The Internet’s ad hoc creation is also apparent in its reliance on existing telephone infrastructure. If anyone had actually planned the Internet of today back when it was first coalescing, they would have planned a better infrastructure as well. As it is, we are racing to keep up with the demand for bandwidth.
No one “invented” the Internet. The Internet is essentially a coalescence of a variety of concepts and enabling technologies that just sort of happened to come together in response to a popular need for communications. No one in the early days of the DARPA net envisioned the current Internet. More direct antecedents of today’s Internet would be the electronic bulletin boards of yore- people with specific interests coming together to share non-mainstream concepts over their 300 baud modems, and fax machines that could move documents faster than the Pony Express or UPS.
No government is going to actively pursue a program that enables their opponents or facilitates the exchange of information that is contrary to the officially sanctioned “conventional wisdom”. Nor is a government going to promote any system over which they can not insure adequate “control” during “times of crisis” (one had to have the appropriate credentials to access the DARPA net).
Of course, the government will eventually take credit for creating the Internet- they are, afterall, the ones who write the history books…
Michele Filanninosays:
The distinction between industrial and post-industrial age fascinated me.
Has it already been theorised by someone before?
The Internet’s ad hoc creation is also apparent in its reliance on existing telephone infrastructure. If anyone had actually planned the Internet of today back when it was first coalescing, they would have planned a better infrastructure as well. As it is, we are racing to keep up with the demand for bandwidth.
CBC’s Spark had a good interview with Vint Cerf, in which I believe the above point comes up: http://www.cbc.ca/spark/full-interviews/2009/03/13/cyrus-farivars-full-interview-with-vint-cerf-father-of-the-internet/
No one “invented” the Internet. The Internet is essentially a coalescence of a variety of concepts and enabling technologies that just sort of happened to come together in response to a popular need for communications. No one in the early days of the DARPA net envisioned the current Internet. More direct antecedents of today’s Internet would be the electronic bulletin boards of yore- people with specific interests coming together to share non-mainstream concepts over their 300 baud modems, and fax machines that could move documents faster than the Pony Express or UPS.
No government is going to actively pursue a program that enables their opponents or facilitates the exchange of information that is contrary to the officially sanctioned “conventional wisdom”. Nor is a government going to promote any system over which they can not insure adequate “control” during “times of crisis” (one had to have the appropriate credentials to access the DARPA net).
Of course, the government will eventually take credit for creating the Internet- they are, afterall, the ones who write the history books…
The distinction between industrial and post-industrial age fascinated me.
Has it already been theorised by someone before?
Thanks,
michele.
@Filannino
As a teenager, I was exposed to the concept of post-industrialism by Alvin Toffler. I believe that there is a large body of work on the topic.
@Daniel
Thanks a lot. 😉