An environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem

September 15, 2008 12:39 PM

Time Capsule: the internet and E-democracy.“Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water. We can no longer take that for granted and we must advocate for the Internet politically, and support its vitality personally.” - Susan Crawford, University of Michigan School of Law. In recognition and memory of the beginning and continuation of the political internet, they have organized a Time Capsule of e-democracy's beginnings - everything from using e-mail to plead your friends to vote to flash animations that set the web alight. It is to be sealed on September 22. Help tell the story of internet politics.
posted by parmanparman (2 comments total)

Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like...running water.

It's true. I didn't have any access at all to clean running internet for two weeks last month and I developed dysentery and typhoid from using contaminated, standing internet.
posted by rhymer at 12:07 AM on September 16, 2008

as rhymer pointed out:

Peoples’ lives now are as dependent on the Internet as they are on the basics like roads, energy supplies and running water.

and also

Anyone across the country and the world can contribute by adding text, images, and video that celebrates e-Democracy to an open blog.

this project seems like a good one, & motivated by the desire to fight the good fight, but rhetoric like this really sticks in my craw - it would be great if folks from first-world countries could learn to stop generalizing about their experiences & contexts as if they were universal - there are still millions of people living in the world today who would love to have access to things like usable roads, affordable energy resources & clean water (let alone running) - many of these folk have never used or even seen a computer & are unlikely to do so anytime soon
posted by jammy at 4:52 AM on September 16, 2008