Accessibility

That's what this video is all about: accessibility and its importance in our world. The video's actual title is "An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube" by Michael Wesch, an anthropologist presenting his video to the Library of Congress. his argument is simple, yet not simplistic, formal, yet not pedantic, and most of all accessible, yet not easy. His argument is that more of a statement that necessitates re-considering, an obvious truth that we are all oblivious to; the new era of technology has fundamentally changed our social lives along with every other aspect of our life. 

If you have an hour to kill ( I mean really kill, literally nothing else to do), I recommend watching the video and if you only have 5 minutes, I recommend the first 15 minutes. Wesch's argument is so persuasive because it used examples that we all know and can relate to, there are no abstract textbook examples, nothing from a generation prior. Our generation ( to be completely fair, it's pobably more gen x/y than us...) is the one responsible for the examples in his video; we all secretly sang and loved "numa numa" we all danced to Soulja Boy and embarrassed ourselves at dances with our feeble attempts at his Soulja Step, we all love watching Charlie bite his brother's finger. Our generation is the internet. We inherited it, we adopted it, we control it, we love it.

So what? why is this important? well without discussing the economic and political reasons...ok well maybe we can for a little... As discussed in the beginning of the video, the power of the internet is limitless, literally the one infinite power in the universe because it is the collective of humanity, all our failure, successes, aspirations, tribulations, and desires are documented, channeled through, and brought to fruition through the internet somehow or another. The internet has it's opponents running scared for good reason. The government has never stopped (and never succeeded) in their attempts to limit, control, and monitor the internet (despite the inherent contradiction in that), the record labels have been run out of their own game, TV providers are forced to sue their way back into the game, Movie producers are barely holding on. Why? because the collective of humanity demanded something and these respective businesses did not respond to we acted, we took it upon ourselves to get what we wanted and left them in the dust with the realization of their dependence. 

Ok, back to something relevant. The induction of the internet into modern society has done away with the theory of the six degrees of separation and replaced it with something closer to the degree of separation. now of course this is a slight exaggeration because not everyone is connected to the internet but the point still carries water. I can go online and watch the mass execution of miners in south africa and then five minutes later watch a lecture at MIT or Harvard about Socioeconomics, all for free. That's the kicker here, everything is free if you know where to look. some places are grey areas of the law, some are straight up black, even our university bans some, but they exist and people use them, by the millions, every day. 

Now if you own a record label, a producing agency, or are a copyright lawyer this causes you to lose sleep at night, but the rest of us can rest easy because this is just the prelude to something huge, monumental, literally as large as the world. With all this accessibility comes the advent of communication, collaboration, and advancement with people we never knew of, in way we never thought possible. An Engineer from China, a mining company from Africa, a manger from America, and a Billionaire from Saudi Arabia can work together on the latest high rise in Abu Dhabi with a free VoIP program such as Skype. And a 12 year old can use the same free program to video chat with his current love interest.

Finally, the last paragraph ( I swear) So how does this affect me? well, it should be obvious by now...but aside from lurking through the backstreets of the internet of my computer (whose parts i all ordered online by the way) I believe that this new era of accessibility should not be restricted to the internet, but rather extrapolated to every aspect of our lives. This new technology should be embraced and bolstered, not feared and controlled. Textbook producers should reduce their prices or produce better material instead of redoing a cover for the 8th revision of a $600 textbook. At that point, torrenting the e-book is almost the right thing to do. Freedom fosters innovation and intelligence, but so much more: personality, individuality, bravery, commitment, comradery, security, the list goes on and on. 

(I lied, here is another short paragraph) This revelation should be applied to every other aspect of our life, no not should, needs to be, will be, it necessitates it, this application is a moral imperative. The game has changed, why should we still be playing it the same way? so what does this mean? Offerring education online for free like Coursera does? sure, but what can we do? well, what do i do? I think of the implications of my actions. when i give a homeless man a $5 I don't think of the possibility of him buying his daily fix with that, I trust in the undoubtedly falsehood that says that I just had enough money to an under-recognized man who will use that money to start his road to recovery and more, to prosperity and that in doing so he will return the favor a hundred fold, to others in his prior position. But what is I am wrong 999 our of 100 times, is it still worth? Damn right it is. 

So to wrap up this obnoxiously long post in the correction fashion, allow me to use a common internet colloquialism.

TL;DR:  The internet is new, it;'s awesome, it's game changing. get on board and use it for good and you might be surprised by it's effectiveness.