Thursday, December 20, 2012

All Great Empires Fall

     We connect to larger masses through media, but what would we be without the instant access to information? Has the power ever gone out and you lost the internet for a few hours? It evokes a small stroke of fear. Our whole lives are on the internet, powered by this mighty machine- but what would we do without it? We have out whole lives on the internet. From banking to digitally documenting our lives for future generations.
     Now there was actually some things quite similar in history I will highlight to make my point. There once was a Chinese emperor who unified China in early 200BC. After building the Great Wall at the expense of many lives Qin Shi Huang had to ensure the stability of his empire. Doing so resulted in the order of not only outlawing paper documents, but also the burning of books and burying of live scholars. Essentially this burning was to create a power over illiterates. They had to rely on him for information, but if you look into it now you'll realize he destroyed a lot of documented history during that time period.
     My theory about the internet disappearing, satirically addressed in the South Park episode "Over Logging", has a lot to do with the loss of information about our time as well as the riddling effects on those people who are afflicted by internet addiction.

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