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| Tower of Babel -- courtesy of NWCreation.net |
The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11)
1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Julian Assange plays a modern day Bourne in this lifetime, except with a secret army of "hacktivists" sympathetic to his plight. It's not exactly incredible that all this whistleblowing has exploded into an action movie--in my opinion it was bound to happen sooner or later. Free speech and censorship will always be problems faced by our generation. I do not foresee our successors having an easier time either. What information should reach the hands of other people is oftentimes a very careful decision, not one to be taken lightly. But how can you withhold information and yet claim "transparency"? That my friends, is the quintessential paradox that the governments of the world must ultimately face, and it's not hard to see that the balance between free speech and censorship is excruciatingly precise. In any event, that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time.
The Need to Be Connected
While reading through an article posted yesterday on Mail Online, I noted that a community of hacktivists, known most daringly as "Anonymous", might be gearing up for an all-out cyber-war. Of particular amusement was their use of the phrase "chaotic good" which is sure to be an oxymoron hackneyed for years to come. They did raise an important point though about information and power. From the dawn of man, the two have always gone hand-in-hand, with both good and bad consequences (Adam was the first of us to learn this the hard way, which consequently made the Fall really hard as well). It's helped us get the upper hand in a war. Or to discover new scientific proofs for solving medical problems. It even helped make the Internet what it is today. Lots of good stuff! But the one thing that more knowledge never seems to do is create peace. Remember the Manhattan Project in WWII? The information on nuclear fission could really have been put to better use other than creating radioactive glass in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sadly though, it ended up being utilised to such ignoble ends. Maybe knowing too much is a bad thing? Is the Internet then, as the Information Highway, potentially creating another dilemma where information has no arbitration and there is no control over use? Anonymous disagrees, saying thus:
'The internet is the last bastion of freedom in this evolving technical world. The internet is capable of connecting us all.
'When we are connected we are strong. When we are strong we have power. When we have power we are able to do the impossible. This is why the government is moving on WikiLeaks. This is what they fear. They fear our power when we unite. Do not forget this.'
Wait a minute. Haven't we heard this before? Didn't a bunch of guys in the old B.C. try the very same thing....and the Government on High replied in the negative? I'm beginning to see a trend here. In the past we built a tower to hold us all. There wasn't much purpose to this--in fact history has always shown that too many people in one place tends to be a really bad thing (unless they're all sheep). Eventually, they will destroy one another simply because they are, well...different. Look at the world throughout the ages. Despite geographical separation--we still have wars! But I digress. The tower would have accomplished something that we long for today. I am alluding, in no uncertain terms, to a state of "connected-ness". Abraham Maslow was definitely on to something when he came up with the hierarchy of needs.
It's not really accidental that the needs that are, to a great extent, dependent on other people and perhaps the society at large are closest to the top of the pyramid. This is not to say that you go through the needs in order, only that they exist and are rather relevant to our day-to-day existence. The long and short of it is that people like others to recognise and acknowledge them. Being connected makes this even easier because we can then participate in many circles and, after a while, build our own reputations. We fall into a give-and-take cycle, oftentimes unconsciously as we take in new information, process it and either output an action or some new data. In essence however, we become what we eat, because the information we digest shapes our very beings as well. As a result, we need more and more of it everyday.
Information Bees
So we've gone and built the web to meet our needs. It used to just be an internet highway, but now it's really more like a very large chatroom with millions of people exchanging millions of bytes at mindblowing speed. We've gone from simply absorbing content, to reading, 'liking' and 'sharing' via all sorts of social media services to feed our addictions. And to think this all started in the same way as the Tower of Babel, except the people DARPA said they wanted to build a network with computers instead of a tower with bricks and tar. Pretty much the same principle implemented using information and data, which we build upon exponentially from year to year.
By and large, people and businesses thrive on information today like bees thrive on nectar. Why is that? Because information makes things happen. It moves us to do things that we would otherwise not be equipped to do without it. But in all of this, it is important to remember that since humans are like walking boxes of chocolate, you really never know what results you'll get (sorry Forrest, it just seemed appropriate). Which is exactly why too much information, while it sounds great, can also be, well....not-so-great. If it gets into the wrong hands, there's a high potential for a lot of moving and shaking in Tower 2.0 in some very terrible ways.
Knowledge and Peace
Thus, to put it succinctly, yes, the Net is great for sharing information, but let us be more responsible in how we use it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against WikiLeaks. I personally believe that transparency is something that most governments purport to uphold--but sadly fail to execute with the proper diligence which is its due. I do, however, take issue with the content of the leak in this case. It should be noted here that none of the documents leaked were actually 'Top Secret' (check out this CNN video) but even so, one has to take into account that all those cables were diplomatic information which is, by extension, crucial to peace talks. We have here the typical situation as mentioned earlier, information/knowledge can be applied to both good and bad ends. Never mind that the Internet is the 'last bastion of freedom'. That in and of itself is all the more reason for us to treat its stakeholders very, very carefully. You're dealing with people in a tower that have the propensity to either help...or harm one another (and it seems we're pretty good at the latter). As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:12: '"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial.' And that last leak, while definitely permissible if one believes in transparency for transparency's sake, may not be as beneficial as one thinks. For the record, during an online chat session with Mr Assange, a British diplomat took him to task about the potential for a diplomatic meltdown to occur as a result of his actions. There hasn't been an answer forthcoming, at least not one that has been satisfactory.
As the large amount of recently leaked data spreads to other rooms in Tower 2.0, it will be interesting to see the reactions. We've heard a lot of condemnations and allegations, but that's to be expected. The question now is, where does this new information become power and in whose hands will it find itself? That, dear reader, only time will tell.
Yours in Christ,
Josh.
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