The early milestones in information storage and retrieval can be divided into four basic periods, including the pre-mechanical age, the mechanical age, the electromechanical age, and the electronic age. In the pre-mechanical age that runs between 3000 B. C. - 1450 A. D., information storage and retrieval involved writing and alphabet communication. Here, petroglyphs, ideographs, and cuneiforms were used to store information. Petroglyphs referred to the sign or simple figures that were carved in rocks, ideographs were symbols that represented an idea or a concept, while cuneiform refers to the first written languages that emerged around 31000 B. C (Quinn, 2017). As early as 2000 B. C., Phoenicians had invented symbols that expressed single syllables, which the Greeks would later adopt and add vowels to. Input technology advanced during the ore-mechanical age to paper and pen as Sumerians began to use the stylus to scratch marks on wet days, Egyptians wrote on papyrus plants, and Chinese began making paper from rags to store information. Information storage and retrieval advanced to the use of output technologies such as books and libraries with religious leaders in Mesopotamia reported having been the earliest to keep books. Egyptians kept information and retrieve it from scrolls while Greeks folded papyrus sheets together vertically and bonded them together to store information.
In the preceding period, that is, the mechanical period between 1450 and 1840, the first information explosion began. The first movable metal-type printing process was invented around 1450 followed by the development of book indexes and the first widespread use of page numbers to retrieve information from books (Quinn, 2017). It was also during the mechanical age that the first general purpose "computers" were invented. Later on, around the 1600s, slide rules would be invented as the first analog computer. Other technologies that helped with information storage and retrieval sound this period include Pascaline invented by Blaise Pascal and Leibniz's Machine invented by the German mathematician and philosopher, Gottfried Willhelm von Leibniz.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Much progress would be realized in the electromechanical age where discovery on ways to harness electricity was advanced. During this period that runs between 1840 and 1940, information storage and retrieval involved using electrical impulses. The period marked the beginning of telecommunication with the voltaic battery around a late 18th century, telegraph communication in the early 1800s, and the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 as well as Morse code developed by Samuel Morse in 1835 (Quinn, 2017). Electromechanical computing began later with the Punch Card and advanced progressively in the build to the rise of IBM PCs and Mark 1.
In the latter period of the early milestones, electronic computing took shape and a number of generations of digital computers were born. It was during this electronic computing age that the first hypertext system would be developed by Ted Nelson in 1960s (Quinn, 2017). Nelson used the idea of cross-referencing to create clickable links on the Web known as hypertext links.
Rawls' Theory of Justice: Origin Position
John Rawls provided a social contract account of justice he called "justice for fairness" and the original position is a central feature of this account. Rawls developed Original Position as a fair and impartial point of view to be adopted by us in our reasoning concerning the fundamental principles of justice. Rawls explains that in adopting the original position, we are to put ourselves into the position of free and equal persons who have taken it upon themselves to jointly agree on and commit to the principles of social and political justice (Quinn, 2017).
In the Original Position, the main distinguishing feature is the "veil of ignorance". It refers to the impartiality of judgment brought about by the fact that all parties are deprived of all information pertaining to their personal traits and social as well as historical circumstances they find themselves in. However, the parties are knowledgeable about some fundamental issues such as the interests they all share in addition to knowledge of biology, psychology, economics, and other natural and social sciences. Rawls contends that the most rational choice of the parties is based on the difference principle which guarantees equal basic rights and liberties that are required to secure the fundamental interests of free and equal and to pursue a wide range of versions or conceptions of the good.
Internet Addiction
Internet addiction is mostly a creation of researchers who mistakenly equate the excessive use of the Internet to compulsion. As far as I am concerned, Internet addiction should lead to negative outcomes for the individuals who compulsively make use of the Internet. However, my personal experience tells me otherwise, despite the fact that my personal use of the Internet is more than 10 hours a day. I feel the urge to use the Internet as the primary research and communication tool, two aspects of my life as a student that I cannot go without. Therefore, to say that I am addicted to the Internet would largely be a lie.
Quinn in providing an expert opinion on the issue of Internet addiction observes that internet use is mostly positive and research findings claiming otherwise do not take into account a number of factors that contribute to addiction (Quinn, 2017). The author notes that computer use is mostly positive and so that does not make it addictive. The author defines addiction as the compulsive use of a harmful substance by one who has knowledge about the long-term effects of such usage. Additionally, from an ethical perspective, Quinn adds that individuals have the right to govern their lives and to take responsibility for their choices, one of which is Internet use for enlightenment.
Reference
Quinn, M. J. (2017). Ethics for the Information Age (7th ed.). Boston: Pearson.
