The Great Digital Divide
Lain for President!
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of teenagers at a political rally and encouraged them to tell their friends to participate in the political process. (via Kotaku)
“I want you to tell them, ‘It’s time for you to turn off the TV and stop playing GameBoy,’” Obama said. “We’ve got work to do.”
GameBoy? LOL. Sure, it’s only a game console and this doesn’t make him any less of a candidate than the next guy (or gal), but little things like this really show us the kind of generation gap that exists between a generation that grew up with the Internet and feels more than comfortable being part of it and a generation that is just learning to deal with it and thinks of it as nothing more than an improved telephone network with Google.
Ah, yes. It’s rant time. ひさしぶり～
For my generation, it has been an accepted truth since forever that politicians high up the ladder just don’t understand technology. Technology to them is a scary and unpredictable wild card that has to be controlled and legislated or all hell will break loose. They all know how to Google for dirt on their political opponents and set up lunch appointments using their BlackBerry, but as far as they are concern, the Internet runs on voodoo magic and faerie dust.
Ruri for President!
In a way, this has always been true for every generation. The younger generation adapts to advancements in technology and science faster but the government has always been full of old suits. But the Internet is different the car, radio, plane, microwave oven or even television. While every new invention in the last century or two builds upon its predecessor to create something faster, better or more efficient, the Internet is almost completely new and self-advancing. A car is just a faster horse carriage. A plane allows us to delivery goods faster than ships. The television comes from the radio. They require a change in mindset for the people and the government, but on a very manageable scale. Roads need to be wider, more variety of goods can now be exported, new forms of entertainment can be produced.
But the Internet is all that and more. It is also growing a lot faster and changing a lot more than anyone had anticipated just a decade ago.
Just ten years ago, you needed to be somebody to be heard. You had to make a name for yourself before someone even gave you the chance to be published or to go on TV. And then you worried about what to say. Today, anyone with a message can post it and if it resonates with enough people, it will be heard. This kind of democratic force is hard to understand for the baby-boomer generation. To them, Internet discussion is nothing more than teenage chatrooms and trivial entertainment. That is until one of them gets brought down by blogs. As more and more people get connected, the power that a well-targeted website can have over the political process will become enormous.
Motoko for President!
Of course, I’m not deluding myself; we are still a long way off from that. Right now, we are at a transitional phase between the old and the new, and this is where it gets really frustrating for a lot of people and confusing for the others.
Take file-sharing and DRM issues for example. The politicians, the judges, the CEOs and the self-proclaimed legal experts: an overwhelming majority of them are old and male. There is nothing ambiguous about digital copyrights in their minds: file-sharing is bootlegging which is like fake Chinese products which is really stealing money. And naturally, they take steps to legislate and suppress file-sharing. But what they don’t realize is that file-sharing is a very different thing from traditional piracy which is mostly profit-oriented and organized. File-sharing is completely unrestricted and the tools are available to anyone and everyone. It’s an inherent part of the Internet that will never go away. It’s impossible to stamp out file-sharing without destroying the freedom and democratic forces at work that make the Internet what it is today. File-sharing is a Pandora’s Box that cannot be unopened and trying only makes you look like a huge joke.
Tama-nee for President!
Instead of trying to legislate the Internet into oblivion, maybe it’s time for the people and the legislature to re-examine the relevance of our concepts of creator rights and the centuries-old system that fails to account for present-day realities.
Instead of whining about how digital piracy has destroyed company profits and trying to sue the world back to its 1990s status quo, maybe it’s time for the entertainment industry to open its eyes, rethink its revenue model and reinvent itself to stay relevant in the new paradigm.
But of course that is all wishful thinking. The reality is that the people who matter in the grand scheme today did not grow up with the Internet. I doubt Mr. Bush even knows how to load songs into his own iPod without his personal aide doing it for him. People fear what they do not understand and decisions made on irrational fear are often bad ones. Just take a look at Jack Thompson. Now, I’m not blaming them or looking down on them; it’s just a sad, sad reality that cannot be helped. Politicians may hire tech consultants to keep themselves “updated” on the latest web crazes but it’s a completely different thing to learn about something than to know about something.
