The Worlds Biggest Problem
| Category: Business Development | Date: 2001-10-28 |
The World has a big problem: flood of information. The problem has seriously worsened after the development of the Internet
People created fantastic tools to transfer data from one corner of the World to another in a split second: satellites, fax machines, radio, the Internet. Unfortunately, the main aspect of transmission of information was neglected, or forgotten: control over the data transmitted.
A Polish writer predicted this particular problem about 20 years ago. His name is Stanislaw Lem.
Stanislaw Lem has written many science-fiction books - each one was a bestseller in Poland, but many of them were translated into German and English and became popular in Western Europe and in USA. In his books, he used an imaginary future World to present theories on anticipated problems many years in advance. The main philosophy was, that no technology and no scientific discoveries will ever alter human behavior and human psychology. In fact, it was human psychology that reflected on robots, machines and computers, i.e. they started to behave like humans and not vice-versa: humans never behaved like machines. This "personification" of automated creatures or computers and added humour made his books extremely popular.
In one of his interviews, Stanislaw Lem was talking about technological advances in transmission of information. He pointed out that science had made it possible to transmit enormous amounts of data in a short period of time to millions of people. The interview was done during the era of satellite dishes, TV, radio, faxes, telephones etc. The Internet was not created as yet.
He predicted that the trend of "information race" would only escalate and very soon people would loose control over the quality of information transmitted. He could not foresee the creation of the Internet, but he mentioned that more and more people can be the source of data distributed to millions. He pointed out that lack of control over information can create a serious chaos and unpredictable consequences all over the World.
He was 100% right. Although he was not talking about the Internet, it is the Internet that fits into his theory perfectly. In fact, there is one book written by Stanislaw Lem about a disaster when a virus (or maybe it was a bacteria) has destroyed... all paper on Earth: documents, books, slips, records etc. People stood facing the problem of how to store information. Of course, computers were the solution, and an imaginary World of a network of computers was described. The book is probably 25 or more years old.
The Internet has the following features:
It allows for transmission of any amount of any data in seconds.
There is absolutely no control over the amount and quality of transmitted information.
Anybody can be the source of information: a government, secret service, a company, you or me.
The explosion of the World Wide Web was so fast, that most of the information stored on servers is outdated and useless. Go to any search engine and try to find anything - 1 million or more search results will come up.
The Internet allows for unlimited creation of new information by anybody. This data can be announced to the World by various means. Nobody will ever be able to control who has created what - not at the present rate of technological advance of the Internet. That is why we receive so many E-mails with questions: "Which business opportunity is a good one?", or: "Is this company genuine?", or: "Where can I find a genuine job on the Internet?".
People create this information and process it - billions of E-mails every day. 90% of these activities do not lead to anything constructive. Actually, most of these activities are harmful (see IECS).
People fail to control the information flood on the World Wide Web. Stanislaw Lem has predicted that - he just did not call it "the Internet" (he could not - how?).
Human race has the next responsibility to fulfill: control data flow that is infesting computer networks. If we fail to do so, we will never be sure whether a piece of information is genuine, or worthless.
Please think about this article, and the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, before you attempt more activities on the Internet. Ask yourself this question: does my information lead to any constructive results, or am I just "killing time"?
You can spread your creation throughout the World at the moment - thanks to the Internet. Do not abuse this privilege.
If you want to read more about Stanislaw Lem, please click here. You can buy one of his books at Amazon.com - there is no better science-fiction reading, I promise!
About the Author
Fabian Krause is the founder of The Internet Clinic. His teaching is based on simplifying seemingly complicated business issues in three steps: (1) in-depth analysis (2) extracting the most practical aspects of a given problem being analysed and (3) presenting results to the public in a form that is easily understandable, educational, entertaining and practical. His publications are usually enhanced with diagrams, tables and pictures since there is no language in this World that can describe a given problem better than a simple graphic.
