The Internet: Most Important Invention since the Printing Press

[Shekwan]

I was just talking about this to somebody at work. Is the internet the most important invention since the printing press? If you think about the potential for furthering human knowledge it's definately the most important since the printing press. Any opinions?

 

[carmen510]

Furthering knowledge: Yes.

Most Important: No.

Think of the steam engine, electric plants/lights, computers, cars, aircraft, and many other inventions.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Perhaps not the Internet, but rather the technology it depends on: the computer. Just as guns were the great equalizer in violence (David could kill Goliath on a regular basis, and without any particular guile) the computer (and the Internet) are the great equalizer in knowledge and communications: If I have a computer connected to the Internet, I can store, process, and transmit as much information as I damn well please (in the words of Jimmy Wales, hard disks are cheap). In addition, computers allow for the extensive automation that makes so much of the way things work today possible. Without computers, factories would be less efficient, accounting would be far more difficult, and all manner of things we use every day (cars, microwaves, televisions, digital watches) would be either impossible, more difficult to use, or more difficult to repair. Computers are positively everywhere, and the world just wouldn't be the same without them.

The various forms of engine are all very important, too, but which one is most revolutionary? The steam engine, for starting it all? Or the internal combustion engine, for revolutionizing transportation (you can go ANYWHERE with a car!). Or the electric motor, for making other things possible?

 

[@N1k1T0$]

Personally i classify The computer ,the internet , cell phones , even televisions , even ordinary phones in the same category as devices that Allow people to upload and download data , information and give such information to other people with extreme speed simultaneously with billions other doing the same thing.

It simply a new dimension of communication.

 

[Atticus]

I don't know, internet has potential of course, and it's getting better al the time, but it has made people intellectually lazy and satisfied with less. People think that it's enough to check some website to know something and while they might be critical of the source, forget that the surrounding things matter too. Knowing that Columbus discovered America in 1492 isn't very much if you don't know what are Columbus and America.

That may of course be older phenomenon, maybe people used to think that it suffices to look something from the books, but on the other hand information isn't usually so fragmeneted and brief in books.

Internet has made people more equal, and will make even more as documents and books are made electronically available. Now the sad fact is that often you only find out that something is told in some book that isn't available in any library less than 1000 km distance.

I don't know, maybe it is a bless for the academics and makes the idea of knowledge more flat for working people.

Edit: Professionally I've found internet quite awesome. Searching articles on something is much easier via internet databases and I can't even imagine how hard it has been 30 years ago. Also you find more current ones (even ones not yet published) and can be more confident with search results. I just don't think that internet has yet fulfilled promises about general spread of information. It will of course take time (printed book took a good while before ordinary people started to read them). The only possible fault I believe internet has is that it allows more superficial information and makes people less patient in reading.

 

[RavenKing]

1. Freedom of speech/conscience/religion/association (ability to be who you are without fear of arrest)
2. Contraception (possiblity from freedom from economic slavery from excess offspring; possibility of global curbs on population growth)
3. Steam engine (mass travel; economic growth; industrialization)
4. Public education (mass literacy; expanded possibility of critical thought; opportunities to all social classes)
5. Representative democracy (ability to choose governors)
6. Electricity (inexpensive safe light, heat, labour-saving devices and makes possible #7. #11 & #12)
7. Computer/Internet (mass instantaneous access to massive amounts of knowledge)
8. Internal combustion engine (individual travel; economic stimulus; the suburb)
9. Share stock corporation (economic growth; individual wealth or impoverishment)
10. Anaesthesia (makes much surgical care possible)
11. Radio/television (mass communication, now fading in importance)
12. Refrigeration
13. Antibiotics
14. Telephone
15. Flight

 

[Infantry#14]

condom. Now we dont have to worry about unplanned pregnacy

 

[FlammableWaffle]

1) Sanitation (cleaner water, better waste management)
2) Internet
3) Electricity
4) Steam->Combustion Engines
5) Penicillin

 

[cubsfan6506]

condom. Now we dont have to worry about unplanned pregnacy

In all seriousness birth control may be the most important invention ever.

 

[ignas]

Many inventions led to invention of Internet. So each of that inventions is important as important Internet is.

 

[Shekwan]

Yeah I went a bit overboard with my statement. I just think that people don't realise just how significant the invention of the internet is.

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Many inventions led to invention of Internet. So each of that inventions is important as important Internet is.

Ergo, the vacuum tube is just as important as the Internet! 'Cos everyone uses those, rite?

 

[innonimatu]

"The internet" is not really an invention like the printing press. You'd have to compare it to the publishing business. But I understand your meaning.

The most important? Perhaps, too early to tell.

 

[Gooblah]

In all seriousness birth control may be the most important invention ever.

I'll roll with that.

 

[bob bobato]

I was just talking about this to somebody at work. Is the internet the most important invention since the printing press? If you think about the potential for furthering human knowledge it's definately the most important since the printing press. Any opinions?

I think it's too new to tell. It's only been around (mainstream) for 10-15 years, and it's probably going to evolve a lot more before it becomes the 'final' internet culture:This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius The Internet!).