Yuki for Vice President (under Haruhi)!
Judges and politicians are, in theory, selected from smart and capable people who can make sound moral decisions. But even if assuming that was true, can they make the correct decision about things like DRM and net neutrality if they aren’t even sure what those things mean? Maybe. But it can be a lot better.
Some cynics might say that this phenomenon will always be true, that the government and the influential will always be nothing but greying heads who lag behind technology. I agree to a small extent, but I personally think that the current difference is a lot more pronounced because the birth and growth of the Internet was too sudden for its level of impact on society. I think when the day comes when a new generation of leaders born after the Internet takes over, we will have a much less polarized society and a much smaller gap between our generation and the next. Because somehow, I just don’t think that it’s very likely for those of us who grew up with the Internet with all its limitless information at our fingertips to one day stop keeping up with its progress. At least I personally don’t intend to ever stop reading Slashdot (and its eventual successors) until I get Alzheimer’s or drop dead.
Perhaps I’m just being overly optimistic and perhaps political technophobia will continue well into our own generation when neutral interconnects are perfected and full virtual reality takes over the keyboard and LCD, making our generation look as outdated and irrelevant to the next as Hillary Clinton is to us today. (Damn it, I want a cyberbrain.)
Whatever the case is, I will bet that within 10 years, digital copyright laws will have to be radically revamped. I will bet 100 USD which, at the current rate of inflation and US currency devaluation, should be just enough for a can of Pepsi by then. :P
It’s a wonder how I drifted so far off-topic to come up with this rant just from reading a single line mentioning GameBoys in Obama’s speech. The unpredictable power of association that drives our logical mind.
February 25th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
XD I agree with you though. Coincidentally, there’s a whole few pages of articles in the Sunday Times today on online piracy.
February 25th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
somehow, this article here feels like “Social Studies” back in the good old days of secondary school..who knows 1 day in the future, all the things written in this article will be used for social studies for our sperms….cos somehow or other, technology is truly flying..(who knows by 2039, we live in a world like Ghost in the Shell, where we have USB( or something faster) ports at the back of our head, and eroges felt more realistic/fun/S&M than ever..woohoo)
February 25th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Barack Obama probably grew up playing gameboy.
In the end, it’s a matter of which industry has more money to lobby the govt
February 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Hey, GameBoys aren’t that old.
February 26th, 2007 at 12:36 am
First, I want to say that this a very well written rant, which I enjoyed reading.
Second, I wanted to point out something, you mentioned that “Judges and politicians are, in theory, selected from smart and capable people who can make sound moral decisions”
Well, politicians in particular are not selected for their intellectual or their achievements but merely for their capability to empathize with their voters and heed the problems of a group. This groups belongs to a certain age range in a certain time that is not in direct contact with technological development X years later (during the elected term) that is why emerges the conflict between “new” and “old” visions of, in this case, the Internet.
beyond the generation breach, the problem lies in the fast change of lifestyle that we face, we live, we are completely different that our parents due to technological/political/cultural change and our sons and daughters will be even more different to us.
Contrary to your optimism, I believe this “division” will grow every time larger and present a really big problem quite soon.
Ah, sorry for the mini-rant and I’ll like to vote for Haruhi as President, Yuki as vice-president and Lain as GOD.
February 26th, 2007 at 1:08 am
The same can be said with the proposed automated election voting where I am from. :V
We had a system that thinks it can get away with lying, cheating, and stealing. And now all this brouhaha over e-voting has got the system into a cloud of doubt.
(I am referring to the Great Dictator himself, Mr. Ferdinand M.)
February 26th, 2007 at 1:24 am
It has been commented before that American presidents rarely understand science and technology. There have been some. I will list them. This may make you vote for the technophobe.
Thomas Jefferson(inventor, plant breeder)
Herbert Hoover(mining engineer)
James Carter(nuclear engineer)
Perhaps you see a trend…
February 26th, 2007 at 3:05 am
LOL Blaise: Anyway, it’s true that politicians and scientists require very different personalities and skillsets. The former is influential and social-minded while the latter is focused and.. nerdy. In a good way of course.
