Internet as Globalizer

The internet has been called the most democratic medium ever devised. Truer words were never spoken.The internet is a metaphor for globalization. On the web, all participants are equal. There are no big guys and no little guys. The playing field is perfectly level for all particpants. In this environment, there are no considerations as to race, gender, nationality or religion. Everyone is equal and all comers are invited to participate in and contribute to the collective intelligence of the human race. In this environment, participants are made aware of their similaries rather than their differences. Everyone on earth can potentially talk to everyone else without the interference of governments, mainstream media, public relations agencies or other "middlemen" who traditionally stand between individuals who are trying to communicate. The internet is the great equalizer. It represents human homogenization via electronic media at its finest.
It must be noted that other forms of electronic media made thier contributions to bringing people closer together, but not on the same scale as the WWW. Telegraph was the first time human beings used an electronic medium to communicate among themselves. This is the first time that electrical signals were given a syntax which would match the human alphabet. The sequences of dots and dashes in Morse code was a metaphorical forerunner of the basic language of all computers, binary. These dots and dashes were the infant beginnings of the internet we know today.
From those early dots and dashes would emerge a vast plethora of electronic media. The telegraph morphed into the telephone. the telephone into the radio, the radio was combined with silent movies to create talking movies and talking movies morphed into television (poor man's movies).
While all of these analogue devices were evolving, there was a curious little device called the computer which was getting its own comeuppance. In 1926, the first transistor--later to be the the basis of all digital devices--was invented. Over the next forty-five years, that little piece of genius would become the first microprocessor in 1971. During the ensuing years, there would be hardware innovations in motherboards, CPUs, memory, cables, hard drives and peripheral devices. But all of these hardware innovations would be useless without software innovations to make the hardware do its thing, so in 1975, Microsoft was founded and the following year, the Apple I and Apple II microcomputer stepped on the computing stage. By the early 1990s, the pc revolution was in full swing. Words like word processing, browsers, random access memory, email, spreadsheets, Microsoft Windows and other words common to computer jargon were being heard everywhere.
It is interesting to note how computers embody all of the other electronic media. A computer is a calculator, a movie projector, a telephone, a television receiver, a typewriter, a phonograph.. the list goes on and on.
It is only natural that, once humankind had a contraption that could create, manipulate and store electronic symbols like never before, he would try to connect them all together. Thus, we moved from ARPANET in 1972 to TCP/IP (arguably one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century) in 1982. From there, the internet exploded around the planet and resulted in the so-called dot-com bubble and resulting burst in early 2000.
Today, seven years later, the internet has gotten its second wind and it is virtually impossible to conduct your life and business (at least in civilized societies) without it. Nowadays, if you don't AIM, Google, Yahoo, email, download songs/files or subscribe to a blog, you aren't with the program (pun intended).
Those dots and dashes have come a long way since Morse invented the telegraph a mere 163 years ago.
So remember... the next time you AIM your best buddy, buy something online, download your favorite song or send an email to your significant other, you are a member of a very special group. You are fortunate enough to be living in an age where everybody on earth can potentially talk to everybody else. An environment where neither gender, race, nationality or religion hinders the communication. An environment where participants are made aware of their similarities rather than their differences.You are a member of the global village. You're very special.... Use it and enjoy it!