nervous system

whoever controls the shape of the network
controls the shape of our culture
the shape of our connected imagination.

The Internet is the new kind of awareness. It’s not something that you look at. It is the way or means through which you look at things. - Eric McLuhan

When our internet service providers
cripple new technologies that threaten their narrow corporate goals,
they are preventing us from experimenting
with profound new ways of organizing and understanding our electronic culture.

censorship at the network level is indisputable.
it stops us from being able to redefine the boundaries of acceptable.
it is a form of cultural paralysis.

bandwidth caps put a lid on innovation
and guarantee that whoever controls the network
controls our high-definition future.

when universities are forced to
block all p2p file sharing activity, including sharing that is perfectly legal,
they are distorting the way that students relate to each other and to their world.

the network is our new civic infrastructure
the connective tissue of the global We.

If Coke and Pepsi controlled our water supply
there would be soda flowing through our pipes
and water would be more expensive than Diet Coke.

we should be nervous when someone owns our nervous system.