Today I witnessed something amazing. I was browsing one of my favorite sites (metafilter) and noticed that a post had been placed about a small plane hitting a building in New York. It seems that it was a small plane and it was an accident. While this event is newsworthy in and of itself what was amazing was how fast the mefi community reacted to the event.

Within seconds they had posted over 100 comments, I could refresh the page and 20 more would pop up, and as I write this more and more comments are being made.

In less than a minute I had links to live video of the event, more than three links to major news sources about the event, even flickr streams of pictures from the scene.

one really interesting comment was by quin

I know the connections are obvious: a plane, NYC, a building, but really, A U.S. official told Reuters there was no reason to believe the incident was terrorism-related. Are we going to get this kind of disclaimer about everything now?

‘A car crashed into a building. Terrorists not involved’

‘Cat stuck in tree. No terror link suspected.’

Are we really that frightened as a people that any time there is some sort of disaster, aircraft related or otherwise, we are going to immediately assume it was terrorists and have to be consoled later that is was just fate or bad luck?

Because if so, we are pussies.

Instant hysteria answered with an instant burst of reason.

In less than one minute I had gotten pictures, video, more than 100 peoples opinions on the event, the reporting of the BBC, CNN and others. All in less time that it would take to wash my hands.

Within seconds links to similar 9/11 postings were posted. So now less than two minutes after the event I have a historical context to place today’s events into. Fast information, fast analysis from many different points of view, even a comparison to past events. And now I am posting all of this information to my blog, only several seconds after the original post was read by me, spreading the information farther and faster still.

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we will get information, and the speed at which we will get it. Once computers get small enough and fast enough that they can be carried around with us sewn into our clothing (or perhaps even implanted into our bodies) we will have this sort of access to information all the time.

Our world is changing at the speed of thought, as computers and information systems get better and better we will be able to do more and more. If I was an architect and I wanted to know how best to design a building to withstand a plane crash I would have instant up to date information around the world on incidents involving planes and buildings. I could then chat with my other architect friends about possible designs, I then could log into my shared online virtual design space and mock up a few ruff 3D sketches of some buildings with the help of some people from the other side of the world.

Truly we live in interesting times, and they get more interesting every second.