The lecture will study the role of information technologies in human culture.
Over the past twenty-five years, IT has fundamentally changed the human world. Such colossal advances have perhaps taken place only a few times before—during the Crusades, in the Age of Exploration, and after the invention of the printing press. The advent of the Internet has made possible the creation of a universal information network and new communication principles which protect us from informational unification. Being acentral, the Internet implies the impractibility of the hierarchy of orthodoxical ideologicies, as managing all processes within the network from one command post is impossible by definition. However, attempts to develop local and controlled environments continue to be made.
“Unless we have an open, neutral internet we can rely on without worrying about what's happening at the back door, we can't have open government, good democracy, good healthcare, connected communities and diversity of culture. It's not naive to think we can have that, but it is naive to think we can just sit back and get it.”
(Timothy Berners-Lee)