Essay 6

We want to protect ourselves from threats, but at the same time we are getting more and more interconnected to the rest of the world. In the book “Me++” William J. Mitchell compares two big cities Palma Nova in Italy and Manhattan in New York. In the city Palma Nova the citizens were building up walls to protect themselves from the attack and the evil in the outside world. With those walls the citizens were feeling protected and safe. Nobody was able to attack them except if they got tricked, for example from the history we know about Achilles wooden horse. In the horse inside were the soldiers ready to attack the city. The people from Palma Nova thought it was a gift so they open their gate, they were not safe anymore, and became vulnerable. With the gate open it was like their walls were down, their safety was gone, and they were attacked. Then in the book is mentioned Manhattan, modern big city in our own time. This city also gets attacked, but the citizens in the city cannot build physical wall to feel safe and protected. Most of the time from the attack depend what kind of defense to use. The attacks on the Palma Nova were physical, now in our time the attacks are different. They are attacks on our networks and connections to the rest of the world.
The city Palma Nova was sealed, but still had connections to the rest of the cities and villages. Now in our urban society through the networks we are connected to the whole world. For example Manhattan is connected to the other cities through road, water, air transportation. Each person is connected and depends on the network. Charles Moore states: “We have, as we all know instant anywhere, as we enjoy our capacity to make immediate electronic contact with people anywhere on the face of the globe…” (Mitchell 16). Our whole life depends on the network, we have network of transportation, energy, information and communication. By attacking one of these networks and bringing it down, it will cause big damage for the city and for us as well. Big damage can occur if a crucial link is attacked, when that link goes down then all of the links that were connected to that crucial link will crash. Therefore those crucial links are vulnerable, and that makes our society vulnerable too. Also by shutting down a node our whole network can fail. Similar to the different attacks, there are different ways how we can get protected. Our network is important because helps us to live our life more interesting, easier and saves us time. Because our networks are vulnerable we do need to protect them and make the right choice for our society.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant states: “Life is not the kind of experience you’ve had, but the kind of choices you’ve made. If you are always tried to do the right thing, then you are a good person even if things did not turn out the way you planned.” (Irwin 89). I agree and know that we have to make good choices and walk on the right path. If we get attacked then we cannot escape our fate, our destiny. However we have to try to prevent damage of developing more and damaging vulnerable links, and in addition damaging the whole network. Philosopher Richard Taylor states: “Fatalism is the belief that whatever happens is unavoidable.” (Irwin 91). For example in the movie “The Matrix” the Oracle encourages Neo to believe and make a choice, and to walk the path. Then Neo realizes he is the One and chooses to become the One and protect the other humans in the matrix. That was his fate and Morpheus and the other humans believed in him. We do need to believe in ourselves, and make a choice to protect ourselves, and people around us, we should have knowledge and experience to know if something is wrong with our world. Similar to in the matrix when from all the experience he had, Neo believed all his life was a dream until he woke up in reality. He was on a mission to save the human race. We also have to believe and to be saved, to know the difference between real and unreal, furthermore to know the truth. Most of the networks like the air transportation are organized around major hubs, so with the attacking one of these major hubs it comes to big and serious damage. The nodes, links and then eventually the whole network will go down. So these major hubs are vulnerable and it is more serious, and much more difficult to get prepared. From the attack on September 11, 2001, a lot of networks were damaged, like the telecommunication and the transportation network. That is why we need to be prepared for any attack and also protect our network. Only a week later after the attack on the World Trade Center, there was another attack. It was a different type of attack, virus attacked the Internet, and it cost economic damage. Now in our digital world we depend a lot from the technology, the Internet. By attacking that vulnerable network we will lose our connection with each other and the rest of the world. If we do not have the connections that define us as a person, we will feel lost in our own world.