly increased traffic, though
at times tempers fly individual-to-individual, national borders tend to
get blurred in shared mail areas. In the long run this media may
contribute as much as any of the various communications media toward
international understanding and elimination of a lot of the friction.
People tend to be "just folks" in this media, whereas in the
traditional print media they are the focus of a "piece" -- even
dehumanized. In the traditional broadcast media, they tend to be more
than human as they speak or parade in your room.
Bruce Gingery lcbginge@antelope.wcc.edu
