Internet – Harmonia Philosophica

Bots. Humans.

Social media bots are continuously evolving and becoming more ‘human-like’ in the way they talk and interact on online platforms. Previous research has focused on bot detection, but little attention has been devoted to the characterization and measurement of the behavior and activity of bots, compared to humans. In this study, researchers have revealed distinct behavioral differences between human and bot activity on social media which could be leveraged to improve bot detection strategies. (1)

Are you a person? Am I a person? Always talking based on what I know. Pre-defined answers passing up as wisdom. Training bots to speak. Always acting based on what I have learnt. Pre-defined actions as per my experience. Am I a person? But I feel free. Am I human? But I do nothing. Am I programmed? But I am free. To think of nothing.

Weird, but the only act for Being is standing still.

Saying nothing.

While the whole cosmos stares at us wondering: Are you a God?

Light. Data. Universe.

The internet is often called the “World Wide Web,” but it’s not actually accessible to residents of a large portion of the world. Today, four billion people are offline, and 1.6 billion of them live in sparsely populated areas around the world. In recent years, a race to solve that problem has emerged among big tech companies like Google, SpaceX and Facebook. Now, Facebook has published research on an unconventional solution: using light to wirelessly transmit internet signals.

Most internet signals today are transmitted at high rates through wired optical fiber networks — which require expensive infrastructure — or at lower rates through wireless radio frequencies, which are limited in bandwidth, subject to regulations and vulnerable to interception.

In a paper published in Optica, researchers from Internet.org’s Connectivity Lab have outlined a new type of light detector that can be used for free-space optical communication, a communication technique that uses light to send data wirelessly. (1)

Data through light.

Look around.

At the sunlight. The grass. The shiny spoon. The TV. The floor. The cat. The door. The small airplane above. The car passing by.

Light is all around you. The story of the cosmos.

Light. From the beginning of time, it has always been there. Transmitted, generated, affected by every single moment of existence.

The story of aeons is here.

The story of the cosmos – past, present and future alike – is before you. Your eyes see it. But your mind is unwilling to watch.

Look!

A car passed by.

Look!

The cosmos was just created!

The age of information is without… “information”.

Should I read the Internet to see what is “important” ?

We supposedly live in the age of information. We have the Internet, the newspapers, Twitter, Facebook etc. We should be informed about everything at levels never before possible.

And yet…

We are in the darkness of ignorance like never before. Overinformation has become worse than no information at all. We are left in the mercy of anyone having a news media or a blog or a Facebook account. Democracy in information sharing has made information practically useless.

You never know which information is right unless you personally experience it.

The Internet gives a voice to everyone experiencing facts – thus making all possible interpretations publicly available. It then gives a voice to a million more people who have not experienced the facts, thus making all possible lies publicly available.

And the worse…

It gives to each and every one of us access to the experiences others have. Experiences which should not affect us. And yet now they do. It gives access in our mind for others to project their own fears, their own will, their own desires.

Primitive people walking in the woods.

With their wives and children.

They seem so… primitive.

But it is only because you cannot see their faces.

Smiling…

e-Justice. Not!

The great e-commerce boom has had an unexpected side effect – the rise of digital courts.

eBay has long relied on its Resolution Centre to solve petty disagreements between buyers and sellers, and the model has become surprisingly popular among others who do business online. So much so, in fact, that one Swedish company has applied it to all kinds of consumer complaints.

Swiftcourt, based in Lund, allows individuals to file small claims. For one client – who wishes to remain anonymous – Swiftcourt turned out to be very handy. After receiving a second-hand motorbike from an online sale, he realised that it was not as described. It was 450cc, not 540cc, and some parts were missing.

Initially, the seller refused a refund, but the two had previously agreed to use Swiftcourt as an arbitrator in the event of a dispute. A few weeks after the arbitration process was started on the Swiftcourt website, both parties were handed a verdict – the plaintiff’s case was upheld and a full refund following return of the bike was arranged. The seller also had to pay both parties’ Swiftcourt fees. (1)

We want justice.
We believe in higher ideas.
We believe that these ideas can be served on their own.
We still believe in God.
We just don’t know where He is hiding…

Facebook, drones, Internet: The need for NO-Internet! [Φοβού τους Δαναούς…]

If a new Facebook plan is successful, the easiest way to access the cloud may be … in the clouds. Facebook wants to spread Wi-Fi Internet to unconnected parts of the world with drones, and at a summit in New York earlier this week, the company revealed those drones will be the size of jumbo jets.

In March of 2014, Facebook acquired drone maker Ascenta, whose solar-powered drones could potentially remain airborne at 65,000 feet for months or years at a time. (Ascenta’s web page has disappeared since the acquisition, leaving only a goodbye notice in Facebook-blue.) To make this project fly, Facebook plans on testing one of the drones over American skies by 2015, hoping to have the project off the ground in three to five years. (1)

Φοβού τους Δαναούς και δώρα φέροντες… say the Greeks.
Be afraid of those who come with gifts… in a free translation.

Is the Internet a gift after all?
Does it bring us together?
Does it makes knowledge sharing earier?

Or does it make us more stupid?
Or maybe it increases our solitude?

Turn off the Internet and see.
See how you will read more books. More actual books with actual knowledge, not bot-writen Wikipedia articles.
See how you will see more of your friends. Not Facebook imaginary friends but actual living friends.

If only the planes of Facebook crashed.
You would never read this article,
but you would be much wiser in any sense…

Be careful of people who bring free gifts.
Because they usually are not free.
And certainly they are not gifts…