Introduction

Potential of the Internet. The internet can do as much good for mankind as the printing press has done in advancing access to information. Already, the internet has made this world "smaller"; making it possible to have a truly global community in the future.

We should never forget however that the internet is a mere technology (medium); whether we realize its potentials will depend on how we put it into use.

Use and abuse of technology. An analogy that comes to mind is the origins of the "discovery and use" of nuclear power. Even if one can justify its role in ending the war with Japan, it was unfortunate that its first practical use by mankind was as a power for destruction. Thus, even if nuclear power has been put to good use in other endeavors, how could we ever forget what "evil" it can do to mankind? It did not help, that during the past few decades, we have witnessed some of the most horrible dangers of nuclear power -- Windscale in Great Britain, Three-mile Island in the United States, Chernobyl in Russia, the nuclear disaster in Japan and countless other incidents that have not gained as much media coverage -- all because of neglect or unwise cost-cutting measures taken to maximize profit.

16 July 2005

Langfia Ayeona
Mountain Province
Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR), Philippines

Dear Ayeona,

I visited your photographs in flickr.com and in your other website several times already.

What made your photos even more appealing to me were the words that came with the pictures. They stopped being just a set of pictures to admire, but a poignant story of a people in a community.

Most people in the world will never ever have a chance to visit your place but through your photos and words those who are sensitive at heart cannot help but be moved. A spiritual kinship develops. Even if it were only in the mind, the common bond that ties is the day-to-day struggle of mankind. What only changes are the colors of the skin, the places and the time. Underneath it all is man's quest, his eternal search for "the good, noble, beautiful and true".

As a Filipino therefore, it is the perspective that you conveyed quite well — through photos and words — that I wish other peoples of the world come to know us.

The letter, "One World", was written in response to one of the members of Flickr group (Museum Online). The dream that is "One World" however was one of my dreams all the way back when the internet was not even conceived. The seminal concepts for "One World" as an internet site is integral of a more comprehensive website: "Treasures of the Internet".