Ok, I haven't seen your class, I don't know them, but...
I know what you mean, I talk to my family and some of my friends about the glory and wonder of the internet, the potential I see, about what it has achieved and what heights it has yet to reach and I see their eyes glaze over. They are still allegedly paying attention to me and they're still in the room (I can be a hard man to ignore at times), but they aren't listening. They see computers and the internet as basic resources, as knowledge sources to be mined and treated like a stapler or a dictionary.
I could despair, I could go back to my network and my peers and just rant to them, discuss and explore with those who are already converted. I could decide that the mass of people don't care and that nobody now living will ever understand the beauty of the islands I have seen (to run with your analogy), but I'm not willing to do that. I know the passion you felt and still feel, I remember when you despaired of DCU because you couldn't get the usenet access you wanted, I know whereof you speak.
It was only six years, or in my case ten years or more since I discovered what a modem could do for me. The science is still young, the passion still simmering, the true breakthrough yet to come as we preach and practice in equal measure across the infinite realms of cyberspace. The vast majority will never feel the passion we felt, that is reality, that is humanity, but if we keep talking it up then maybe they will treat it less like a boring resource and more like a living, breathing community, and if we don't, who will.
Keep the faith, don't reach down to pick up the rock, stay in the clouds, your internet needs you.
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Date: 2004-01-17 12:11 am (UTC)I know what you mean, I talk to my family and some of my friends about the glory and wonder of the internet, the potential I see, about what it has achieved and what heights it has yet to reach and I see their eyes glaze over. They are still allegedly paying attention to me and they're still in the room (I can be a hard man to ignore at times), but they aren't listening. They see computers and the internet as basic resources, as knowledge sources to be mined and treated like a stapler or a dictionary.
I could despair, I could go back to my network and my peers and just rant to them, discuss and explore with those who are already converted. I could decide that the mass of people don't care and that nobody now living will ever understand the beauty of the islands I have seen (to run with your analogy), but I'm not willing to do that. I know the passion you felt and still feel, I remember when you despaired of DCU because you couldn't get the usenet access you wanted, I know whereof you speak.
It was only six years, or in my case ten years or more since I discovered what a modem could do for me. The science is still young, the passion still simmering, the true breakthrough yet to come as we preach and practice in equal measure across the infinite realms of cyberspace. The vast majority will never feel the passion we felt, that is reality, that is humanity, but if we keep talking it up then maybe they will treat it less like a boring resource and more like a living, breathing community, and if we don't, who will.
Keep the faith, don't reach down to pick up the rock, stay in the clouds, your internet needs you.