This was definitely a very good watch, another one of those documentaries that fill you with more questions than when you started. The internet is probably nothing more than a glorified telephone system between people, yet it is one of the cornerstones of the rise of the information era.
I really believe that documentaries like these have a certain merit towards establishing a connection with thousands of people like me, yet still barely skim the surface of a much larger implication on humankind and this technological destiny that we have linked through our everyday lives and decisions. The only things that troubles me are the weak distinctions between black, white, and grey hat hackers. People fight for different things in life based on predetermined factors in their lives, but even a small window of opportunity can foster a change as radical as the ideas they presented in the documentary, from claiming a round earth to the possibilities of outer space travel.
The research with the monkey's was a particularly powerful segment to me since it reflects some aspects of our society today which are largely focused only on material and monetary gain. I strongly believe that our youngest generations have the most difficult challenges ahead as we become more and more connected through the evolution of networks in a solidifying information age. Those who learn how to probe and evaluate the changing patterns in the human mind may be able to cause great good, or even great harm. Thats probably why websites like lifehacker are so popular, while the proliferation of RSS feeds, blogs, and forums grow larger to keep up to date with the newest and most reliable information.
Overall I strongly agree that the next wars will be fought over the control and leverage of information, and this again, is not something that is completely new, but the platform of this war will be hard to imagine. I wonder if there are really only five cyber wars going on right now.... it feels like there are probably a lot more... The internet is really a strange place to be in sometimes lol.
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