I’m about to admit to something that’ll demonstrate conclusively that I am actually, a giant nerd.

There’s a powerful scene during the conclusion of the excellent movie Ghost in the Shell, where the protagonist, The Major, near death, merges her consciousness with the Net. She took the final step in the process of becoming part of the vast and infinite information in the Cloud. Yep, that movie is a Japanese anime, and yes, I’m a geek.

More important than proving the depth of my nerddom, are the questions presented by the brilliant writers of the film in their attempts to address the Cloud, the Net, the Ether. As we push more information into the Net, where is the line between our digital and physical reality?

Taking a step back to quickly summarize the Cloud, it’s non-localized storage and processing accessible by fast wired or wireless networks, but that hardly tells us the real story behind the importance of the concept to our future. To put it in more relevant terms, an infinite amount of information about our world can be uploaded, stored and accessed anywhere, instantaneously and separately from the physical devices holding that information. No barriers except for the window, or screen, we use to view it.

But more than just an amorphous mass of data, this new age of computing is defined by bordered eco systems. Defining these borders and wooing users to live inside them, is becoming the goal of the most powerful technology companies in the world. They want to define and control access to a world full of the content we want most.

And it’s working. These eco systems are becoming essential to our daily lives, even our deepest relationships. The way Facebook influences the information we see from our friends, the way Google personalizes our search results making them different from anyone else’s; all subtly influence our world view.

Subtle changes to an algorithm may affect which news articles a person reads, shaping how she understands herself and those around her. A shift in the recommendation engine on YouTube may bring to someone’s attention a video that changes the way he looks at the world. A policy handed down from the leadership of Facebook may affect the ability for dissidents in the middle east to spread their message.

While our consciousness may not live in the cloud, these do: all the contacts on your phone, the weather predictions for the entire planet, nearly all the songs ever recorded, the genealogy of nearly every human alive, and even the majority of the updates you get about your teenage kids.

As we add more of our information and ourselves to the Net, as we rely more on the cloud to help us address every aspect of our lives the control of the eco systems in the cloud or how we’re able to access the vast and infinite information of the Net, will become increasingly important.

Technologists are in the best position to deal with the early stage ramifications of this new world, but our technology is beginning to cross into the territory of philosophers, politicians and sociologist. None of us can afford to ignore the ramifications of The Cloud on our lives.