Internet and Philosophy

A truly exciting thought crossed my mind this morning. While reading another philosophy blog I was glad to realize that this could be the beginnings of a new golden age of philosophy. Blogging has become central to this information sharing world, which has it's troubles and benefits. In the early days of the internet optimism abounded over the potential for the internet to provide free education.  Today there are many such programs and opportunities and the internet adds to these resources every day. With the ease of communicating it was thought that people would talk with others not "part of their group" and thus bring the world together. I still believe that this optimism is worthy to have hope for dispite what has been the case. 

      In my opinion the fact that there are those spreading hate, misinformation, and causing true pain and even taken part of illegal activities is something that humans will do. That may sound like defeatism in some way but I think of it rather as a simply understanding of what humanity is. In Ancient Rome citizens would draw graffiti on the cities walls, often of a vulgar humor, sometimes spreading rumors. Some times the rumors shared on those walls cost people, status or possible even more. My point is that these walls becoming a venue for people to mark their messages both good and bad. And that is what people want a place to voice their opinions and beliefs. Now we will not agree with everything and there will be those whose beliefs we outright reject. Still, it would be better to see what people scrawl over the walls on the internet dispassionately, enjoy good content and acknowledging poor content while not accepting it. 

   This is not say that groups expousing hate are not dangerous and it is a fact that certain beliefs do lead to crimes against the rights of others. But in this age of "alt-facts" and "safe-spaces" we are missing the important lesson of toughing ourselves up. Recognizing that you do not agree with some belief set or some set of statements, and further knowing the reason why you do not agree; is not the same as being unable to hear those sets of statements or flat out rejecting to consider them. It is close-mindedness to not want to know of the opposing and diverging opinions. Even if the beliefs are ridiculous like someone who believed the sun is purple we should still hear them out and try to understand why they believe that. 

      Which is why it is so wonderful that many people have taken the opportunity to become bloggers. The internet has opened access to so many to have a venue to share their voice. Some writers are elegant in style, some uncouth, some nonsensical but they have a voice nonetheless. The force of their words only have an impact if you listen to them, if you repeat what they say, or share it. This is why I have optimism for the future of the internet. This communication technology is still pretty new for us, though we could have started a little bit brighter it's still not completely dark yet.