I will start this off by saying, in 1979 a friend of mine worked for IBM. He was on the internet, although it had no name back then, and it was all chacter back then.
When I would tell people, back then, I was playing war games with people in Germany and England they would look at me like I was from another planet.
I will be the first to admit, that back then if you would have told me this thing was going to take off like it has, I would have thought you were nuts!
But with GUI (who knew) any 5 year old can do what we are doing now. (ok, bring on the 5 year old remarks)
Asking a number of people from any range of social sets that question, will return an equally diverse answer. One way to comment on the subject would be an analogy consisting of said topic, and gun control issues.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. However, the mere fact that they exist make it that much easier for some shmuck to go hose his worst enemy.As for technology, it isn't the technology that's evil, it's what's being done with it that is. The technology itself stands neutral.
For the most part computers are the game of the rich. They aren't cheap, and neither is proper education on the subject. This is a shame for obvious reasons. A tool in the hand of the rich is usually a tool that will be used as a mode of transportation for their almighty dollar.
With that in mind, I'd like to state that I foresee a technological revolution happening before my eyes. Very shortly, almost everything will be attached one way or another to a global network. It's happening very quickly, and shows no signs of slowing down. In coming years, as new technology is introduced, more and more of your life will be dependant on computers. We've seen this happening in recent years with the explosion of the internet.
If you'd uttered a web address 5 years ago, you would've expected to get laughed at.. a lot. A few short years later and capitalism has taken its toll on you. You can't turn on the radio, television (gawd forbid), or drive down the road without getting www.somefuckingwebsite.com jammed down your throat. 4 years ago, my parents thought something was wrong with me staying up until daybreak on the computer. Now my whole family (grandparents included) are online, and addicted. It's not uncommon to get asked your e-mail address in a conversation anymore. The entity of the internet is one of the most powerful and amazing things to surface in recent years.
However, along with power, naturally, comes corruption. As silly as it may sound, I'm telling you that this overwhelming entity will ultimately have the power to strip the humanity from you. That is, if you aren't "in the know" when the shit hits the fan. If you're laughing by now, beware, I'm keeping track of who to give "i-told-ya-so's" to in ten years :)
In less time than you think, everything that can be online will be online. That includes everything from PC's (most of which are already networked one way or another), to your coffee maker, automobile, home security system, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Be reluctant to let this happen. For those of you who don't already know what this amounts to, it's plain and simple: someone, somewhere, 24 hours a day will be able to not only observe every detail of your life, but change your life as they see fit. That includes the government.
Ahh, the government.. set out to own us all. Keeping tabs on everything that goes on everywhere, and keeping the really juicy information for themselves until they dictate it harmless enough to release to the spoon-fed masses. Think about it, with a global network of this scale, you are always being watched. You are never alone. A computer wired to a network of cameras could track and document everything it sees into a private database somewhere. The advantages of this are obvious, albeit endless.