The Atheist
The Grammar Tyrant
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2006
- Messages
- 36,364
Having started off as seeing the internet as a fad that would fade away (apart from porno) then embracing it to the extent that I make all of my income through it, to now seeing it having taken over the world, I've finally reached the point where I think the internet is the invention of Satan.
Satan's rule is to divide and conquer - and it seems to me this has come to pass.
Douglas Adams had little time to invest in the internet before his death, but even in that short time, managed to get to the nub of the issue very quickly. Here is his view of what was happening: http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html
I think the most important note in that is his quote from Risto Linturi, research fellow of the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, who says: "Pervasive wireless communication will bring us back to behaviour patterns that were natural to us and destroy behaviour patterns that were brought about by the limitations of technology."
Trouble is, the behaviour pattern that we're going back to is tribalistic, and that appears to be exactly what's driving the internet right now - from fights organised by schoolkids to far-right troll communities disrupting elections, these things are growing around tribalism - the idea that "our side" is better than "your side". It also seems that there are only two sides any more - one is right of Genghis Khan, the other left of Lenin, and the positions are becoming more entrenched as the rhetoric ramps up.
Yet, that is only one of the many problems the internet has created. Others include:
Porno
I'm on the fence as to whether it's good or bad, and am open to evidence, but allowing an almost-infinite expansion in the availability or porn without a clue as to what effects it might have seems a dangerous thing to do.
Wasting time
10 hours a day spent playing on a screen isn't achieving much. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/index.html
I'd like to find some statistics on productivity per hour from 2000 - present, but it's proving difficult, and I need the numbers because, anecdotally, people are spending time on devices at work that has to reduce their profitability.
Misinformation
The internet has allowed exponential growth in conspiracies and pseudoscience. I don't know that the link between the ease of spreading false propaganda and the rise of antivaxers has been proven, but the numbers indicate an awfully strong link: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/2/15/14231266/anti-vaccine-movement-trump
Business/Education
While companies like Amazon & Google have risen on the back of the internet, and it enables efficiencies in accounting and other areas, I'm not convinced that overall, companies are more profitable as a result of the internet. The cost of security measures alone is more than most companies generate in additional profit from having internet-based commerce.
In education, the situation contains too many variables to say for sure that the cost outweighs the benefits, but a good example is my boy's primary school of 700 kids. They have two full-time IT workers, and I have yet to see any benefit from the school's connectivity. It doesn't seem to speed up or improve homework, and I don't see any way it saves teachers time, but it does mean they have two fewer teachers because the salaries go to a couple of backroom geeks.
Scams
This is the most human face of the harm, destroying lives and life savings - it's estimated that the UK alone is losing £10B a year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37677446
That number is increasing and is already about the same as the UK's estimated illegal drug trade, and about 1% of GDP: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/crime-threats/drugs
On that basis, we're looking at internet crime being worth around $750B a year, being roughly 1% of world GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product
That's all money that wouldn't be leaving the system if the internet didn't exist.
Wankers
I don't even need to add Zuck into this list, because the growth of the internet has given us a large number of people with massive profiles who would otherwise never have been heard of:
Peter Thiel
Elon Musk
Martin Shkreli
John McAfee, to name a few.
tl;dr
Satan's rule is to divide and conquer - and it seems to me this has come to pass.
Douglas Adams had little time to invest in the internet before his death, but even in that short time, managed to get to the nub of the issue very quickly. Here is his view of what was happening: http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/19990901-00-a.html
I think the most important note in that is his quote from Risto Linturi, research fellow of the Helsinki Telephone Corporation, who says: "Pervasive wireless communication will bring us back to behaviour patterns that were natural to us and destroy behaviour patterns that were brought about by the limitations of technology."
Trouble is, the behaviour pattern that we're going back to is tribalistic, and that appears to be exactly what's driving the internet right now - from fights organised by schoolkids to far-right troll communities disrupting elections, these things are growing around tribalism - the idea that "our side" is better than "your side". It also seems that there are only two sides any more - one is right of Genghis Khan, the other left of Lenin, and the positions are becoming more entrenched as the rhetoric ramps up.
Yet, that is only one of the many problems the internet has created. Others include:
Porno
I'm on the fence as to whether it's good or bad, and am open to evidence, but allowing an almost-infinite expansion in the availability or porn without a clue as to what effects it might have seems a dangerous thing to do.
Wasting time
10 hours a day spent playing on a screen isn't achieving much. https://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/index.html
I'd like to find some statistics on productivity per hour from 2000 - present, but it's proving difficult, and I need the numbers because, anecdotally, people are spending time on devices at work that has to reduce their profitability.
Misinformation
The internet has allowed exponential growth in conspiracies and pseudoscience. I don't know that the link between the ease of spreading false propaganda and the rise of antivaxers has been proven, but the numbers indicate an awfully strong link: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/2/15/14231266/anti-vaccine-movement-trump
Business/Education
While companies like Amazon & Google have risen on the back of the internet, and it enables efficiencies in accounting and other areas, I'm not convinced that overall, companies are more profitable as a result of the internet. The cost of security measures alone is more than most companies generate in additional profit from having internet-based commerce.
In education, the situation contains too many variables to say for sure that the cost outweighs the benefits, but a good example is my boy's primary school of 700 kids. They have two full-time IT workers, and I have yet to see any benefit from the school's connectivity. It doesn't seem to speed up or improve homework, and I don't see any way it saves teachers time, but it does mean they have two fewer teachers because the salaries go to a couple of backroom geeks.
Scams
This is the most human face of the harm, destroying lives and life savings - it's estimated that the UK alone is losing £10B a year: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37677446
That number is increasing and is already about the same as the UK's estimated illegal drug trade, and about 1% of GDP: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/crime-threats/drugs
On that basis, we're looking at internet crime being worth around $750B a year, being roughly 1% of world GDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_world_product
That's all money that wouldn't be leaving the system if the internet didn't exist.
Wankers
I don't even need to add Zuck into this list, because the growth of the internet has given us a large number of people with massive profiles who would otherwise never have been heard of:
Peter Thiel
Elon Musk
Martin Shkreli
John McAfee, to name a few.
tl;dr
