Just What Is Our Internet Future?

Via Randy Banrett at the Volokh Conspiracy comes this Wall Street Journal article on blogging, the coarsening of language, and internet culture in general.

I generally like Randy Barnett, but trying to simplify social interaction on the internet with quantifiable terminology seems just as simplistic as trying to understand American culture (whatever that means) through a brief glimpse in the window.

The internet, in its infant stages today, is in the midst of the ultimate state of nature. It's not just that there are so few extrinsic rules, but the limits and standards we place on ourselves are utterly lacking. It took human society hundreds, or thousands of years to develop to where we are today- the internet will take some time too. The real shapers of the future of internet culture are not going to be the 40-year old political bloggers, but the teenage MySpacers, and everyone else who has grown up in the wilds of the internet's "natural state."

I guess I'm just less interested in what the internet says about us and more interested in what this future is going to be.