This one question has led to more bad poetry than any other question known to man.
But we’re not here to navel-gaze.
This is the heart of the internet issue that I mentioned yesterday. Absolute cliff hanger, right?
(just say yes, this goes faster when you play along)
Meat Space
When you & I hang out in reality, it’s easy for me to know you’re you and for you to know I’m me.
I look like me. I sound like me. I feel like me, but we’re going to need to work on knowing when it’s ok to touch someone, ok?
This is so stupid-obvious that it’s kind of weird how we don’t think about it in a digital place.
When we’re online, how do we know you’re you & I’m me?
We don’t, really.
NOTE: Any clever work-around you think of right now like “we’ll just use a code phrase!” still relies on us knowing each other in meatspace.
Cyber Space
The clever ways that people got computers to talk with each other back in the 70’s are the same ways we still get computers to talk with each other today. They just do it faster.
And all the other cool stuff that computers can do together pretty much lay on that foundation.
It’s called TCP/IP. You probably heard about IP addresses before, right?
They’re nearly infinite.
And that’s kind of a bad thing.
I’ll explain why tomorrow. In the meantime, can you guess why?
Best thoughts,
~Jonathan