Life, The Internet, and Everything

AS everyone knows, you can find information about anything on the Internet. All you have to do is Google it. It says a lot for the prevalence of search engines that we have made them into a verb.

I can remember being without the Internet. All those frustrating trips to libraries whenever I wanted to look something up. Endless unanswered questions crammed my brain. Now, whenever I have a question there's Wickipedia.

Not that I believe everything I read on Wicki. Sometimes the entries are sketchy or biased, but I have to admire it for the sheer volume of entries. Everything is cataloged, from Anime to Zebras. People seem to have time on their hands, enough time to write obsessively on their favorite subjects.

Of course, Wicki just scratches the surface of the knowledge that's presented on the web. There are pages of information on anything. Ancient witch signs, cars of the 1930's, the Battle of Leyte Gulf. You name it, and someone has written something about it.

As a social experiment the Internet fascinates me. It connects people across the world, people that have never travelled beyond their home towns can discuss anything with someone across the world. The web has constricted the Earth, bound it up with endless packets of information. The world has uploaded its collective brain, and the power and scope of the knowledge is amazing.

I love the Internet, and I can't wait for the time when we'll all be connected, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I dream of direct neural net access, as quick as thought and twice as broad. We will all have two minds, our own consciousness and the infinite net. I'm sure it will lead to many problems, yet I also think it will broaden the human experience and help us to evolve. Until that day, Google will remain my steadfast friend.