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Jim Kalb
Administrator
5/14/2002
10:13:26
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 Subject: Tradition and the internet
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[This is a continuation of a discussion in the "What to do" thread]
The Tokugawa solution (social stability through comprehensive restrictions on technology) looks unworkable. Which seems to toss us back to something like my Zion Bible Church example: some reasonably compact group of like-minded people guard their boundaries by living in a gated community. They also set up a WAN that might include sister gated communities elsewhere.
The problem with having Elk City, OK try to do it is that unless there's some fairly comprehensive system of controls and boundaries pop culture etc. seem likely to seep in anyway. The effect would be marginal and I'm not sure that would be enough.
The ultimate question in all this is how people can manage to lead satisfying or even tolerable lives under conditions that tend so strongly toward social fragmentation. Arrangements that don't let them do that are going to disappear. If the Zion Bible Church situation is to be the pattern that wins out then grand public policy can't do much except keep out of the way.
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John
Guest
6/09/2002
21:08:26
| RE: Tradition and the internet
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Or, perhaps, to expand the model of Zion Church, traditionalists and other social conservatives could make their own web access companies, web browsers, servers, e-mail etc that edit out pornography and other objectionable content. i.e. instead of Microsoft Explorer or whathaveyou, I don't know, perhaps 'Skopos Explorer'.
Using open source software, this could even be free--even though their could probably be a decent-sized market for this. And using open source as a model, the web community, thus created, could police itself (maybe a church or monastery could be in charge of this).
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Ian Hare
Guest
7/02/2002
17:02:31
| RE: Tradition and the internet
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It ought not to be necessary to set up a gated community to screen out many aspects of contemporary society. Hasidic Jews, for instance, seem to maintain a distinct society of their own despite residing in large cities. Putting up physical barriers seems to be a crude and expensive, although also admittedly comprehensive, way of going about things. Shouldn't the question be rather how those who live in ordinary towns or cities can be brought to regard separatist traditionalist communities as authoritative?
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John
Guest
7/03/2002
03:10:50
| RE: Tradition and the internet
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Gated communities and home ownership associations already are roughly 1/8 to 1/5 of the American population. In some places, such things have replaced towns:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A5982-2002May11
But whether people live in gated communities, small towns, the woods, or in metropolitan areas the Internet is the omnipresent. This thread was created to discuss how to deal with the arbitrary nature this technology--it can be used to promote anything; "the information superhighway" is also the "global back alley". Finding some way to enforce traditional community standards on the Internet is basically the end goal whether via use of technology (special software) or limitation at the home (special communities).
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Jim Kalb
Administrator
7/03/2002
08:24:47
| RE: Tradition and the internet
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"Gated community" was only an example. The important thing, as Mr. Hare suggests, is how coherent communities can maintain their own ways and standards.
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