Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: I see the Internet as a positive global informational tool. Today it is impossible to live how we lived thirty years ago. I was in North Korea. People there have one regime which prescribes them how to live. And if people grow up in this system they know only this. They follow rules of party or political regime. They have no other possibilities. Now we have computers and with only one click we know what occurs in the whole world. We can get and see news and we can get more information. We are more educated. And it's a big progress. The Internet does a good job. But we must understand that this all the Internet, computers are made for people, these machines are working for people and not people for machines. People mustn't be a part, a small part of this machine because people with their spiritual potential are much much better than a perfect machine, even no having so much information. People mustn't forget this. We couldn't replace one human life by a beautiful and the best machine in the world. These are too different things.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: I can not say many things about this issue, but I think that the Internet can be a base for totally different relationships. People from different continents can communicate with each other through the Internet and can exchange the knowledge without they meet each other practically. There is now new world and new collectivity based on the Internet, but I am not sure whether this new collectivity will be someday power in the society.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: We talk about an instantaneous communication, about how is it possible to be at different parts of the world at the same time, and how can we strengthen the connection between human beings. Very often we aspire to establish a connection to those who are far away, and are not aware of the fact, that we have people right at our side to talk to. Often, we know the location of a certain planet or entire galaxy and are not able to say where our own liver or pancreas lies. I think that this "macro" perspective should provide us the "micro" perspective too. Internet should not only connect us to the rest of the world but it should serve as communication tool in the field of education in our own communities.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: This is a repeated question. It keeps coming up. You know I think there needs to be an appreciation that the majority of communities do not have access to any form of electronic information. And it’s going to be some time until they do have access. And very much you know the empowered, or the wealthy, or the middle classes, or the educational middle classes, really are the people who access to information technology. And so, how will it enhance our own communities? I’m not exactly sure at this particular point in time how that’s going to work. But I do believe that there’s a disparity in resources which would always render the vast majority of people outside of that net incapable and unable to have access to this. So we mustn’t just simply, you know, we mustn’t just simply assume that this great boom in global information technology is going to be a form of panacea or a solution to our problems. It certainly isn’t. There’s got to be another kind of look at simple low-tech technologies, certainly for the next hundred - fifty or a hundred years. I suppose that’s why certain communities just will never keep pace, and they’re just never gonna get ahead, or because they’re measuring, the way in which we measure value, increasingly is done in such a manner that still renders certain members of our society, the vast majority…

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: The one thing about the Internet is that it is a means of communication. And any means of communication has the potential of bringing people together, allowing people to communicate, allowing people to learn from one another, allowing people to form relationships. Technology can also be something that is used towards destructive ends, that can increase people’s alienation, people’s isolation, and that can be a hindrance to human relationships, can be a hindrance to enlightenment and education. In the case of the Internet, we see that it has a potential to bring people into communication more -- in a more timely fashion across national boundaries. That’s a positive development that brings us closer to the possibility of imagining forms of collectivity that cut across national boundaries, that cut across the arbitrary divisions that have been imposed in the curve up in the world into states, into nations. But, in order to turn that technology into something that enhances our communities, we need to direct the technology towards a specific end, we need to organize, and then technology alone won’t enable us to do that, it’s just a tool in – among many tools that have to be used to fight for that kind of vision.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Internet global information as a tool that can criss-cross entire continents [inaudible]