Somehow I saw this rant coming a mile away. As I mentioned in a certain other focus group regarding filesharing and anime, we are in a transitional phase, far more major than the shift from novels to movies. I agree with you that the whole system will have to change if the maximum benefit is desired. But history has proven that that doesn’t really happen.
Infrastructure is hard to change. What people do is work around and adapting to them and then slowly replace pieces of it with the new. It’s a process known as “spiral development” (guess where I got this from?). So as a transitional generation, we bear the brunt of the bullshit such as DRMs, and charges against downloaders.
February 26th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Great read. While reading the first half of your entry, I already suspected that you will foray into the DRM discussion. You didn’t fail me at all. Lol.
As for those technophobic leaders, maybe someone should show them this video about the internet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
February 26th, 2007 at 3:40 am
It’s obvious Obama meant that we should all be playing DS by now, not Gameboy. With less than 2 months until they come out, he’s trying to build up an army of friends to trade with to catch all 490+ Pokemon in Diamond/Pearl.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Great read, really ^_^
“perhaps political technophobia will continue well into our own generation when neutral interconnects are perfected and full virtual reality takes over the keyboard and LCD, making our generation look as outdated and irrelevant to the next as Hillary Clinton is to us today.”
I think so, though our generation will at least know the internet
February 26th, 2007 at 5:55 am
There will come a time, Mr. DarkMirage, when responsibilities take over your obsession with technology. :)
February 26th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Asuka, you don’t know me. D;
Anyway, I’m not saying that politicians will one day become tech savvy or anything, I’m just saying that the politicians right now are doing a worse job than usual because Internet brought about more social influences at a faster rate than other inventions and it is harder to really know what these implications are unless a person is very familiar with the technology. This as opposed to, say, a nuclear bomb. You don’t have to know how it works to know its social implications.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I think the bottom line is that the learning curve is steep, and those who are too late will simply lag behind. It’s a pity that the lagers will still maintain power due to the way our society is, favouring popularity over ability. Of course, then of course there is the view that a revolution is inevitable.
@tj_han:
>>”But history has proven that that doesn’t really happen.
Infrastructure is hard to change. What people do is work around and adapting to them and then slowly replace pieces of it with the new.”
But then again, history doesn’t have a right to judge the future. Some social scientists will argue, on the contrary, that history is a process or evolution, of change, particularly with regards to people’s mindsets. There was not a whisper of noise about the collapse of communism just before the USSR broke up from the punters and historians. Historical change isn’t aways expected because people don’t naturally expect change.
>>”I’m just saying that the politicians right now are doing a worse job than usual because Internet brought about more social influences at a faster rate than other inventions and it is harder to really know what these implications are unless a person is very familiar with the technology.”
@darkmirage: What do you suggest to do about that? Wait for them to die and then take over yourself? That would take a loooong time…
Besides, what are you going to do even if you can change the status quo? You will only stop the politicians from imposing singular thoughts on the more tech-savvy by imposing singular thoughts on the more technologically advanced yourself. What then?
February 26th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I dont think it’s the fault of ‘politicians’ exactly. It’s the older generation in general. Most people over 40 don’t truly grasp the internet the same way that us youngins do.
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Picture Perfect Paranoia » It’s Not Only The Rich-Poor Divide; It’s Also The Know-How-Not-Know-How DivideFebruary 26th, 2007 at 10:31 am
[...] has an insightful post on the so-called “Digital Divide“. For my generation, it has been an accepted truth [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 11:02 am
I’m sure you’ll do well for GP
February 26th, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Apparently this little prick fails GP because he veers out of direction. LOL. And insults his teachers with his essays.
February 26th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I’m not actually worried about any of these things. DRM is dying already. Losing mindshare recently in even the music and movie biz. Net Neutrality _could_ have been compromised if telcos had managed to “encourage” some laws through before anyone(everyone) noticed.
