Technology started the Egyptian Revolution thats spreading across Middle East

[wirednuts]

yemen, iran, iraq, on and on... theyre all starting protests now to be treated fairly under democracy. its amazing really, its all because of technology. people see other countries living easier and better lives, and the internet lets them coordinate their revolutions.

i remember all the horror stories that the internet, cameras, digital recorders... so on and so on will eliminate our privacy and lead to total control by our governments.

whats happened is our privacy is mostly gone, yes, but so is governments. secrets are what world powers thrived on, and now those weapons are vanishing.

what do you all think? i still dont like red light traffic cameras, but i think you get what i mean.

 

[techs]

I agree with the first part, that technology did spread the idea of democracy.

I vehemently disagree with the second part. Technology is being used to invade or privacy, and is a huge danger to total control by governments.

Imagine if Communist Russia or Nazi Germany had the tools we have today. The holocaust was only made possible by IBM punch card computers.
With todays technology, and tomorrows, it will possible to have democracy in name only as the means for information becomes more and more centralized. Just look at the cable and internet providers. We are down to a handful. They are the most complained about corporations in America. Yet you hear almost nothing about it in the mainstream media. No one wants to cross the cable companies.

 

[Kadarin]

Technology helped make it more possible and feasible, but people started that revolution.

 

[Infohawk]

You don't need technology to have a revolution. It helps but Western countries did it with the printing press and others have done it with TV and radio.

What's really behind this one is economic grievances, like with most other revolutions. Hopefully now that some people in the middle east are pulling their heads out of their asses some of their neighbors will follow...

But they only deserve a slow golf clap... They're centuries late.

 

[trenchfoot]

We only have to look at countries ruled by dictatorship and those countries under strict theocratic rule to know that keeping control over the masses requires strict control over what they see, hear and read.

IMHO, it's interesting to note that control over what we see, hear and read in the capitalist controlled countries is oligarchic/oligopolic in nature, where control over the information media the masses consume is originating from a cabal in the business sector and not so much from the government, unless one believes that these business interests also control the government, thus controlling whatever information is being dissemminated by it also.

 

[Moonbeam]

It always starts for one reason. The soul of every human being yearns to be free.

 

[Throckmorton]

You don't need technology to have a revolution. It helps but Western countries did it with the printing press and others have done it with TV and radio.

What's really behind this one is economic grievances, like with most other revolutions. Hopefully now that some people in the middle east are pulling their heads out of their asses some of their neighbors will follow...

But they only deserve a slow golf clap... They're centuries late.

The printing press and TV and radio are all technology.

Social networking in particular is as big today as the printing press was in 1500.

 

[Infohawk]

The printing press and TV and radio are all technology.

Social networking in particular is as big today as the printing press was in 1500.

Thanks Sherlock. I think wirednuts' point was that its the internet that is making the difference which is not really the case.

 

[DesiPower]

666 = www?

Its amazing what a series of tubes can do!!

 

[Fear No Evil]

I think George Bush started it.

 

[bamacre]

It always starts for one reason. The soul of every human being yearns to be free.

If you want to be free, go live in the jungle and swing from a tree.

 

[bamacre]

I think George Bush started it.

That's because you're an idiot.

 

[DesiPower]

I think George Bush started it.

Nope, they yearned for "Hope and Change".

 

[bamacre]

Nope, they yearned for "Hope and Change".

Let's hope for their sake they don't end up as disappointed as those here who believed it.

 

[cwjerome]

The advances in technology and nature of globalization has shifted some power away from the nation-state. Time and distance is smaller, information is less controlled, worldwide economic integration and expansion... in some ways, this is the age of the individual. It's a mixed bag though.

 

[PsiStar]

Current technology is what proffered the very quick interchange of information among the people. No editor needed to be worried about repercussions. No clandestine radio stations that only a few could hear. No fear of meeting in groups in secret meetings. Community spies were clueless & could not react quickly enough nor credibly. And, the media seems to have carried the ball well.

This and a hungry impoverished population with the exception of much better education than in any other uprising in history. All of the worry of US educated scholars bailing on the US? Maybe this brain drain is not totally such a bad thing. Maybe the best single element of promoting freedom really is education. "Education" is the US virus released on the world.

 

[PsiStar]

Iran fires tear gas & arrest dozens. Egypt has labor strikes.

Egypt is putting the line higher on the wall for expressing the will of the people. Hopefully this kind news infiltrates all of the oppressed as it expresses what *will* is. Symbolic is 1 guy in front of a tank. *Will* is a mob all around the tanks with their kids kissing the soldiers.

 

[zinfamous]

the notion that this is happening because of the internet or facebook is completely asinine.

they are wonderful tools to help people coordinate events, but are in no way responsible for these revolutions going off.

the silliest of these stories came out of Iran two years ago during the green revolution. The only people using facebook and twitter were expats in Iran communicating to friends and sources outside of the country about what was going on.

Those who were actually doing the work were not using any of that.

 

[cwjerome]

the notion that this is happening because of the internet or facebook is completely asinine.

they are wonderful tools to help people coordinate events, but are in no way responsible for these revolutions going off.

This is correct, the ongoing worldwide transformation is much greater than just the internet. To be fair though, I doubt many people think that... most I've come across simply believe technology as a whole is facilitating this global paradigm shift. And it's true.

 

[dmcowen674]

the notion that this is happening because of the internet or facebook is completely asinine.

History will show you were wrong

 

[PsiStar]

the notion that this is happening because of the internet or facebook is completely asinine.
.
.
.
Those who were actually doing the work were not using any of that.

and it did not happen. Thus per your own argument, they worked in too much isolation and failed thus far. Mass communication as has never been available prior is essential.

 

[wuliheron]

People have been storming the palace during times of famine since the beginning of civilization and massively corrupt governments like those of Egypt are easy targets for the wrath of a lynch mob. High tech communications might facilitate such changes and make for more rapid transitions, but other then that we have no evidence as to how it might reshape civilization as we know it or how soon. At this point we have just seen the tip of the iceberg and any speculation about the dominoes soon falling one after another is just that: speculation.