By Jayson Jarmon, CEO, LuxWorldwide.com
The Internet is still in its infancy; indeed, it is still embryonic. The social/technical aspects of its ascendancy are no less dramatic and in no smaller degree "real" than the evolution of actual global consciousness, a human awareness that transcends the individual. This is why the Internet is the greatest expression of human ingenuity since the advent of fire.
So we see that the Internet can be both democratic and totalitarian; it is both private and consensus-driven, it shines light into the dark corners of the human psyche, but also highlights the real terrors of human mind... it embodies all that is good about our cultures, and all that is bad. In short, it functions as our first collective mind desperately trying to sort out and give priority to the impulses of its constituency: the users, the lurkers, the authors, the artists, the media, the rich, the poor. We see in it the most noble and base of our impulses. It is a simulation of human consciousness itself.
For every World Vision (reaching out to the haves to help the have-nots), there is a Prussian Blue (white supremacist children singers); for every political action committee dedicated to improving neighborhoods and government, there are pornographers and online gamblers. It is a reflection of our values and priorities in real time, growing every larger and more inclusive.
I think the promise of good that comes with the Internet outweighs the bad; but with it comes the heavy burden of awareness. The Internet mind-share is so vast, the perspectives so varied that the sheer weight of information threatens to destabilize the user... to send his mind careening as if he is staring into the sea from cliff ledge. We no longer have the convenience of being able to accept one version of the truth; we must avail ourselves of what is there, and we mustn't shirk away from the responsibility that the first collective of human experience demands of us.
Ultimately, we will see what kind of collective mind we have…will its pathologies outweigh its strengths? Is our collective mind a healthy one?
