Our Last Freedom?

Around 70,000 years ago, the late stoneage, it is believed that mankind was split into two species, one in East Africa and the other in South Africa. It is thought that a climatological shift that caused a severe, long term drought in the area was the chief cause of the split. Furthermore, they think that during this time mankind almost became extinct and was reduced to an estimated population size of as little as 2000 human beings.

Somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, the drought conditions subsided and allowed mankind to reunite with a subsequent miraculous increase in population size. This heralded the expansion of mankind out of Africa to populate the entire globe.

Up until, approximately 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, and in spite of the previous unification, mankind has been living in a period of segregation, separated by geographical features and boundaries, such as oceans, mountain ranges and the immense distances between these scattered peoples. More recently, man has contributed further to this natural segregation by imposing elitist barriers comprised of the inherited traits such as differences in colour and physical stature (caused by the natural separation) and even more recently by the differences in cultures and beliefs.

Nowadays though, a lot of these obstacles have been removed, the immense distances have shrunk (my niece, in the UK, summered in Australia each year of her university degree course, something unheard of as little as 40 years ago). The natural boundaries are no longer a challenge and communication is now almost instant throughout the world. With the advent of technology and, in particular, the internet, not just communication, but also collaborations with individuals and groups from almost any corner of the globe are now possible, and indeed happen.

Most countries of the world today are now a diverse mixture of cultures, peoples, religions, and languages even business is now conducted in an international scale and it is becoming harder to determine which country the business belongs to, and, in spite of what we see happening around us, even the major religions are more unified, in agreement, and collaborate with each other than at any previous time in our history.

I believe mankind is in a transitional phase at this time, the problem with any transitional phase is that the transition itself usually causes hardships of it's own, but the end of the transitional phase is what we should look forward to, that is when periods of relative peace and stability happen. I also believe that the present transitional phase is the Reunification of mankind and we can, and should, expect some problems as mankind's diverse cultures and beliefs struggle to recombine.

You can look around and everywhere your gaze lands seems to show evidence of this. The last 40 years or so has produced an ever increasing rate of integration of human beings from every walk of life and ethnic background. So when you glance round today and are troubled by the problems in the world, take heart, transitional phases are just that, transitional, they do come to an end.

One of the most unifying trends of all, has to be the internet, it does not matter who you are, where you are, what colour, race, creed, or sex you are, the freedom afforded by the internet allows for each of us to, not only, have a voice but also to be heard, it allows us to work and play together with no heed to the differences.

As with all good things, freedom being one of them, some evil has to be endured and the internet is no different. There are some unwelcome sides to the internet that, unfortunately, accompany the freedom, however, as history teaches us, most of the bad can, and will, be controlled, if not completely overcome, in time.

The point of this article is to highlight some of the benefits gained from having an internet free from constraints (well, at least as much freedom as the press enjoys) and to contrast that with the ever growing rules and regulations being forced onto us on a daily basis by local and national authorities, by business; just taking flight to somewhere, to anywhere..., has become a nightmare of red tape, and if the internet is as unifying as I think it is, then it should not only be free from constraints but it should also be free, free from cost and available to each and every human being on the planet.

So..., if the title of this article is correct, and the internet is truly our last freedom, then we must try and make sure it remains that way... FREE!

Oh..., feel FREE to leave a comment.

Long live the internet!