Carlos Castaneda made human ties visible to spiritual questers in his Journey to Ixtlan series. Since the invention of the telegraph in the 1840s, instantaneous communication has been possible and wires connecting people to one another have spread like kudzu across the face of the planet. It is an increasingly networked world. Formerly, researchers were isolated and had to wait years for the work of others in their field to be available in published form. Now, with the Internet, researchers can communicate their results instantly to others whose minds are similarly engaged.
Collaborative effort has to some extent displaced solitary pursuit.
In this connection, the Internet has been called the World Brain. But humans are connected not only through their intellects but also through their emotional ties. Completely overlooked has been the amazing potential of the Internet to facilitate emotional ties among people no matter where they happen to be physically located and, thus, to draw the human family closer together. Internet technologies can be deployed to favorably condition empathic response in those who have offended against community norms out of a lack of appreciation for the effects that their criminal behavior has on other people. Technology is widely perceived as soulless and even as anti-human by some.