As I sit here with the Discovery Channel on and my laptop in my lap, I start thinking of possible similarities between space and the internet. To the human brain, the internet seems like endless bits of information where one would never be able to find and locate everything. Space on the other hand, seems like an endless vast area of stars/planets and galaxies that we might never know the true extent of.

Both space and the internet are bound by technology and to increase these boundaries, technology advances are required. To find and locate new resources, both space and the internet require robots to search what we’re interested in. Of course, space tends to cost billions and billions of dollars, where the internet generates billions and billions of dollars.

In the next century will there be penalties handed down to planets who may have life and they try really hard to let their existence be known? Will the space robots dictate which planets should be known and which should not? Imagine a planet in the next solar system that has life identical to ours but is far more advanced with using existing resources to live and cure known diseases, yet our space robot notices a relationship with another planet it deems not so worthy, so it disregards this possible sister planet due to pure speculation.

I know the comparisons seem as far fetched as much as crop circles are being created by another life form on Earth (if you enjoy space and great images of the earth, pick a satellite and view the earth from this really great page) that our feeble brains have yet to discover, but when does the time come when people are allowed to make their own decisions? Why must we let computers tell us what is and is not right for us? I’m fine with computers helping us in our decisions, but not actually telling us we cannot read a particular site because it feels it’s not worthy of being shown.

Lets take this further with the example of our possible sister planet our space robot disregards. Take a website that has been put together for the sole purpose of helping people who might have a terminal condition. The author has a home remedy that he/she used and it completely cured their condition and wants to share it so others can maybe help themselves by reading their ‘how-to’. This individual makes no money on the website but wants to put a little money into promoting it and helping it be found by other similar patients, so they use whatever tactics they can to promote their site. Their funds are very limited so the cheapest methods are the only solution. Right when the website begins to appear for other hopefulls to read, a certain search engine giant feels their methods are not fair and removes the website from the listings and now no one can read this possible life saving information.

The point of this post is to illustrate how we allow our advances in life to be controlled by those who feel they need to censor what we see, along with their computers. I’m all for making sure information provided is legitimate and trustworthy, but if there is a planet worth learning about or a website worth reading, there should be no 3rd party involved in saying what can and cannot be found. In a perfect world, censorship, no matter what form it is in, doesn’t exist. Maybe our space robot will find that perfect world and we can travel to this wonderful land and escape through the goo-hoo-gates that currently have our world in its grips.