:To contact see details below.
fabiankrause@internetclinic.org
http://www.internetclinic.org
People created fantastic tools to transfer data from one corner of the World to another in a split second: satellites, fax machines, radio, the Internet. Unfortunately, the main aspect of transmission of information was neglected, or forgotten: control over the data transmitted.
A Polish writer predicted this particular problem about 20 years ago. His name is Stanislaw Lem.
Stanislaw Lem has written many science-fiction books - each one was a bestseller in Poland, but many of them were translated into German and English and became popular in Western Europe and in USA. In his books, he used an imaginary future World to present theories on anticipated problems many years in advance. The main philosophy was, that no technology and no scientific discoveries will ever alter human behavior and human psychology. In fact, it was human psychology that reflected on robots, machines and computers, i.e. they started to behave like humans and not vice-versa: humans never behaved like machines. This "personification" of automated creatures or computers and added humour made his books extremely popular.
In one of his interviews, Stanislaw Lem was talking about technological advances in transmission of information. He pointed out that science had made it possible to transmit enormous amounts of data in a short period of time to millions of people. The interview was done during the era of satellite dishes, TV, radio, faxes, telephones etc. The Internet was not created as yet.
He predicted that the trend of "information race" would only escalate and very soon people would loose control over the quality of information transmitted. He could not foresee the creation of the Internet, but he mentioned that more and more people can be the source of data distributed to millions. He pointed out that lack of control over information can create a serious chaos and unpredictable consequences all over the World.
He was 100% right. Although he was not talking about the Internet, it is the Internet that fits into his theory perfectly. In fact, there is one book written by Stanislaw Lem about a disaster when a virus (or maybe it was a bacteria) has destroyed... all paper on Earth: documents, books, slips, records etc. People stood facing the problem of how to store information. Of course, computers were the solution, and an imaginary World of a network of computers was described. The book is probably 25 or more years old.
The Internet has the following features:
It allows for transmission of any amount of any data in seconds.
There is absolutely no control over the amount and quality of transmitted information.
Anybody can be the source of information: a government, secret service, a company, you or me.
The explosion of the World Wide Web was so fast, that most of the information stored on servers is outdated and useless. Go to any search engine and try to find anything - 1 million or more search results will come up.
The Internet allows for unlimited creation of new information by anybody. This data can be announced to the World by various means. Nobody will ever be able to control who has created what - not at the present rate of technological advance of the Internet. That is why we receive so many E-mails with questions: "Which business opportunity is a good one?", or: "Is this company genuine?", or: "Where can I find a genuine job on the Internet?".
People create this information and process it - billions of E-mails every day. 90% of these activities do not lead to anything constructive. Actually, most of these activities are harmful (see IECS).
People fail to control the information flood on the World Wide Web. Stanislaw Lem has predicted that - he just did not call it "the Internet" (he could not - how?).
Human race has the next responsibility to fulfill: control data flow that is infesting computer networks. If we fail to do so, we will never be sure whether a piece of information is genuine, or worthless.
Please think about this article, and the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, before you attempt more activities on the Internet. Ask yourself this question: does my information lead to any constructive results, or am I just "killing time"?
You can spread your creation throughout the World at the moment - thanks to the Internet. Do not abuse this privilege.
If you want to read more about Stanislaw Lem, please click here. You can buy one of his books at Amazon.com - there is no better science-fiction reading, I promise!
About the Author
Fabian Krause is the founder of The Internet Clinic. His teaching is based on simplifying seemingly complicated business issues in three steps: (1) in-depth analysis (2) extracting the most practical aspects of a given problem being analysed and (3) presenting results to the public in a form that is easily understandable, educational, entertaining and practical. His publications are usually enhanced with diagrams, tables and pictures since there is no language in this World that can describe a given problem better than a simple graphic.
:To contact see details below.
fabiankrause@internetclinic.org
http://www.internetclinic.org
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