When you think about the Internet in view of national borders on earth, you might begin to feel a sense that the human race is outgrowing its own world. Humans are moving about internationally, and across hemispheres, such that it could be said the original purpose of national borders is in question. On a daily basis, using the Web, we also cross borders freely.

Web as New World

Perhaps you are willing to consider that the Web in particular can act as a kind of training space, where we are all gradually re-thinking of the planet, as a whole. Social theorists in the '50s and '60s and '70s talked about the coming global condition of connectedness, a high-tech village atmosphere everywhere, when the planet seems to shrink for humans.

Certainly, in a less grandiose vision of the future, the Web is helping us all integrate at our own local levels. As a new, alternative globe or map, the Internet has already allowed countless cities and areas to become destinations for people who are searching for exactly those kinds of places. In that process, people learn how to let their minds travel freely in this world.

Borders in Question

Why did we originally need guarded borders between countries? You could easily answer that question, from your basic history knowledge, and even common sense. Today, things at borders are much more complicated because money, goods, creatures and news are not the only things moving across the thresholds.

Cultures, languages, plants, ideas and ways of life are moving across borders very freely, because the physical borders mean much less to us. Our borderless online world may offer us powers and variety, in other words, that we shall begin to expect on the ground — including decreased awareness of people's nationalities. Aren't we all becoming global citizens?

How the Web Weaves Us In

If we're moving toward a borderless sort of world — at least in the ways that people feel about their world, in the beginning — then how the Web is guiding us in that direction is interesting.

We might say that we believe in the Web, as a reflection of our human world, for the reason that it is comprehensive. Enough people are sharing, creating and making use of online content that the library of life produced gives us confidence.

When anybody can come up with anything online — from learning a trade, to finding out about the next national border you could cross, or doing a craft project by yourself, to playing at a Tablet casino — it fulfills its purpose of bringing us all together, across our old borders and separations.