What the Web is For

According to Al Gore:

Making an analogy between the march of the internet and the early development of electricity, Gore suggested the web should find a real purpose beyond making money and sharing information.

He said: “The early uses of electricity were aimed at specialised applications and gimmicks.” But the web’s real purpose, he suggested, was “to bring about a higher level of consciousness about our planet and the imminent danger … we face because of the radical transformation in the relationship between human beings and the earth”.

Gore’s perspective and the similar views of his allies formed the biggest call at the summit for hi-tech development, saying technology should be used to tackle the problem of climate change.

Source - Guardian UK

What a beautiful goal, tough to imagine but no less worth working towards. If the web could be a medium for reviving/creating a sense of interconnection between peoples, cultures, species, economies and ecosystems; if it could help us evolve out of our old top-o-the-the-pyramid isolation and into a more balanced role in an endlessly diverse and creative rhizome that includes animals and air as readily as economists, well… wouldn’t that be lovely! I doubt this type of change will come to us as a packaged and purchaseable solution direct from web 2.0 corporations of the kind Mr.Gore invests in and supports, but I have no doubt that all of these contribute to a larger shifting discourse, a changing and more engages conversation at IT conferences like the one quoted from above… and if one voice can change a room…

Here’s a little clip of Al Gore at the Web2.0 Summit this past week: