11:23 PM 9/2/2003
paper for class\
I Want to Know What You're Thinking" - Information Society
The information revolution has created new opportunities and problems. On 
occasion, it has even created solutions for the problems it has called. The 
information age is much like previous ages. It deals with a commodity. The commodity, though, is utterly different than the commodities of other ages; 
agricultural and industrial. The differences are as follows. The information 
is limitless. With agriculture and industry, the products are real. 
Information is not real, in the same sense. The second is, that, information 
can be falsified. This idea was somewhat taking place during the industrial 
and agricultural times, only on a much smaller scale. It was in the form of 
the selling of false medicines.
There are also a few similarities. For example, during the industrial era, 
machines created machines that were for creating. this also applies to 
information. Information builds off of previous information. during the 
industrial revolution, the middle and lower class would work the machinery, 
and the upper class would own or manage the workers. This created a class gap.
 The information age also has a tendency to created a class gap, only in the other direction.  The people with most information run the machinery and 
manage.  The non-informed get lower paying jobs. When the case is that the 
information is creating more information, the ones already informed will 
receive the new information. Thus widening the class gap. There are, of 
course, acceptations to this situation. One of not e would be Kazza, Napster 
and other p2p file sharing networks. It made it easy for the un-informed to 
take profit from the informed relatively easily. This leads me into the next, 
so called, problem. Information is easy to �steal�. It is because, 
traditionally, one takes in information with ones senses. This is still the 
case. So, information is as easy to steal in some cases as hearing and 
retaining any other sound. Culturally, it has created new things. Things to buy, particularly. Games, computers, software, broadband services. It has even 
created new mediums of for art to take place. I.e.: net art and flash art, 
such as praystation.net, or futurefarmers.com. It has enabled groceries to be 
ordered online directly to the house or apartment. It has created online 
stores with no physical locations, save shipping centers. I.e.: 
angryyoungandpoor.com. Or even auction houses like ebay.com and half.com.

In conclusion, the information age is the obvious next advancement for society 
to take.