DUSTIN HARRISON
Opinions Writer

Few inventions have had such a wholly transformative effect on the course of history as the printing press.

Its invention in the middle of the 15th century caused an irrevocable shift in humankind’s conceptualizations of self and world. It single-handedly allowed us to quickly and easily disseminate ideas to an audience much broader than our previous means of scribbling things down and shouting at each other had allowed for. This took access to information and ideas out of the hands of the very few and put it into the hands of most.

And as we know, knowledge is power, so as people became more literate they also became more liberated.

Over the next few centuries, as the circulation of mass-produced written works grew, so too did the collapse of churches, monarchies and other traditional institutions. Where would the Reformation have been without Luther posting his Ninety-Five Theses to the doors of All-Saints’ Church in Wittenberg? Where would the American and French Revolutions have been without the dissemination of the ideas in the works of Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire and others? Could the Scientific Revolution have taken off as it did without the collaboration afforded by having copies of theories and data mass-produced and distributed? I’m inclined to think things might’ve turned out a bit differently.

And as far as the printing press has taken us, the Internet is poised to take us even further. You and I are in the early stages of history’s next greatest era, the start of which has been catalyzed by the Internet. What the printing press did for the written word, the Internet has done for all other forms of information.

With every tap on our smart-phones and click of our computers we are ushering in the next phase of human history. For as great as the printing press was, it was limited in its capacity to affect change due to the physical limitations of storing and moving books, newspapers and magazines.

The Internet does not have this limitation; it is a near-infinite space for storing information. Not only that, we can store more than just the written word. As long as we can digitize it, we can store nearly any form of content and communication on the Internet.

More importantly, however, is that the Internet is free and open to all in its entirety. All that is required is the technology to access the Internet — which is becoming cheaper and more readily available every moment — and the freedom to use that technology. Considering it’s taken us barely two decades to get just under two billion people online, I’d say we’re fairing pretty well in doing that.

And yet, in terms of public usage, the Internet is still in its infancy. We’re still just cutting our teeth, barely getting over the funny pictures of cats, and yet we’re already starting to see the Internet drastically change how we operate and see ourselves in the world.

Why should I limit myself to local retailers when I have access to buy what I want from anywhere in the world at the best price? What use are broadcast networks, radio stations and music channels when I can go online and access any movie, show, song or video I want to, whenever I want to? As a business owner, what use are marketers and advertisers for me if I can connect to my clients directly through social networking and social coupon sites?

Probably the most poignant example of how the Internet has changed the way we act and think of ourselves as individuals in the world is provided by Wikileaks. By making available the war logs and diplomatic cables of the United States military and government, a handful of informants and a guy with a website have been able to thwart the diplomatic efforts of the United States of America.

Setting up a website and submitting something to a website are both easily within the grasp of most people. That is to say, the United States of America — arguably the wealthiest and most powerful political entity of all time — had its wrists slapped by a handful of people no more special than you or I.

If this is where we are after only two decades and with only a minority of people online, I am left wondering where we are going to be after two more decades of experience, with the majority of the world’s population on the Internet.

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