FREE ESSAY ON REALITY MISUNDERSTOOD

REALITY MISUNDERSTOOD

Reality, Misunderstood
Day by day cyberspace is becoming a more intricate part of our society. As it does, we
rely on it more to manage finances, research, and to communicate. Communication in
cyberspace has developed a new community for people around the world. The ability to
freely communicate with people around the world through a computer has raised many
questions about the reality of cyberspace. Since it is a tool of communication that
millions of people use every day to converse with friends, family, and business
associates it must be considered a dwelling of reality. 
Although it seems like an abstract point, cyberspace is a destination millions of people
visit every day to transfer real ideas and real thoughts from one real person to another,
for this it must be a real place. It can be considered as an extension of many other
devices, such as the telephone. These devices have been used throughout history to
communicate and none have been considered to defy reality. Also, many things we consider
an integral part of our lives, which define our reality, like crime and terrorism take
place in cyberspace. On a more abstract thought, but still very real, cyberspace is a
home to our dreams. Many people's realities revolve around being something or someone
else. Cyberspace gives these people a home for real dreams and needs they don't get in
physically. Because it is new and uncharted by many people it seems too abstract to be
real, but it is an extension of many aspects of our lives and must be considered reality.

Since the invention of the telegraph we have been using machines to communicate across
states or even across the world. As technology has grown so have our means of
communication. The difference with cyberspace is that it is such a huge technological
advance that many people cannot grasp the fundamental idea behind it. With the telegraph,
telephone or fax, there was always a physical input and a physical response whether it
was Morse code, voices, or a print copy. Cyberspace is translated through a computer and
the only physicality is typing. The idea of a machine talking, sending, and returning a
message is fundamentally the same as a telephone taking our voice, converting it, sending
it, converting it back, and playing the message. But there are no arguments that a
message being sent through telephone wires is not a form of reality. One way to look at
it is that real information such as national secrets or death threats are sent over
cyberspace. If this place was not real these secrets that could destroy governments or
people would be no danger, but they are because they come from a very real place. China
is one place that understands this:
"China's no-nonsense-named State Bureau of Secrecy has issued a list of proscriptions to
Internet users aimed at protecting the government's control over the flow of information
and its monopoly and power. Internet users, including those sending e-mail or
participating in chat rooms are banned from sending or discussing 'state secrets' "(Parks
6).
China realizes that there could be a very real danger with cyberspace if people use it to
give up national secrets or plans. To control this the government is using screening
methods that are much like phone taps. Cyberspace is just another tool, but much more
sophisticated, we have developed to communicate with others. Given time to settle and for
people to grasp the fundamentals cyberspace will, like the telephone, be considered
reality.
In our society one way to define reality is through happiness and through pain. Pain is
often caused by crime, which is definitely infecting cyberspace. Every day there is
another story about a new virus or how a hacker crashed another computer system. This is
how people use cyberspace to inflict pain on others. Since cyberspace has become such an
important part of our culture it has become our government's job to protect us from these
intrusions. The same government whose job it is to protect us from intruding countries or
threats on our country. "At the biggest hackers' convention in the world, the cowboys,
gangsters and pioneers of computing world gathered to try out their new weaponry"(Booth).
These 'cowboys' are the Iraq of the computing world. "The proposal is the first
government wide strategy for high-tech attacks on critical systems by international
radicals or home-grown hackers"(Drogin). 
"E-pranks and e-terrorism are the price paid for the Internet's surging popularity.
Hackers will continue to probe and more often than not compromise computer systems. That
leaves police taking on the massive job of cyberspace stakeouts and computer users
struggling to erect new firewalls, filters and electronic early warning systems on their
networks"(Editorial 32A).
Now it is the government's job and our tax money that goes to fight for our security over
cyberspace. In this day and age many people live through computers, physically and
professionally, and these hackers inflicting pain on systems in turn inflicts pain on
lives and jobs. Some form of pain can be experienced in cyberspace, but it is the pain
people experience from the outside world that often drives them to cyberspace.
Cyberspace gives these people a place to get away from their lives in the outside world.
In cyberspace people are allowed to change their figure, appearance, and even gender if
they like. Although this may not seem like much of a reality, it is in their minds.
Reality cannot be defined as one simple thing such as only things we can touch, see, or
smell. It must be different for every individual. And for many this alteration of
themselves in cyberspace is very real.
"I was delighted. I felt I had found the new locale of human community--never mind that
the whole thing was being conducted in mere words by minds from whom the bodies had been
amputated. Never mind that all these people were deaf, dumb, and blind as paramecia or
that their town had neither seasons nor sunsets nor smells"(Barlow 165)
This new community Barlow speaks of is the same community millions of other people have
become addicted to. Perhaps it is because everyone is faceless, and you are only dealing
with someone's mind. But there is a definite tie between anonymity in cyberspace and
other people's curiosity. 
"The anonymity of the Internet allows users to become anyone or anything they want to
become and deceive other users with their assumed identities. One female user says that
she can not be taken seriously as a woman on the more technically-minded user groups so
she sets up a male account in order to communicate better. Some users assume new
identities in order to get the attention that they do not get in their lives"(Tamosaitis
145(3)).
In some instances, like Tamosaitis shows, the anonymity allows you to be more effective
in some fields of conversation where normally you would not be taken seriously. This new
world in cyberspace is exactly what millions of people need and want as shown by the
millions of faithful users in cyberspace.
Although cyberspace may seem like a very abstract idea to many, fundamentally it is as
concrete as a line of communication gets. It follows the same principles as the
telephone, the fax, or the ancient telegraph. The problem is that cyberspace is so new
and so advanced that even those who use it may not understand it. It allows people to
create their own reality if they please or feast of other people's realities. As long as
these thoughts are real to the designer they must be considered a part of, at least their
own, reality. Cyberspace also has its bad points, crime and terrorism. Reality would not
be complete without someone trying to destroy or sabotage what others use to survive in
that world. No matter what is said, cyberspace is a destination for millions each day. It
holds the real thoughts, real beliefs, and real values from one real person to another.