I somehow 'ran into' http://www.internetisshit.org/ again, and it made me think a bit about what the internet has done so far, and if it's really shit.
Especially the next part caught my attention:"And look what we've done with it. Food wrappers and soap operas now tell us to visit their websites. Money is pumped online by people who can't even spell HTML. All manner of pointless and irritating content is continually poured down the infinite hole of data, unfiltered and over-appreciated. In accepting freedom of speech, we can't hide from its consequences - which in this case is millions of terabytes of unreliable information, badly designed and clumsily written. We have failed our own creation and given birth something truly awful. We're just too busy cooing over the pram to notice."The creator of the website has some good points here. A large part of the world wide web (I think saying 'the Internet' is somewhat misplaced) is crap, and the only reason some things exists is because it's relatively easy and cheap to put something online.On the other hand, I (and most likely very much other people) use the WWW quite often, and I assume I wouldn't be doing that if everything on it was crap. Social networking websites (how overhyped some might be) enable you to meet new (and potentially interesting) people you wouldn't have 'known' otherwise. Sharing information is easy and fast, even if there are enough places that contain false data. People with the same interests start communities you maybe couldn't start in real life, etc.The question is of course, if you'd call all this really useful. Maybe the writer is right and we should stop "aimlessly surfing for something amusing when we could actually be doing something fun"?What do you think?
Our growing reliance on technology has been happening since we started burning sticks on the savannah. That first flame was the ancestor of thousands of generations of warfare but it also represents unbridled innovation. It isn't technology that is bad or good but what we do with it. Technology has no morality.
The Internet as it stands is a cross-section of human nature. Whatever you see in the Internet is inexorably linked to your view of the Human Condition, whether you realise it or not. Arguing over this is pointless because morality is personal and intransigent. You can like it or dislike it but you cannot prove that your viewpoint is justified.Systemic misinformation, explicit deviant sexuality and incitement to aggression existed as much in the real world before the Information Age as they do now. Humans haven't found a new way to lie, fuck or kill for thousands of years. Every piece of content on the Internet has a human that created it. The Internet simply makes you more aware of the vices and virtues of your peers.The Internet is a supplement to Humanity, not a replacement.At least until we create technology that thinks for itself.Well, if you give a man a gun, he might shoot somebody. He might or he might not. But you won't know know unless you give him the gun. He won't shoot anybody without a gun.
I live in tough neighborhood, but there no guns here. Criminals insert the bullets manually. Its very painful.
^^ That is awesome.