Topic Battle

Data traversing fibre optic cables approaches two-thirds the speed of light, approximately 200,000 kilometres per second. A photograph of one's breakfast can circumnavigate the globe in approximately 133 milliseconds. The latency between London and Sydney, some 17,000 kilometres, measures roughly 250 milliseconds under optimal conditions.

This velocity operates at scales so far removed from biological experience that meaningful comparison becomes almost philosophically problematic. The shark's impressive burst seems rather quaint when measured against electromagnetic propagation.

The internet adapts in real-time. When mobile devices proliferated, responsive design emerged within years. When video bandwidth demands increased, compression algorithms evolved accordingly. The system routes around censorship, recovers from infrastructure damage, and incorporates new technologies with remarkable fluidity.

This adaptation occurs at speeds that make biological evolution appear effectively static. The internet of 2010 bears little resemblance to the internet of today.

The internet has achieved a form of recognition that transcends symbolism entirely: it has become infrastructural reality for over 60 percent of humanity. One does not recognise the internet so much as exist within its influence. It shapes commerce, communication, politics, and entertainment with such thoroughness that its absence would constitute civilisational crisis.

Unlike the shark, the internet possesses no single recognisable form, yet its presence saturates modern existence comprehensively.

The internet's intimidation operates on existential rather than visceral frequencies. It threatens not physical integrity but privacy, reputation, and psychological wellbeing. The prospect of digital cancellation, data breach, or viral humiliation produces anxiety responses increasingly comparable to physical threat perception.

Children fear online predators. Adults fear algorithmic manipulation. Governments fear coordinated information warfare. The internet's intimidation is diffuse but pervasive.

The internet's evolutionary trajectory spans merely five decades, from ARPANET's humble four-node beginning in 1969 to a network connecting over five billion users. Its development has followed a pattern eerily reminiscent of biological evolution: protocols compete, inefficient designs perish, and successful architectures proliferate.

TCP/IP represents a kind of digital DNA, a fundamental information-encoding system that has proven remarkably adaptable. Yet fifty years hardly constitutes a meaningful test of evolutionary fitness.