9/19/22, 11:52 AM An internet for the common good | Inquirer Opinion

Sep 19, 2022

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An internet for the common good

By: Joel Ruiz Butuyan - @inquirerdotnet 05:07 AM September 15, 2022

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One of mankind’s greatest inventions is motorized transportation. But it

eventually became mankind’s worse invention when the world allowed its
unstrained misuse. Mankind is again reaping the rewards of an even
greater new invention—the internet. And yet again, this remarkable new You May Like Sponsored Links

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In hindsight, mankind faced two options after the invention of motorized This Snake Does Something No Human Should
vehicles. There was the option to consistently build expansive public Have To Witness
High Tally
transportation systems (railways, trams, bus networks, commuter boats)
that would service communities. The second option was to leave people to by Taboola

individually fend for themselves in their transportation needs.

There was (and there still is) the opportunity for nations to recognize and
treat motorized transport as a public necessity that should be utilized to
serve communities and not merely privileged individuals. By analogy, the
options were no different from the following: either having a water system
that serves the entire community or allowing each household to dig its own
deep well, and; either maintaining a power plant that supplies electricity to
the whole community or leaving each household to buy its own generator.

We all know which direction the world took. Nations defaulted on their role
to make mechanized transport a community utility, and instead allowed the
unrestrained growth of private transport as vehicles of luxury. Vast areas of
our limited land resources have been devoted to roads and parking spaces;
huge chunks of public funds are spent annually to construct, repair, and
maintain roadways, and enormous quantities of the world’s precious
natural resources (oil, metals, and minerals) are exploited to produce and
run private vehicles.

There were benefits to mankind resulting from the other inventions and
businesses spawned by the growth of the private vehicle industry, but when
tallied against the costs to society and planet Earth, it’s been responsible for
more misery than happiness.

The wrong road, taken by mankind on motorized transport, is happening all

over again in its regard of the internet. There’s scant recognition of the
colossal importance of the internet on humanity, and its capacity to
immensely improve public welfare. There’s little appreciation of the role of
the internet as the new “superhighway” that has exponentially increased
mankind’s ability for virtual travel, work, education, and to do business.

In our country, this little regard for the internet as an epoch-defining tool
for public good is reflected in our government’s little interest in putting up
publicly funded infrastructure that provides public internet service to the
whole country, in the same way that electricity and water services are
regarded as public utilities. It is reflected in our government’s scant interest
in assuming the role of a regulator of our country’s space in the world wide
web. Our government has surrendered both these roles to private
enterprises, thereby giving business interest-free license to define the
purpose and nature of the internet in people’s lives.
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Just as mechanized transport was left to private businesses to market as
personal vehicles for luxury, the internet is being bequeathed to business
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9/19/22, 11:52 AM An internet for the common good | Inquirer Opinion

conglomerates
Sep 19, 2022 to exploit for commercial gain.

And just as the proliferation of almost a billion private transport vehicles

worldwide has not advanced public welfare, the exponential growth of the
world wide web is hardly fostering public good. In fact, the internet has
been breeding deception, hostility, exploitation, and widespread feelings of
misery.

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We need the world’s governments and all of humanity to work together to

repurpose and retool two of the greatest inventions of mankind—motorized
transport and the internet—to become genuine inventions that work for the
good of humanity.

——————

Comments to fleamarketofideas@gmail.com

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