I guess you could equate it to a certain level of DID/Schizophrenia - but that concept is still too one-dimensional to truly apply, as we are talking about very

I guess you could equate it to a certain level of DID/Schizophrenia - but that concept is still too one-dimensional to truly apply, as we are talking about very critical layers of a civilization here. The analogy drawn with immune system/cognitive issues assumes that the internet is a homogeneous whole (all participating parties are interdependent upon each other) - which they aren't. I'd more liken it to a neighborhood gang war: all parties rely on underlying infrastructure (the streets==DNS/connections, power etc) but can attack eachother. Aside from blowing up the streets(DNS/physical layer) this akin to two (or more) of the neighborhood gangs in a fight. You just cant hold a conversation with CC while he's getting pummeled. Yelling at him only makes matters worse. --- Though to go back to your meta definition of the internet turning on itself - thats kind of what information does; lies are destroyed by facts. In this case - we have wikileaks releasing facts which destroy the lies upon which public perception has been built. This is a good thing, albeit painful. In much the same way a cheating partner in a previously happy relationship would be. It sucks to find out, and you have emotional strife - but in the long term it is good to dissolve the relationship which is not based on real trust. I like the thought, as another put it her, that this raises the cost of censorship greatly. Wikileaks may be the only recourse we have against corruption in entrenched systems which are far too slow to change. While there is information that is important to keep secret - I think we've seen that there is too much risk in giving government carte blanche as has been evidenced for many many many decades. Our archetypes of governing should evolve much more quickly in the modern era, we should take the evolutions of thought and innovation that we are experiencing in the technology and scientific areas of humanity and apply them to other aspects of our civilization and then we might see some real progress. It would be great to apply Moore's Law here such that we can get over all this petty bullshit, become self sustainable and begin to colonize outside this beautiful planet before we destroy it, and ourselves.