Original Sin
^ Well... you've indicated what my objection is, which is that the internet really provides us with only a more connected way of expressing dissent. Ultimately, the same arguments (or variations thereon) are being carried on at a faster clip, more voluminously... noosphere is a very fancy way of saying that we're a single mind, but if we are a single mind, we're an extremely divided one... I mean, most minds experience cognitive dissonance, but the noosphere is on the extreme end. What does that leave us with?
These are very good questions, Sammy, and pertinent.
And I hope you don't think I am being trivial in my reply.
Because the answer lies in a simple, well known slogan - the medium is the message.
According to this slogan, what we say or see or hear on the internet doesn't matter. What matters is that we simply log in.
According to this slogan, the internet is changing the way we see the world and how we relate to one another.
However if we focus only on the content of the internet, the effect of the internet will be invisible.
For instance, the printing press changed the way we see the world and how we relate.
Print gave rise to Individualism and Nationalism - and in your great country in particular, both Individualism and Nationalism came from the printed Bible and newsprint.
The Gutenberg Bible gave you Individual Salvation leading to your Bill of [Individual] Rights. And newspapers created your Manifest Destiny as well as making you a Light on the Hill to all humanity.
However into your Garden of Eden, into your garden of individual freedom, came the telephone. It snaked across the whole country - into every home - into every ear - and into every individual soul.
Yes, the telephone - the irrresistible telephone - who can resist answering the telephone - not your Pastor or Rabbi or even your President - not you nor I - "yes", we say to the insistent ringing of the telephone.
The insistent ringing of the telephone divided our pure, our simple Puritan soul, in two - into sincere and authentic print, and the phoney telephone.
And from henceforth we were cast out from the Garden of Individual Freedom and left with Original Sin - the sin of phoniness.
And so we eke out our days fretting over sin - asking ourselves are we sincere or are we phoney?
And the internet is merely an extension of the telephone - it is simply a computing device connected to the telephone lines.
So what do you think, Sammy, do you think I am sincere or do you think I am phoney?