Monday, March 15, 2010

Twenty-five years ago

Not reading the mainstream press during Lent, I don’t know if anyone else has made anything of this juxtaposition. I only know of the news events that matter enough to get incidental mention in conversation so the following may be a cliché for all I know.
 
On March 7, 1985, “We are the World” was released to tremendous fanfare and celebration. Barely anyone in the press bothered to challenge the celebrities' claim that they in some sense were the world or their claim that they would make a difference. In practical terms any difference they made was so small as to be incapable of measurement.
 
On March 15, 1985 “Symbolics.com” registered the world’s very first commercial domain name on the World Wide Web. The event got virtually no coverage at the time. Twenty-five years later the web has changed our lives as much as radio and television did.
 
As always, capitalism has done more to improve people’s lives than charity.

No comments:

Post a Comment