Frankly i’d rather the polis weren’t tech savvy. They can explore it as much as they want for Dean-like electioneering, but I don’t want polis who think they understand tech industries enough to start regulating. Their initiatives are easier to squash when they’re tech stupid.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
tj han, wtf no I don’t. I like my GP teacher. That was social studies.
waista: At the same time, it is also harder to convince them to change existing laws to accommodate new technology when they are tech stupid.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
and yet when those laws exist the tech emerges regardless (eg. copyright law – filesharing). damage, route around, all that jazz.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:04 am
Rather insightful.
It is true that the internet is changing so rapidly, that even it’s own users are sometimes overwhelmed. For instance, just over a year and half ago, I would n’t have imagined Youtube or Myspace. The change is so fast and furious, sometimes I feel as if a day on the net is a week in real life.
As with any transition time, there are bound to be kinks and issues popping up, especially with Internet. No doubt a digital divide exists now, but sooner or later, the internet will be so ubiquitious it would be like an extra limb for us humans.
For now, I’ll just sit back and watch. Hopefully I will still be able to reminsce back on the times where the “Digital Divide” existed and tell it as a funny story to my grandchildren (if I ever get married).
February 27th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I’m kinda saddened not to see that “Not a truck/series of tubes” comment in this post, but considering how serious and sincere it is, there’s no problem with that. Change always causes problems as it takes people away from their comfort zones, or adds a new layer of unfamiliarity to the thing. Hopefully more people will be able to accept the continuing growth of the Internet.
February 27th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
So what you really mean is:
Bill Gates for President!
http://www.billgatesforpresident.net/
.
.
.
I kid, I kid.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:36 am
We got a rant from DM! It’s clever as usual but social and cultural trends has lagged behind technological changes especially with the Internet to be something more then just a technology change. It empowers humanity to the levels that it frightens people. With great power comes great responsibility but people forget the second part of that line nowadays. In my opinion, education goes *some* or maybe a lot of way to lessening piracy but it will take generations. Having to agree with the others and the poster himself, we are in a transition, it is like upon the cusp of something amazing. I won’t be so pessimistic to say that it might not happen but I won’t go around saying that it can happen. The internet is slowing destroying the adage that “The sum is greater then its parts.” I am seeing the rise of the cult of the individual not that it’s the fault of the Internet. Many of the changes and trends are built up from the internet and not from the internet itself. The men in power don’t see that, they view by tearing down or scaling the tendrils of the internet… the problems can be solved. I personally think the internet is merely acting as the expression. A form of means that is becoming into an end of itself. Time is needed, but the impatience plague us today.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
you know for all that talk about the “children are the future” they sure as heck dont listen to use very often and by the time any of our generation gets into a position of power the next big thing will be out and are decendants will be repeating this argument…
this is something i really dont want to happen but i cant do much about it
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:25 am
Here hoping that Tama-nee pic will be uploaded to MoéFactor. Pretty please?
Excellent reading. A precise and down-to.earth opinion about the shameful lack of knowledge of political leaders on technology.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Spammed read…..But still well written and Yuki for president!
April 6th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I still play my gameboy every now and then…
December 13th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Interesting rant, i see you’ve included a long line of interesting subtle references, Odex being 1 among them. I certainly agree with you in terms of what you are saying, but still, how would i enforce change, without having to do it from a whole new beginning? To enforce change, we must first have the power, so let’s hope that we can enforce change through the old system, as well as the new.
June 15th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Internet makes things easier.
Internet makes things greater in quantity, but less in quantity, if you
got my previous sentence.
It’s one thing to turn out for a rally, but it’s another to post something supporting a rally, simply because it’s easier to.
While the internet may rally lots of support, you’re not too sure exactly who’s supporting you, and whether or not he’s really interested in something.
People tend to do things they wouldn’t do normally over the internet because firstly it’s easier, secondly the chance of implication is much less.
That’s why internet may prove one to have “support”, but actually all it’s capable of is allowing people to KNOW and whether they’re mildly interested or fanatically supportive is another thing altogether.
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Reading it later 4 at Otakurean?December 21st, 2008 at 11:22 am
[...] The great digital divide [...]
July 18th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Today the EU shows strength once again.