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The Evolution of Information:
Tribal begets cultural begets pre-industrial begets industrial begets technological
begets cultural begets informational life where technology is an integral
aspect of all culture, as well as a global cultural entity unto itself.
The wind on bare skin is information. The tattered
clothing worn to protect the exposed flesh from the chill is information. The
overgrown path traveled between points A and B is information. The footgear
worn to protect the feet along the trail is information. The cascade of
familiar sights seen during the journey is information. The ropes used to
restrain hands; feet, waist and neck are information. The sensory awareness of
pain, sweat, rage and fear is information. The impact of the lash across the back,
legs, arms and buttocks is information. The burning blood oozing from fresh
stinging wounds of humiliation is information. The screaming curse spewed in an
unintelligible language is information. The sight of the slave ship, a monster
riding the lapping wave, is information. The last desperate image of the
beloved lost homeland is information. The horrible certainty of a life or death
in slavery in a strange land within a strange culture to an even stranger
pale-skinned people is information.
Given the information at hand, would the white slavers listen
to a preternatural seeing shaman among the black slavers or even the slaves,
if so gifted? If those seafaring entrepreneurs were told that those captured,
brutalized, humiliated humans (Though they, of course were not recognized
as such by the sea roaming technocracy, being ill coloured, foul smelling,
unclean, ill mannered, ungodly, tool using heathens.). The Europeans could
not have been graced with the insight to perhaps give credence to the foreseer's
warnings. Who could possibly have seen that those very same two-legged black
hairless apes and their progeny would, in the coming centuries, invade, pervade
and dominate their masters' culture and civilization on to become the dominant
global cultural force, displayed in sports, art, music, media and fashion
throughout the world.
The African tool users bowed to the North American technocrats, who sailed
half-way around the world and went to great lengths (pun intended) to import
a culturally dominant entity. Once they raised their black heads to embrace
new information: i.e. the slavers' language, religion, education, nationality,
warfare, culture, fashion and technology, if not their techniques; the African
Americans embraced their freedom, their land and their fate.
The information technology that combined the two of the
many, initially disparate, cultures into the North American phenomenon is a
unique cultural entity. Its power and sovereignty is its ability to bridge the
distances and the differences between and among all races, creeds, cultures and
nationalities. The struggle for control of this force of human endeavour is
evocative of trying to control a flood with sandbags. The floodwaters, due to
naturally occurring phenomena, will rise. The water will permeate, break or
simply overwhelm any resistance.
The information glut (or flood, pun intended) that has signalled the cultural (yes, cultural, because technology, itself, is a cultural entity) subordination of America by technology is consistent with the inner/outer pressure for change or progression of the global milieu (The sacrosanct p-word? One must be American.).
Culture evolves. Culture simply is. Humankind the vehicle
of culture is along for the ride. It is not a good plan to trip the horse
you're riding.
Information begets more information in response, which begets more information in rebuttal.
Has there been too much information yet? Has the glut/flood been increased or decreased through this discussion? Has cultural life been subsumed or affirmed?