The Information society

Where we situate our morels depends on what information we have come in contact with. Morals are taught to us at a young age, by any direct authority around us for example your parents or teachers. However, if these people teach you things which are ‘wrong,’ how would you ever know about it?

Aside from people around you there is always the in-direct authority, for example the government or media. So is the government’s stance where we should all position ourselves morally? The government, whose motives are driven by votes and commerce.

So the question remains, how should we define our ethics? In the modern world we need not be subject to only the beliefs of the people around us. The internet has created both a library and community of the world. Anything you wish to know about can be found out.

Now, learning can take place from a multiple of sources at the same time and from people who are strangers. This method though, tends to overwhelm the user with information. For example if you type ‘climate change’ into Google you get back 36, 200, 000 links and then each of those pages themselves, may have a minimum of three to four hyper-links. Leaving you with 108, 600, 000 options for information. So how is any human supposed to navigate this mass of information?

The answer is that people nowadays have become much better filterers and processors of information. However this has created a new problem, in that we get so involved in ‘finding the right information’ and ‘sifting through the junk’ that we no longer have time to sit and contemplate the information once found; we have become mechanized in a sense, changing our behavior to mimic technology.

Therefore in this world of information how does anybody get the message across?