| ▲ | jstanley 3 hours ago | |||||||||||||
That's like asking of the Internet "communication for whom?" The vast majority of bytes sent over the internet are neither from nor to a human writer or reader. It turns out that humans are not a necessary component in communication, although that proposition would have sounded very weird even 50 years ago. Why is it so hard to imagine that humans may not be a necessary component in the economy? | ||||||||||||||
| ▲ | magicalist 3 hours ago | parent [-] | |||||||||||||
I feel like I might be missing the point of your comment. > The vast majority of bytes sent over the internet are neither from nor to a human writer or reader. I don't believe that's right. Without even breaking down the remaining percentage, aren't the majority of bytes for video? > It turns out that humans are not a necessary component in communication, although that proposition would have sounded very weird even 50 years ago. But these bytes are in service of a human? Unless we're talking like intermediate steps which seems kind of vacuous. Meanwhile whales sing to each other, birds too, bees are dancing to communicate food sources... But if a large number of bytes were being transmitted on the internet from no one and to no human benefit, "communication for whom?" seems like a very reasonable question. | ||||||||||||||
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