Letters to the Editor
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It Seems Shirky and You are....
...limning the world of "Ghost in The Shell," particularly the inaugural season which involves the "Laughing Man" investigation so vividly portrayed [in the States, on Adult Swim] by Shiro Masamune and the guys and gals led by Kenji Kamayama at I.G. animation. Here, you pretty much evoke that part of the world of "Ghost" with these lines:
"...My argument is pretty simple: We are living through the largest expansion in expressive capability in the history of the human race. The effect of new capabilities destabilizing existing behaviors has been very profound for really major communications changes -- as with, say, the printing press and the telephone. Given the enormity of the change we're living through -- the first group-oriented medium in history -- change is now coming to every place where society relies on groups to get work done, which is almost everywhere...."
Your article is fascinating--I'm way older than "25" but I've been on the Net since 94-95 and I've been fascinated, ever since, with the way this technology transforms the way we think and get things done.
It's funny, but in both "Ghost" and something like Spielberg's excellent "Minority Report" there is a place for Newspapers in the world of the mid-twenty-first century. In "Ghost," in an episode entitled "Excavation" in the series's 2nd season, one of the characters, Togusa, is shown on a subway car talking while another person walks by with a newspaper under his arm. In "Minority Report," there is the now famous scene of Tom Cruise escaping his fellow pre-crime cops by boarding a subway car where he sees his name and picture flash on a Time Magazine flimsy, as well as a newspaper. All three, the newspaper in the "Ghost" episode and the Mag and newspaper in "Minority Report" are presumably internet-sensitive and are capable of receiving updates via that medium. The presence of a print medium, if only in a facsimile type, cyber-enhanced format, in "Ghost," is particularly interesting, especially in a place and time where one can have info streamed directly onto cybernectically enhanced eye-balls. So, I guess, with a few tweaks here and there, there may be hope for an old stand-by, yet.
Ps: I'm going out to get the Shirky's book, first thing, tomorrow--where it'll take its place, on my bookshelf, alongside those of Kurzweill and Moravec. Thanks for the article.