Evolution of the Internet
Evolution is the process Charles Darwin described – the story he told – to explain the diversity of the planet. Evolution exists in nature as the interplay between linear natural selection and random events. This randomness necessitates a nonlinear model for exploring evolution as a whole, and as randomness is increasingly recognized as the dominant evolutionary force, "evolutionary schemas may be forced to abandon the old model of the tree and descent" (Deleuze 33). If we take a rhizome as an evolutionary model instead of a tree, this "connects any point to any other point" (Deleuze 35) and allows for nonlinear progression. Once the model for evolution is freed from its directed linear path, it can be applied to disciplines outside of biology.
The internet has evolved in much the same way as life on earth. Just as "all life on Earth... started with a single origin of life" (Mayr 21) and has grown increasingly complex, "the Internet grew from a single experimental network... to a globe-spanning system linking millions of computers" (Abbate 1). Both processes began with a single entity that turned into populations by increasing its complexity and diversity. While the "spreading out" of organisms on the planet is governed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the parallel "spreading out" of information on the Internet is the result of a different kind of entropy.
As populations and diversity increase, entropy escalates: in the internet's infancy, there were so few users that there was limited cyber-interaction among them (Abbate 84), but as more users signed on and more documents became available, there was further interaction and thus accelerated evolution. The same kind of order / disorder, expansion / contraction binaries that drive the evolution of life on earth can be applied to the evolution of the internet. In life, these opposing pairs catalyze speciation. On the internet, they create the kind of categories used in directories to organize information and by browsers to recognize different types of documents (HTML, PHP, PDF, JPEG, etc.). Whether the evolution of life and of the internet is occurring as a process moving toward "perfection" is irrelevant: both systems are in transition, suspended in "continuous flux" (Mayr 7) in a race toward ever-increasing complexity and diversity.
Both of these parallel processes must be considered rhizomatically. Neither the internet nor life has progressed along a clear line. Alongside and around the "main" trajectory of evolution, there exists "aparallel evolution" (Deleuze 33).
The topic of over-generalizing characteristics of a man or woman has become a controversial debate. While both sides have valid points, Monika Bartyzel, a freelance writer who created Girls in Film, a weekly feature on “femme-centric film news and concerns” at theweek.com, argues in her gender stereotype article “Girls on Film: The Real Problem with the Disney Princess Brand” Disney has gone against their own perception of a princess, leaving young girls to believe they are only worth value if they are pink, sparkling and dependent on a man.
It is important to know that Disney characters have played an important role in today’s society especially when the media is expanding over time. People would mostly rely on the media to encourage them to discover their identity. Parents are purchasing Disney films for the entertainment of their young one but little do they know that children will look upon the princess characters to shape their identity. It is crucial for parents to recognize the message and value that Disney films are conveying to their children and guide them to take on the agreeable identity and values. Ward (2002) have stated that the power of Disney animated film is so great that it “can
Convergence.” Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures 1.1 (2009): 9-30. Project MUSE. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
As children, many of us grew up watching Disney's films idolizing many of the characters as it was the biggest not to mention still is the most popular form of family entertainment. But by taking a closer look into these films we begin to realize that the Disney princess line, through their story lines and characters are setting up gender roles for children, essentially educating them on what society deems appropriate for their gender. Many of their movies often portray some stereotypical representation of gender, consistently depicting the heroine as the victim who needs help saving, playing the typical damsel in distress. For many years, the Disney Corporation has created a gold-mined with their princesses franchise by relying on gender stereotypes for many of their female heroines.
The media plays a vital role in displaying to society the roles and values that individuals should hold. The media is also a very powerful agent in demonstrating racial and gender stereotypes (Matyas 3). Disney plays a major role in displaying stereotypical things to young children. Some figures that have been very important and influential to young children for a long time are the Disney Princesses. There are many features about these characters that make children love them. However, after researching the topic, it becomes obvious that these are not the kinds of characters children should idolize. Many young girls spend much of their childhood wanting to be a princess. Disney’s portrayal of princesses makes this seem not so desirable. A princess is usually a young and beautiful girl who has an unnaturally thin body. She also falls in love very quickly and her only goal in life is to get married.
"An analysis of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark." Shakespeare-online.com, 2013. Web. 8 Dec 2013. .
Ng, R. and Rayner, S. (2010) 'Integrating psychometric and cultural theory approaches to formulate an alternative measure of risk perception', Innovation-The European Journal of Social Science Research, 23, 2, pp. 85-100. [Online] DOI: 10.1080/13511610.2010.512439 (Accessed 30 November 2013).
The study aims at showing how cognitive bias of individuals and leaders in position can influence risk decision making and how these biases can be detrimental to disaster management if not reduced or limited. It further discusses disaster planning and the need to incorporate cognitive biases into effective integrated risk management practices.
As Miley Cyrus was seen swinging naked across her wrecking ball, parents cringed at the thought of their children idolizing the once famous Disney star. Children often idolize many things they see on television and movie productions. At the forefront of that topic is the famous Disney Princess art form. Parents, as well as psychologists, tear apart the pure aspect of Disney and the popular Princess by showing opinionated conclusions of how the Disney Princess is considered bad for the youth of America. The fact remains that if all items are looked at through the figurative magnifying glass, then each one could be considered bad in some way. Considering all the negative role models in the world
The evolutionary theory is the concept that species evolve over time through the mechanism of natural selection of survival and reproduction. Natural selection means acting on the assumption that various living organisms were produced by genetic diversity and mutation. The evolution theory may also be referred to as the philosophizing science. This theory states that all phenomena are derived from natural causes and can be explained by scientific laws without reference to a plan or purpose.
...ent times, the television mediums has been slowly transitioning to digital format. Digital television has the advantages of high definition resolution and an electronic television guide. Despite these evolutions of the medium of television I don't consider it new, I see the television mediums as new features a result of inevitable technological advances. The evolution of the internet can similarly observed in this way. Packet-switching technology gave way to the ability to efficiently transfer files over the internet, this ability gave way to the dawn of the world wide web and faster internet transfer speeds lead to bigger and bigger files being transferred over the internet. From this it can be seen that the internet is not a new medium, it contains features which make it seem new. There are certain implications that are observed when the internet is seen as new.
Cultural theory propounded by anthropologists and sociologists, made their assertion that the social relationships of people determine how they perceive risk, and is based on the cultural biases developed on the grid-group typology (Thomas et al, 1990). This view was also supported by Sigve et al (2004). The four cultural biases identified in the article are the ...
The CEO of Cisco is actually well informed, as is expected. Convergence is exactly where the Internet is going, but it is also divergence. That is, billions of devices will be constantly connected to the Internet and the Internet will be spread across all of these connected devices. So we will have the stored pages on servers, plus the desktops and the billions of smartphones, laptops and tablets holding the current information available on the Internet at any given time, plus billions more tiny embedded chips communicating with myriads of other chips to control our environments and make life easier. What this means is that we will be living in a hypermedia world, and this will affect every corner of every aspect of our lives.
Evolution is a systematic mechanism through which the modern day has evolved from his ancestors. The Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is based on the premise that we all
Gabbel, Alfred S. "How the Internet Changed Our World." Science and Technology June 2004: 73-75.