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I think Internet is an interesting way of sharing our experiences. People would say that there are no solutions to the world’s problems, people would actually -- are being told that the only way to increase food production is to say through genetic engineering. But actually, we have incredible examples of success around the world where communities, whether it’s through urban gardens, whether it is through community supported agriculture, whether it is through sustainable ecological agriculture, whether it is communities saying no to GM food, there are amazing examples of hope that we can share through the Internet. So, Internet is not the end result, but it can be a medium through which we can solve and enhance the capacity of our own communities. We can share our experiences, we can learn from each other, and social movements so far have used this Internet as a technology in a very interesting way. If you look at mobilizations against trade agreements, you think of Seattle where activists were talking to each other, sharing experiences, garnering knowledge, or you look at the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December last year. People were able to organize. So, it is not really about technology being the answer, but we as communities can use this technology for basically improving our access to information, for communicating with each other, and learning from each other.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I think the Internet is a powerful tool of interconnectivity that in a way reflects the emerging new global consciousness. In this global consciousness, we recognize, and global spirituality, the wisdom of all ages that we are profoundly connected in an inter-net of relations in the fabric of reality itself. So, if you see Internet as part of that "inter-net" of reality itself as serving that and part of that fabric. Then in that humane sense, Internet is a powerful miraculous tool for connecting us. Almost like the -- some people have pointed out the global brain, the infrastructure of the brain that connects us literally across the planet, as almost individual cells being connected. And that would create an incredible power of community and genuine community. Because some argue that the Internet keeps us separated in our own separate spaces of our computers. But there is another face to that. That the computer also, as in this occasion of speaking into this camera and reaching out through the Internet to people around the planet to share this global dialogue here in Berlin, is a good example of how the Internet creatively used can bring people together, and help create true global community. So, I think the potential of Internet and webcasting and all of the potentials that are coming are yet still, before u,s can be a tremendous force to create and make global community a living reality for our global age.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: One of the greatest ways that this global informational tool has benefited the human family is by opening the door to information sharing by taking people, whole peoples, out of isolation in their communities to the bigger world, and this information sharing, in all sectors of life, whether it's cultural life, social life, political life, has been a great boon to the understanding of the lives of other people and the political processes and social and cultural institutions of other people. So it has been a great enhancement to be able to have this information sharing, to see how what may be appropriate information can be utilized to the benefit of any given community.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Avi Primor:

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: So, the internet to enhance our own communities is about connection. It’s about connecting us more, internationally as well, because there is movements and communities around the world. They’re facing the same issues and problems that we faced in our own communities, that we can then have a dialogue, a multilogue, as we say in dropping knowledge, right? And that, from this we can a learn lessons, and we can really benefit from each other. And I believe that is a whole intention in the seat of dropping knowledge is to really take this information and begin to really make the connections pay the platform. That people can then begin to communicate and accelerate this communication and this connection. This can really enhance our whole trip, I mean, if we get connected, if all these people in this circle connect their resources that we have, Oh my gosh! That groups like the Bioneers and Eco-Farm in the States, people like dropping knowledge here, and then multiple groups all around the world. They are all connected, the other world that we’re dreaming of would be present, we’ll be living in it. And so, hopefully we can take this time and this opportunity to really connect with each other and create some relationships. So, mutually beneficial relationships where it's not, what do you have that I can get or what do you have that can’t get? No, it’s about what do we have to give each other? Man, just close your eyes and dream, and come to a presence of being of that type of world.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: I think a good example is what happening or taking place right here at the moment. There are more than 10,000 people around the world that are connecting with this dialogue, space, in dropping knowledge. This just show how powerful a tool like internet can really communicate and link our communities around the world. And it can enhance our understanding and we can start to create the basis for a broader dialogue and connectivity among community, among people, among minds, among cultures, creating consensus and building a society that is inspired and based on diversity and integration of strong sense and importance of humanity as a whole, as a entity. So, to answer the question we can say directly that internet as a global informational tool can be very important to serve to enhance what our own communities are doing. We can mobilize societies. We can really - if people are really informed, people can move and make the right decisions and really organize in a better way to have equity, to have fair justice, and very important values, that can lead the way they shape the future of their communities.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: The internet allows both globalization and localization and relocalization so the great works of art, the great works of literature, the library of the world all can be put online. And this benefits us all. But also a local community can preserve its culture digitally, can share that culture with others, can find support for the cultural institutions, music from all over the world can be shared and appreciated, promoting peace. So all of our communities are enhanced when we have access to this kind of diversity. We don’t have a monoculture, we don’t have a broadcast media culture instead we have a rich diverse access and we can learn about the world and experience the great beauty of other local communities.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 5:05:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: We already spoke of positive aspects of the internet somewhere else. However economical usage of the words without repetition is also being thought by the niggardly rigors of cybernetics.

by Bora Cosic