Soob

Knowledge. It's amazing, really, how far this planet has come in terms attaining and sharing knowledge. No way, 61 years ago, would the global public be afforded the gruesome footage of the Nuremberg executions in the fashion that the recent execution of Saddam Hussien was, within 24 hours, available to any man woman or child that had the werewithall to find and view such history.

I know, it's near cliche to wax poetic about the wonders of the internet. And yet, I simply cannot help but marvel at the vast expanse of available information that's out there. With a click of my mouse I can access any major news agency in nearly any country on the planet. I am allowed to weigh the reporting of my own countries media against that of foreign bureas of information, foreign and domestic opinions. In essence, I am free to analyze information from perspectives my parents couldn't have even begun to imagine. Would Cronkite have been margenalized, slightly dilluted or would his mere presence outweigh even the global expanse of knowledge we take for granted today? I wonder...

I am further alotted the privilege (or right) to analyze, commentate, prosthletize, accept, condemn, ignore, and generally piss into the wind (in an intellectual sense, of course) about any subject that pops up under the mighty click of my mouse. What's more, people from across the globe can actually read what I say and are free to analyze, commentate, prosthletize, accept, condemn, ignore and piss into the wind in regards to whatever meaderings I post here or in any forum of discussion.

Sounds a bit melodramatic, I know, but put yourself into an imaginative time machine and harken back 100, 50, even 20 years. Imagine your life without the ability to garnish virtually any knowledge you wish to seek at the simple electro-mechanical click of a mouse or a few taps on a keyboard. Is that even comfortable?

Have a look at the From Whence They Came map. How incredible is it that someone in China, Israel, Taiwan, Spain actually looked (however briefly :>) at my words and ideas. 20 years ago how would I (or anyone from the general populace) reach out and effect people thousands of miles away? Postcard sent to a random address? Where as the New York Times took, what, 45 years to reach international readership, I (and anyone, really) have the ability to reach people across the globe in mere weeks.

The global freedom of information fomented by the internet is something that I oft take for granted, almost as though it always existed. It's nice, even exhilarating to, occasionally, step back and recognize what exactly it is we humans have built.