Day 109
I have a love-hate relationship with South Park. Somtimes I find their episodes profoundly uninteresting, and their political messages to be boringly libertarian and artificial. But, occasionally, they will offer pure gold. In this week's episode the internet has gone down nationally, prompting a crisis. Stan's dad stays at a refugee camp with just one computer for thousands of people, and requests a special favour from one of the organisers:
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Randy: Excuse me. I need to, uh, have some private internet time.
Red Cross Worker: Look, we're just trying to get by here. Everyone's gotta take what they can get it.
(Randy pulls the worker aside.)
Randy: I haven't jacked off in over two weeks.
Red Cross Worker: So, jack off.
Randy: I need the internet to jack off. I got used to being able to see anything at the click of a button, you know. Once you jack off to Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy!
---
Oh Randy. Now I won't be commenting on the porn today (sorry everybody), but I will suggest that the point made there is a very broad one. The internet offers /everything/ instantly, and it is difficult to adjust when it is taken away. I very much love to read, but I can genuinely feel the impact of the internet on my mind when I am reading for extended periods of time (ie. 3+hours). A part of me wants to read faster, or even just look up the plot on the internet! Thus, ruining the whole point of reading in the first place.
But such is the nature of becoming accustomed to particular activites on the whole. The idea that we can retain our nature in spite of making circumstances into habits is a misnomer. Once we habituate ourselves into certain ways of life, certain ways pf spending time, it is very difficult to change; even more difficult to go back.
And as Aristotle tells this can either be a good thing depending on just what we habituate ourselves into doing. If we make habits of doing the right things in life (ie. virtuous things), we're all set to go when it comes to finding happiness. If we make habits of unvirtuous things we're in big trouble.
I find the internet a tremendously saddening place. The sheer volume of opportunity that thie medium has to change the world for the better; to spead knowledge, to teach and connect and to break down borders between the younger generations of countries whose older generations insist there must be conflict and difference; the opportunity is there, ready for the taking.
But what have we done with thie grand medium? Well, take a look around, note what is most popular. Porn pervades; the vast majority of all internet traffic is to sexually oriented sites. Which is shocking, since according to just about everyone I've met, nobody looks at it.
And the rest essentially caters to our other deeper and less flattering proclivities. Sex, gambling, violence, materialism, 30-second entertainment, and all the rest. The things we wish not to tell the world that we secretly love (and hate to love), the internet offers to us en masse.
What troubles me most as a thinker/writer (at least that's what I like to believe) is the extent to which we have a medium where people are no longer accountable for their words, on account of their anonymity. The only other public medium of this kind I can think of is the stall wall in public bathrooms, and the similarity between those and the comment sections of youtube videos is uncanny.
I read hate and profanity, uttered uncontrollably as though built up deep within the psyche. Is this what we really are today? Is the accountability of social relationships the only thing that keeps us from devolving into horrid little beings of base inclination?
These are not rhetorical questions; I pose them that you may ponder them yourself, if interested.
---
Randy: Excuse me. I need to, uh, have some private internet time.
Red Cross Worker: Look, we're just trying to get by here. Everyone's gotta take what they can get it.
(Randy pulls the worker aside.)
Randy: I haven't jacked off in over two weeks.
Red Cross Worker: So, jack off.
Randy: I need the internet to jack off. I got used to being able to see anything at the click of a button, you know. Once you jack off to Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy!
---
Oh Randy. Now I won't be commenting on the porn today (sorry everybody), but I will suggest that the point made there is a very broad one. The internet offers /everything/ instantly, and it is difficult to adjust when it is taken away. I very much love to read, but I can genuinely feel the impact of the internet on my mind when I am reading for extended periods of time (ie. 3+hours). A part of me wants to read faster, or even just look up the plot on the internet! Thus, ruining the whole point of reading in the first place.
But such is the nature of becoming accustomed to particular activites on the whole. The idea that we can retain our nature in spite of making circumstances into habits is a misnomer. Once we habituate ourselves into certain ways of life, certain ways pf spending time, it is very difficult to change; even more difficult to go back.
And as Aristotle tells this can either be a good thing depending on just what we habituate ourselves into doing. If we make habits of doing the right things in life (ie. virtuous things), we're all set to go when it comes to finding happiness. If we make habits of unvirtuous things we're in big trouble.
I find the internet a tremendously saddening place. The sheer volume of opportunity that thie medium has to change the world for the better; to spead knowledge, to teach and connect and to break down borders between the younger generations of countries whose older generations insist there must be conflict and difference; the opportunity is there, ready for the taking.
But what have we done with thie grand medium? Well, take a look around, note what is most popular. Porn pervades; the vast majority of all internet traffic is to sexually oriented sites. Which is shocking, since according to just about everyone I've met, nobody looks at it.
And the rest essentially caters to our other deeper and less flattering proclivities. Sex, gambling, violence, materialism, 30-second entertainment, and all the rest. The things we wish not to tell the world that we secretly love (and hate to love), the internet offers to us en masse.
What troubles me most as a thinker/writer (at least that's what I like to believe) is the extent to which we have a medium where people are no longer accountable for their words, on account of their anonymity. The only other public medium of this kind I can think of is the stall wall in public bathrooms, and the similarity between those and the comment sections of youtube videos is uncanny.
I read hate and profanity, uttered uncontrollably as though built up deep within the psyche. Is this what we really are today? Is the accountability of social relationships the only thing that keeps us from devolving into horrid little beings of base inclination?
These are not rhetorical questions; I pose them that you may ponder them yourself, if interested.
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