Andrey Trofimov. From the Internet to the World Wide Web

From the Internet to the World Wide Web
Andrey Trofimov

Date of publication: October 8, 2003

The author expresses his gratitude to Alexander Davydov , from whose work many of the ideas in the article were borrowed.

Let 's imagine a hypothetical situation: all people on Earth have a constant connection to the Internet. Moreover, the connection is mobile and so high-speed that it allows you to exchange data almost instantly. You may ask: what is hypothetical here? Almost everyone already has mobile phones, and they have SMS, WAP, GPRS and other bells and whistles. In fact, I myself think that there is nothing hypothetical about the transformation of the Internet into the World Wide Web.

Not understood? The Internet is the “world wide web” in English, isn’t it? Well, yes. Only today the Internet is a connection of computers via the TCP/IP protocol. And what I call the World Wide Web is the unification of thinking people through the Internet. Let's forget for now about the problems that remain along the way (the inaccessibility of high-speed wireless data networks, the low speed of information exchange between a person and a computer, the low quality of machine translation from one human language to another). Let's better imagine how the social structure of society will change in this hypothetical, but already so close, situation.

So, we have a network consisting of billions of thinking nodes, each of which can exchange information with any other node. On the one hand, this is a human society of the near future, on the other, two already existing systems: the modern Internet and the human brain. It is logical to assume that the structures of the future of humanity will be similar to the structures of systems that already operate on similar principles. What are the common principles of the Internet and the human brain? First of all, this is decentralization: just as there is not one Central Processor on the Internet, there is not one Main Neuron in the brain. Then there is interchangeability: just as brain cells can take over the functions of neighboring damaged cells, computers on the Internet can find new ways to bypass a failed node. Finally, this is specialization: each part of the brain is responsible for its own function, and each computer on the Internet does what it does best: stores and displays information, routes data flows, organizes the exchange of information between a person and the Internet. What is very important is that the specialization of nodes in both cases is dynamic: there are cases when people restored functions lost after a brain injury, and there are cases when people hosted sites on home PCs.

It’s interesting to fantasize: what specializations might the people-nodes of the future World Brain have? Let's look for them first among people already connected to the Internet. For example, consider the work of a modern large news site.

The first function is sensor . This is a correspondent for a news agency who hastily and with errors reports to the editor absolutely all the new information that he can obtain.

The second function is moderator . This is a person who reads the entire news feed in a row and selects interesting stories from it for notes.

The third function is analyst . This is an editor writing a note. Its task is to compare information from different news agencies, collect everything valuable in a note, cut off possible errors in names and titles, provide links to previous messages, integrating new information into the plot.

The fourth function is administrator . This is the site’s editor-in-chief, who makes the decision: to fire the editor for systematic grammatical errors or to display the headline of a hot news story on the site’s face.

Function five: performer . This is the accounting department issuing a settlement to a fired editor, or a banner maker drawing a news banner.

Now let’s look for all these functions among the neurons of the human brain. For example, let’s consider a very real-life situation: you see a group of skinheads beating an African student on the street at night.

Sensor (a group of neurons that receive information from the senses): the night is quiet, the moon is shining, a black man is being beaten at a bus stop.

Moderator (a group of neurons responsible for concentration): take a break from your beer, because a person is being beaten!

Analyst (a group of neurons storing life experience): so, these are skins, there are four of them, they are drunk, they may have a knife.

Administrator (a group of neurons responsible for making decisions): your shirt is closer to your body, you need to wash off!

Executor (spinal cord neurons that control the legs): left, right, left, right.

Now let’s see how the modern social structure of society copes with the same situation:

Sensor (pensioner Aunt Masha, awakened by the screams of an unhappy student): girl, is this 02? They're killing people here!

Moderator (sleepy girl operator of service 02, working for a small salary): well, what do you have there? (writes down the street name with an error)

Analyst (operational duty officer of the Internal Affairs Directorate): we don’t have such a street in our area.

Administrator (aka): all patrols! There's a fight in our area! Check out all the bus stops!

