Picture Perfect Paranoia

DM has an insightful post on the so-called “Digital Divide“.

For my generation, it has been an accepted truth since forever that politicians high up the ladder just don’t understand technology. Technology to them is a scary and unpredictable wild card that has to be controlled and legislated or all hell will break loose.

The same can be said with the proposed automated election voting where I am from. :V

We had a system that thinks it can get away with lying, cheating, and stealing. And now all this brouhaha over e-voting has got the system into a cloud of doubt.

Just ten years ago, you needed to be somebody to be heard. You had to make a name for yourself before someone even gave you the chance to be published or to go on TV. And then you worried about what to say. Today, anyone with a message can post it and if it resonates with enough people, it will be heard.

Couldn’t agree more. We used to be like this back in the pre-Internet era. You had to make a list of accomplishments (and accomplish them) to get to the limelight. (You get your 15 minutes of fame the same way, lol.) After all was said and done, then people get to notice you.

Your name circulates around the community, random people ask about the identity of “this guy” (which by the way is you), and you get to say something about yourself (including your image and whatnot), and that would be it. Repeat for every occurence.

He also drops a few suggestions that would somehow eliminate the so-called “gap”:

Instead of trying to legislate the Internet into oblivion, maybe it’s time for the people and the legislature to re-examine the relevance of our concepts of creator rights and the centuries-old system that fails to account for present-day realities.

Instead of whining about how digital piracy has destroyed company profits and trying to sue the world back to its 1990s status quo, maybe it’s time for the entertainment industry to open its eyes, rethink its revenue model and reinvent itself to stay relevant in the new paradigm.

Indeed. It’s like we have been living in a world where distrust with the new system brings about disorder and unlawfulness. That’s nonsensical.

Some cynics might say that this phenomenon will always be true, that the government and the influential will always be nothing but greying heads who lag behind technology. I agree to a small extent, but I personally think that the current difference is a lot more pronounced because the birth and growth of the Internet was too sudden for its level of impact on society. I think when the day comes when a new generation of leaders born after the Internet takes over, we will have a much less polarized society and a much smaller gap between our generation and the next. Because somehow, I just don’t think that it’s very likely for those of us who grew up with the Internet with all its limitless information at our fingertips to one day stop keeping up with its progress.

At this point, his pessimism intrigues me. We cannot blame the “baby-boomer generation” for its negative outlook on technology. Even my parents, who grew up during the days of disco and WWII, have been scratching their heads and pestering me with questions on “is this how to do it? oh ok.” and such. Can’t blame them. It takes time to realize. We must remember that we came from this sort of phase before, so let’s all reassess the assertion a bit.

Let us influence them.