Re:Are you going to change the world? (Really?)
by mtrimpe on Sunday September 23, 2007 @04:23PM
(#58604)
Hehe, that's a lot of comments. I guess your remarks really got people going. But anyhow, I'm really into changing the world and have been thinking about it incessantly for several years now. For me the greatest thing was seeing spirituality and technology merge.
According to Buddhism a lot of the stuff we regard as 'real' are just beliefs, and are no more real than a record in a database somewhere. Everything we think is just that, only thought. Thought is where all problems exist (if we all started seeing challenges, there would no longer be any problems, right?) yet also where solutions arise to in order to be passed on.
So what the most important thing to do for this world is to create better ways of thinking. The internet, Web2.0, the Social Web, the Semantic Web, they all provide is with a richer, more direct access to the though processes of other people.
Thanks to this technology I can now imagine being in your position in fairly great detail. If I were to read all your twitter messages, emails, blog posts, bookmarks or calender I could understand you even better, and through that I could learn in what ways you think that I haven't thought of yet, and I could also identify ways of thinking that I've found wanting and alert you of my motivations for abandoning those beliefs/methods of thinking.
Now this is the stuff we IT-people are making possible. This is what we are doing to change the world and trust me ... there's a new generation rising that will blow our minds. I'm 25 and even though I can process vast amounts of information effortlessly and navigate and skim through tons of blogs to get a very detailed feel of any field I'm interested in in a fairly short amount of time ... this new generation, to be born in 5 years or so, will grow up thinking like this. They will have such a massive amount of information at their disposal that what they will be able to do is beyond our wildest dreams.
I envision a generation that has the ability to collectively focus on an issue like the Sudan war and has the ability and willingness to put an end to that suffering in a matter of weeks.I believe that when another hurricane Katrina will strike in 40 years people from around the world will rush to the city and will either have it rebuilt in a month or three or will have found a new home for anyone living there hours after the flood.
That's the kind of stuff we nerds are making possible right now ... Anyhow, this is a bit of a rant. Check my blog where working in the somewhat more formal explanation of this stuff: blog dot mondiality dot nl.
According to Buddhism a lot of the stuff we regard as 'real' are just beliefs, and are no more real than a record in a database somewhere. Everything we think is just that, only thought. Thought is where all problems exist (if we all started seeing challenges, there would no longer be any problems, right?) yet also where solutions arise to in order to be passed on.
So what the most important thing to do for this world is to create better ways of thinking. The internet, Web2.0, the Social Web, the Semantic Web, they all provide is with a richer, more direct access to the though processes of other people.
Thanks to this technology I can now imagine being in your position in fairly great detail. If I were to read all your twitter messages, emails, blog posts, bookmarks or calender I could understand you even better, and through that I could learn in what ways you think that I haven't thought of yet, and I could also identify ways of thinking that I've found wanting and alert you of my motivations for abandoning those beliefs/methods of thinking.
Now this is the stuff we IT-people are making possible. This is what we are doing to change the world and trust me ... there's a new generation rising that will blow our minds. I'm 25 and even though I can process vast amounts of information effortlessly and navigate and skim through tons of blogs to get a very detailed feel of any field I'm interested in in a fairly short amount of time ... this new generation, to be born in 5 years or so, will grow up thinking like this. They will have such a massive amount of information at their disposal that what they will be able to do is beyond our wildest dreams.
I envision a generation that has the ability to collectively focus on an issue like the Sudan war and has the ability and willingness to put an end to that suffering in a matter of weeks.I believe that when another hurricane Katrina will strike in 40 years people from around the world will rush to the city and will either have it rebuilt in a month or three or will have found a new home for anyone living there hours after the flood.
That's the kind of stuff we nerds are making possible right now ... Anyhow, this is a bit of a rant. Check my blog where working in the somewhat more formal explanation of this stuff: blog dot mondiality dot nl.