Information Exchange

Given the thoughts on what India is doing with IT nowadays, there is no doubt that the future lies with information exchange.

Everything we do is based on the premise we exchange information with someone else. The whole "no man is an island" idiom really emphasizes this point. Our relationships, professional or intimate, friendly or romantic, chaste or carnal are all based on this idea of sharing information.

Without new information, people grow bored. I don't understand sensory deprivation chambers, but I understand all they do is try to stop you from sensing anything for a short while, so that you can experience everything afresh and give yourself a sense to free yourself from earthly sensations. A sensory deprivation chamber time is limited though. It's like drinking wine to clear your palate so you can enjoy your steak again, or having an affair so that the old regular stuff might seem interesting again. The thing is, the time in a sensory deprivation chamber is limited though, which is good. If it lasts indefinitely, it's akin to being buried alive, which is one of the deaths that we fear the most.

People need new information. Some people learn about the external world, becoming news junkies and/or academics. Others seek to learn about the social world, becoming leaders, players, or politicians. Some look at the world and use that information to experience new information about themselves in a spiritual realm of identity. Whatever it is though, people need to categorize their information. We are so bombarded with information nowadays, we have dedicated memory devices for it. Some people have newsfeeds and saved information on computers, cellphones for address books and blogs for information about ourselves. The problem is, how do we concentrate this into a usable form. Most of what we learn or know is lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

Google did very well, allowing searching through many different things using human interaction as the driving force for their search algorithms. Even though their algorithms do not apply to everything in life, it does apply to a lot. The problem is how do we shift through information in our daily life?

Our very identity is tied in with information and information control. And yet, our information control technologies have not kept pace with information broadcasting technologies. I do believe there is something we can learn from everyone, even if it is as simple (or useless, in some people's minds) as the fact that you enjoy eating strawberries for lunch. While we twitter about nonsensical things, how much of that information is kept and retained usefully?

Our world is being dominated by electronic social networks. Lavalife, facebook, myspace, youtube, pof. The developed world's love affair with intimate information will not fade. On the other hand, the developing world is being dominated by raw information. Prices of crops for example will have lasting effects on life. Weather information is critical. Somehow, I think the Western world's love for celebrity gossip does not bode well for us. Sometimes I think information overload is driving most of us to a level of apathy towards information. We think of information gathering as instantaneous, with wikipedia at our fingertips and google everpresent, but is it really?

I think this rant has a unpolished jewel of a good thesis for an essay, but I will have to organize this sometime.

But information will rule the world. It's just who would control information?