***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 22:46:37 +0200
   [From]: "PEACE" <ami_iss@netvision.net.il>
     [To]: "Cultural Exchange via Internet" <forum1@hkw.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Re: Access

Hi Juan,
It is precisely cultural and human limitations that dictate that no technical gizmo is going to make people smart  or creative.

Do not underestimate these cultural limitations - some of them are built into the fabric of society. The most powerful executives cannot use a word processor (or make believe they cannot) and insist on making longhand corrections on printed drafts.
In ancient times, the kings had scribes after all...

As for Toffler, dare I suggest he might be wrong?
Internet computers to be subsidized or given away because people can be made to buy things through the Web. An absurd Woody Allenesque scene comes to mind in which Indians in the Amazon use plastic money to buy things over the Web. Maybe 
there will be special "pornographic" sites for them showing teen-age girls wearing clothes.

The main kind of interaction people will do through the Web is _buying_ things. I think buying things ("going to the mall" "going shopping") is the major recreation of middle class USA (and Europe no?) and the Web will exacerbate it. Internet will make a positive difference. But it will not be as simple or as linear as people imagine. The same was true, after all, of the printing press, radio and television.

Audience participation in the creation of art may just lead to magic-marker mustaches on the Mona Lisa - or worse. If people have interactive TV  willl they ot use it to change the plot of a sitcom so it becomes more like Shakespeare  and classic Greek drama?
More likey they will give Oedipus Rex a happy ending. Even more likely they will use it to view their favorite heroines (or heros) going about their business without clothes.
Before someone tells me I am an MCP with a dirty mind, go to umpteen Web sites were you can see all of TVs favorite ladies without clothes. (of course, who is to judge that this is not art? - c.f. e. e. cummings for example).

Technically as you say, it is all one.
In the end Internet =3D TV =3D telephone. This is a not so far down the road as you might think. Broadband IP telephony will  give us video telephone. There will be  audience "call-in" shows on TV - Oprah with a participating audience of millions. At the same time broadband cellular technology is putting internet on telephones- and of course it is also on cable TV and will be available via satellite.
But the problem we are discussing is not technical.
Ciao,
A-


----- Original Message -----
From: Juan Jose Diaz Infante <jdiazinfante@altamiracave.com>
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 1999 11:40