What is the actual direction of Digital Culture?
When asking the question of what the internet is and what it is supposed to be used for, no answer will be the same. These answers may contain similarities, but never the exact same components in the exact same order. A similar statement can be said when addressing the just as, if not more, important question of what direction is the internet actually going in? When asking myself this question, I found myself looking in two opposite directions at the same time: the past and the present. Without even the slightest desire of looking towards the plentiful possibilities the internet has been granted for its future, I have looked into the history of it versus what is currently being done with it.
There is a saying that I no longer remember the exacts of which basically stated that something rooted in evil intentions will never grant a purely good outcome. In another not necessarily similar but definitely relative context, there is another saying about how war is never the answer and how peace could never come from it, only division and malice. These two ideals correlate as the internet was originally forged for wartime efforts and purposes, despite the very first computer being created purely for calculation purposes. As we all know in modern-day society, while every device we can access the internet from is derived from the mechanics of a computer, not every device with internet access was created equal. Because of this, my main focus in this conversation is strictly the internet and the main point I would like to make about it is the danger factor it contains.
The internet was never a place of peace, regardless of what it made the users believe. Nowadays, it is an enigma with multiple purposes, some of them rooted in good. However, none of it will be able to change the true roots of war and competition. The past and history of the internet could be taught and discussed by scholars over a course of time that would require the lessons to take months if not years to fully dissect. One could talk about either world war, Enigma, the Cold War, and truthfully any national or international conflict since the beginning of the twentieth century. It all came together and corrupted an item, if one can even call the internet anything besides the noun that it is, into what it is today: a passive aggressive battleground.
I take the liberty of calling the internet this as not only have we all seen how our world leaders have used and are currently using it, but also how most of the common population use it. We can go into any app and discover drama. We can look up the stock market and see how companies rival each other. We can go onto one shopping website versus another and even that contributes to the competitive aspects of the internet. Regardless of age, it has never been the place it is commonly advertised to be: one of worldwide opportunity and acceptance. Instead we now live in a world where we can find a five year old, or a few thousand of them, lying about their age so they can make accounts on apps in order to try their chances at gaining virtual “popularity” while their parents are off in their own sector of the internet, likely doing the same thing. It is not like this happened overnight as the primal instinct of the human race is survival via power or domination. While the truth is rotten, it remains the truth nonetheless.
This give-and-take minus the give is something that the human race as a species has been known for before the internet came into existence and will continue after the internet ceases to exist, if it ever does or if it does not kill us first. This is why I must admit that I laugh whenever an individual shares the slightest sliver of hope over the future direction of the internet even possibly being a positive one. It is a vicious cycle and a toxic codependency that even the conscious ones partake in due to the way we have rendered ourselves incapable of surviving without it. The internet is not something that could technically be destroyed, at least not all at once.
It is rather hilarious that in the modern times we all live in, the internet is completely dependent on this cable map staying the same and not being damaged. By this I do not mean the picture of the map, but the under-sea cables that quite literally cover the globe. If something were to happen to this black widow web of cables that connect the farthest reaches of the earth to a thing like the internet, then there is little doubt that the world would implode into a world war, that is, if the modern world could even have a world war without the use of the internet given the dependence even the major “superpowers” of the Earth have on it. It is something truly terrifying to think of but nonetheless something we all must think of and consider. The internet is not yet a free-willed self-thinking thing. It may have artificial intelligence however the capabilities are just that: artificial. Rerouting the internet towards a positive outcome would take a mass censorship and removal of toxic and unfriendly parties from its assets, something highly improbable. It would also require those with the capabilities of good to only use the internet for strictly positive and educational purposes. This is once again highly improbable given the, as I have previously mentioned, dark roots and original purpose of the internet. This is, of course, not to mention the fact that we as a species would have to completely remove the innate desire for power, domination, control, and competition that the human species has.
This would cross an infinite amount of lines and breach barriers the laws of our world have put into place. However, if, in some future and advanced society, we were all able to follow in the path of peace, leaving behind our desire for competition (as none of it is actually healthy for anyone), completely dissect the internet (what it is, what it contains, etc), and transform it into a place purely designed for positivity and education, then it would be able to proceed in a positive and genuinely useful direction. Until then, I can only see the direction the internet is currently spiraling downwards towards being destructive if not detrimental to its users. In such a world and time as this, I can only hope the damage it has already inflicted can be reversed. I also entrust the survival of humans as a species to those with little to no dependence on the catch 22 modeled, double-edged sword that is the internet.
