Clifford Stoll “Why The Web Won’t Be Nirvana”

I was enamored with the internet at the time, at the ripe age of 12.  Windows 95 will have been released on August 24, 1995.  But back then I did not have the mind to see the internet and technology as I do now; with a vehement caution, as if scanning a newly entered room, cataloging exits, mentally mapping escape routes, and noting patterns of human behavior.

Two decades later, I have stumbled across an article written in 1995 by Clifford Stoll, where he made some dubious claims about the future of the Internet. In some of his claims,  he was was right, and in others, laughably inexact.  Stoll is an American astronomer and author who wrote the article for Newsweek.

As a critique of his predictions, it is my opinion not to predict technology’s exact designs, but to predict the meta-influence on the basis of present technological side effects upon humanity.  Technology’s sole purpose is to bring a productive solution to existing problems or perceived problems (which includes superfluous inventions for tasks that indict us as simply lazy).  Therefore, it is easier to inductively formulate a vision of the future, in terms of the potential way social order may flourish.  Or in a phrase, study the oxymoronic outcomes of current technological trends to discern where humanity is headed with the “topsight” view of things, to borrow from Yale professor David Gelernter, as he used the term in his 1992 book publication, “Mirror Worlds.”  It seems to me Stoll took a leap of unreasonable faith without considering the former impossibilities that existed in 1995, and for which his generation held enormous doubt. The trend of unbelievable, but not unforeseeable advances, is not entirely beyond well-exercised evaluative reason from an inventory of cutting edge research and invention. How do you think the most successful tech giants continue to create convenience that siphons money from our molten debit and credit cards?

At any rate, he does make some compelling points that hold true, and are definitely heeded in my heart and mind! This is a fascinating perspective from the past, that I highly recommend you give a read.

Here’s an excerpt from the original article “Why The Web Won’t Be Nirvana“ originally titled “The Internet? Bah!” :

After two decades online, I’m perplexed. It’s not that I haven’t had a gas of a good time on the Internet. I’ve met great people and even caught a hacker or two. But today, I’m uneasy about this most trendy and oversold community. Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.

Consider today’s online world. The Usenet, a worldwide bulletin board, allows anyone to post messages across the nation. Your word gets out, leapfrogging editors and publishers. Every voice can be heard cheaply and instantly. The result? Every voice is heard. The cacophany more closely resembles citizens band radio, complete with handles, harrasment, and anonymous threats. When most everyone shouts, few listen. How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it’s an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can’t tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.

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What the Internet hucksters won’t tell you is that the Internet is one big ocean of unedited data, without any pretense of completeness. Lacking editors, reviewers or critics, the Internet has become a wasteland of unfiltered data. You don’t know what to ignore and what’s worth reading. Logged onto the World Wide Web, I hunt for the date of the Battle of Trafalgar. Hundreds of files show up, and it takes 15 minutes to unravel them—one’s a biography written by an eighth grader, the second is a computer game that doesn’t work and the third is an image of a London monument. None answers my question, and my search is periodically interrupted by messages like, “Too many connections, try again later.”

Won’t the Internet be useful in governing? Internet addicts clamor for government reports. But when Andy Spano ran for county executive in Westchester County, N.Y., he put every press release and position paper onto a bulletin board. In that affluent county, with plenty of computer companies, how many voters logged in? Fewer than 30. Not a good omen.