Poster and the Matter with the Internet

Mark Poster – University of California, Irvine has a book out on _What’s the Matter with the Internet_.

The title is nicely ambiguous – it could mean it is a response to Internet critics – as in “What’s the matter with the Net?” Or it could be about the material of the Internet as in Form and Matter.

He makes a great start – writes about the “undetermined” nature of the Internet. He talks about the space/time of the Net. He has a chapter on the being of technology that has an interesting critique of Heidegger’s essay. He is trying to find a place between the instrumentalists for whom the net is just a tool and the critics for whom it is an evil.