We are no longer the center of the universe

After reading a little about Ptolemy's and Copernicus's contributions to our now modern view of astronomy, I thought immediately about the affect that had on the enthusiastic supporters of Aristotle's theories on the make-up of the universe. Can you imagine what is would be like to hear for the first time that we, God's creation, are not the center of it all? keep in mind that this is challenging hundreds of years of tradition and one of the greatest thinkers this earth has ever known.

But what a change that must have made to society and culture. I then thought of a more recent advancement in technology and its affect on society and culture. That advancement i am referring to is of course the internet. I stumbled upon a book called "Free Culture: how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture..." by Lawrence Lessig. In the first few pages he makes an interesting point. It was said that the internet doesn't affect those off-line; that one could escape by just turning off one's modem. But Lessig argues that the battles of the Internet now affect the live's of those on and offline alike. 

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‪The point of Lessig's book turns out to be a little different than i had originally expected. His main argument is for the protection of artists and other individual's property rights online. The great "free music"debate for example. However, in his preface he responds to a certain individual's assertion that if life in cyberspace ever got bad we could always "drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drone" or just turn it off. ‬Similarly, i can imagine that an individual who just heard the Copernican model of the universe would simply want to "turn it off" or just escape this new and threatening view point and everything would go back to the way it was. However, just as Lessig asserts that the influence of the internet has already become so deep set in our culture that it affects people on and offline,  so too did the change in astrological science forever change the culture and society of both Aristotle followers and Galileo followers alike. 

Even as i use the internet to type this blog entry, I think I feel for the poor guys who would just like to escape and go back to the way things were when we were the center of the universe.