1. Six Information Revolutions
Fall, 2012

3. Mediterranean
• Prior to the Highway – Western Civilization’s Waterway
• News from Travelers, Explorers , Soldiers
– Crusaders
• Commerce
– Marco Polo goes to China
• Athenians - Greeks
• Macedonians - Greeks
• Phoenicians – Lebanese
• Persians – Iranians
• Romans – Italians
• Carthaginians from Carthage – North Africa

4. Six Information Revolutions
• Writing
• Printing
• Mass Media
– Telegraph & Radio
– Newspapers & Post Offices
• Entertainment
– Movies, TV, Reality TV, 24 hour news coverage
• Toolshed Home
– Networked Home
– IPv6
• Information Superhighway

5. Greece, 400 BC (BCE)

6. Modern Map

8. The Ancient World
• Iliad and Odyssey – Oral Tradition of Epic Poetry
• Iliad – Story of Last Year of 10 year siege
– City of Troy in modern Turkey
– King Priam
• Helen & Paris the boy toy
– Helen: face that launched 1000 ships...
– Hector defender of the City
• Achilles the Demi-God (Half God, Half Man)
– Achilles Heel
• Odysseus
– Trojan Horse

10. Homer’s Odyssey
• Odysseus
• Ulysses
• Another 10 years coming home
• Harpies
• Sirens
• Between a rock and a hard place
– Scyllas and Charybdis
• Rescue his wife, Penelope, from suitors

11. Greek Philosophers and Kings
• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle
– Alexander the Great
• Hellenistic Philosophy
– Stoics
• Stoicism
– Skeptics
• Skepticism
• Old World Hippies
– Epicureans
– Epicurus
• Hedonism
• Epicure as Gourmet
• Irony

13. Greek Satire and Literature
3 types of irony
• Verbal
• Opposite of Literal Meaning is True
• Includes Sarcasm
– But verbal irony isn’t always mockery
• Dramatic
• Audience knows something the Actors do not
• Trojan Horse or Dexter
• Situational
• Opposite of Expected Situation
• Wizard of Oz

14. Types of Reasoning
• Deduction = detective work
– From Premises to Conclusion
• Entailment
– Armchair Philosophy
• Pythagorus
• Induction = in front of you
– Observation
– Sort into Types

15. Pythagorean Theorem

16. Mass Communication
• Writing
–Clay Tablets
–Papyrus
–Parchment
–Vellum
–Cloth Paper
–Current acid filled wood paper
• Portable, lightweight, durable

17. Revolutions
• Revolutions are often sudden and violent
• Communications revolutions are less violent
– More subtle
• Fang's thesis = social and political revolutions overlap
with the communications revolutions...
• Multiple forces coalesce to overcome the status quo
• Writing is an abstraction of speech
• Printing introduces economies of scale and
encourages literacy

18. Middle Ages and Renaissance
• Fang = Greek overemphasis on deductive logic limited
Europe's development during Middle Ages.
• Middle Ages in Europe were 500 AD to 1500 AD
– Rome sacked in 405 AD, Western Empire falls
– Renaissance – Late Middle Ages, 1400 onward in Italy
• House of Medici in Florence (Firenza)
• Galileo
• Michelangelo & Donatello
– Enlightenment, Early 1700s in Europe
• John Locke a Writer or Political Scientist
• Isaac Newton the Physicist
• Voltaire a Writer or Philosopher

19. Science Evolves
• Status quo
• Deductive vs Inductive reasoning
• Scientific Method
– Hypothesis
– Observation
– Hypothesis Proved or Disproved
– Designing and Experiment to Prove or Disprove
– Scientific Revolutions

20. Six Information Revolutions
• Writing
• Printing
• Mass Media
– Telegraph & Radio
– Newspapers & Post Offices
• Entertainment
– Movies, TV, Reality TV, 24 hour news coverage
• Toolshed Home
– Networked Home
– IPv6
• Information Superhighway

23. Revolutions and Rabble
• Swimming in a Sea of Information
– Television and Fear
• Literate & Illiterate
• Writers & Readers
• Entertainment & Multimedia
• Content Creators & Consumers
• Programmers & Programmed
– Possible to Search
– Possible to Know