At 11:54 PM 2/20/98 -0500, George Bragg wrote: >Now, take it one step further. Give a significant number of people this >capability, and combine it with the "IRC chat" feature that a lot of >people use. You now have access, not only to the world's knowledge, but >also their opinions, in more-or-less realtime. You have become, for all >intents and purposes, a first-generation "borg". (And this is where the >Star Trek lawyers pop out of the walls, serve me with a thousand >summons, restraining orders, and various other writs, then pop back into >the walls.) Well I don't know if I'd go that far. Just because there is access to other thoughts and ideas doesn't make them believe these thoughts. Actually, I liked what you were talking about. It would mean less ignorance, people would all have the evidence needed for the subject. Congressional debates would be more easily and quickly done, as everyone would have the same level of knowledge at their fingertips (of course, not the same level of knowledge inside the mind). The information, opinions, and ideas are all subject to the interpretation of the person, making them quite non-Borg. >Possibly far-fetched, but a lot of people (including some I know) seem >to think the people they know through IRC are more important than the >people they meet face-to-face. Of course they may think that for the simple reason that many of their friends on IRC have similar interests, feelings, sentiments, religious beliefs, etc. After all, they do. You are dealing with a rarity of people in itself (people who actually use the internet and no commercial services like AOL), but on IRC it is more sectionalized. Why couldn't you consider someone with the same general ideas as you a good friend? - Joseph Gaffney -- http://www.thethinker.com/members/gaffney/ - http://www.ArchAgency.com/
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