The performers are a police sergeant with a baton on a deserted street and an ambulance orderly who takes the body of an unfortunate student in the morning.

And now - attention! - the same situation in the near future:

Sensor (it's you again. Walking down the street with beer, chatting at the same time): people who are not sleeping! We've got a man being beaten here!

Moderator (some user whileing away the flight time from Tambov to Lisbon in the chat): Vasily Vasilyevich! It's up to you! (Urgent ICQ)

Analyst (Vasily Vasilyevich, a former operational duty officer of the Internal Affairs Directorate, who is doing exercises at this moment in his villa in Hawaii): so, these are skins, there are four of them, they are drunk, they may have a knife: We need to wake up Armen!

Administrator (Armen, former crime boss, respected person. Wakes up from the call of the Personal Communicator): Vasily Vasilyevich! Of course, dear! Calls the performers.

Performers (a security guard at a nearby supermarket, a former special forces soldier living in a neighboring house, a master of sports in sambo and a doctor who happened to be driving along the avenue three minutes from the scene of the events): left, right, left, right.

You finish your beer and watch with pleasure as a doctor provides assistance to a student on the spot, and then calls a car via the Internet to transport unconscious skins to the hospital.

Here a very important character appears in our story. Sixth function. This is the Inventor - the inventor, the person who changes the structure of the Network. This is Armen's son, schoolboy Tigran. He writes in his online diary: “And why did you have to wake up dad in the middle of the night? It’s just that for every problem on the Network there should be several Administrators - one will always be available.”

Beauty, isn't it? But you ask: where is the state in this utopian society? Yes, there is none at all. It died long ago as unnecessary. True, before his death he tried to resist: he introduced all sorts of SORMs, closed sites. And only one function remained of the state - judicial. Resolve conflicts and distribute earrings to all sisters. Sentence the last racists on Earth to a year of correctional labor (to correct grammatical errors on news sites).

And now - jokes aside. And the state will not leave without a fight, and the Network itself is not ready for anything like that. In addition to technical problems that can be solved, there are also more complex ones. So, for example, the Network method of relationships, which, according to Alexander Davydov, should replace the hierarchical and market ones, must first win on the Network itself. This will not happen until the majority of users of the modern Internet understand: this thing was born for the free exchange of ideas, and not to distribute pornography or earn WEB-money.

Secondly, all those who can be a good Sensor, Performer, Moderator, Analyst, Administrator or Inventor must connect to the World Wide Web and learn to use it. However, everyone can become someone: the described functions fit well with the types of human personalities known in psychology.

And only if these problems turn out to be solvable, will it be possible to move on to the practical dismantling of the state. I am writing this article under the impression of the recent elections of the governor of St. Petersburg. Valentina Matvienko, a typical representative of the State, won a “convincing” victory. 18% of all voters in the great city voted for her in the second round. How did she become governor with such little support? It’s very simple - 72% of voters did not come to the polls because they knew the result in advance. Meanwhile, the number of people who came by order of the State to support Matvienko is already comparable to the number of Internet users in St. Petersburg. If all St. Petersburg Internet users could agree and support another candidate in the elections (for example, “Against Everyone” - it’s easier to agree on this candidate), then St. Petersburg would become the first city on earth in which the Network defeated the state .

There is a hypothesis: what if those people who vote “Against Everyone” in elections today are not crazy anarchists, but those who consciously wish the death of the State, because they are ready to move to a new, non-hierarchical way of organizing society? If these are the future nodes of the World Brain, ready to take responsibility for their lives, their country and their Earth? If this hypothesis is correct, then the Networked Future of the Earth is a reality. Because, according to surveys of Runet users, the share of those voting “Against All” in this sample is constantly growing, and among Moscow Internet users has already reached a relative majority.

And there is no need to be afraid of this: if one day the candidate “Against Everyone” wins the presidential elections in Russia, this will mean the end of the State, not the country. It’s just that society is ripe for the transition to a new, networked state.