The End of the World with Michael and Stu
The Apocalypse is Everywhere. The End of the World with Michael and Stu is a (hopefully) insightful and (hopefully) humorous exploration of the rise of apocalyptic news, apocalyptic thinking and apocalyptic culture. Each week, we’ll be looking at a work of art, a piece of media, or an historical event related to the (hopefully not) impending End of the World.
The End of the World with Michael and Stu
126: We're on the Highway to Hell
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This week we are talking about the so-called utopian promise of the internet, the "information superhighway" as it was once known, and how it has, over the last thirty years, transformed into an information superhighway...to HELL.
We look at some predictions and early ideas about the internet from the 90s before considering the critiques brought by Astra Taylor in the 2010s regarding the way the internet had been subverted by corporate interests. We also look at Lawrence Lessig's analysis of a "free culture" vs. a "permission culture" and how the internet has very much been made to resemble the latter. We conclude with a brief discussion of John Perry Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" from 1996 and what it perhaps fails to consider.
Lastly we think about the implications of all of this as we experience the rise of a similarly transformative new technological paradigm, AI and Large Language Models.
Clinton Administration plans for the "Peace Dividend" in 1992
Time Magazine in 1993 predicts the future of the internet
Astra Taylor at Democracy Now on the Subversion of the Internet by Advertising
Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture
A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow
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