The Internet Is Full Of B.S.

What is the internet? A virtual library of information and entertainment, available from the comfort of your own home or on-the-go? Your best friend, always there for you with a smile and some witty banter to lighten up your day? One giant conspiracy against you orchestrated by everyone from 17 year olds in Indonesia to government agencies in China, trying their hardest to steal your information and money and leave you powerless and isolated?

Sadly, as humans we have a tendency to credit or blame anything -no matter how benign - for problems that have more deeply rooted causes. The internet is no different. Like any other amazing invention created by man, it can be used for good or for evil. Like any other gift from God, it can be used to divide and conquer. Like any other tool you can use to further your God-given abilities, it can be used to further your own desire to harm and destroy without repercussions.

The problem is that the internet has become a forum for people who are comfortable in their own ignorance. They have few qualms about expressing it or believing it, even though there's no reason whatsoever that they should. All the things that are happening in the world, they attribute to evil forces (that actually exist), and the internet is just some unexplainable mystical force that these bad people wield over them.

With this in mind, it might be wise to go back and re-examine what exactly is the internet. Is it a tool? Is it an entertainment medium? Is it a psychological operation (like any of the others)? These are questions that I believe deserve answers before we begin to make sweeping judgments about "the internet", and before we begin to behave like scared children throwing tantrums when what they dislike doesn't happen to them.

I believe it is time that we as a society stop blaming the internet for our society's issues and start accepting that it is not inherently bad and that it is not the source of all evil. It simply meets our needs as human beings, the same way fire meets our need for shelter or water meets our need for survival. In fact, fire has been used to kill countless humans on many occasions due to its power to destroy (just think of all those fires used in witch hunts). Water has been used to keep slaves alive after their ships wrecked. There is no inherent goodness or evil in any tool, only how we use it.

When we look at the internet from a historical perspective, we begin to see how it has evolved and how it has been used by different people for many different purposes. Sure, there have always been those who use it to be cruel, but the threat of being found out is so high that they often get away with their assaults. The combination of the internet's anonymity and all of these attacks have led to a large population of people that feel free to say things they never would in person. No one knows who you are...and I mean no one. That is terrifying.

Conclusion:

For the purpose of this article I define the internet as an information/entertainment or psychological operation (psy-op) tool used by people from around the world. It can be used to communicate with people from all walks of life, and even to cause division amongst them. What you say or do speaks for you, but it also speaks for your nation and culture as well. When we post something online it is there forever (unless we take it down ourselves), no matter how horrible we may think we can hide behind anonymity.