The promises and disappointments of the Internet

Jamal

Now, a rant.

The pioneers of the World Wide Web thought it would usher in an era of people power and the free flow of knowledge. Serious journalism would be accessible to all, freed from its proximity to government. Nation states would become obsolete and social hierarchies would be dissolved. And more mundanely, but significant to my own experience: early in the twenty-first century it seemed that emerging conventions in web site and browser design would foster a professional approach to online publication adhering to standards that would ensure a pleasurable and accessible experience for all the users of the web.

As things turned out, it's clickbait, slow load-times, sophisticated but bad design, innovatively annoying adverts, kitsch, Twittermobs, conspiracy theories, disastrous social media revolutions, and increasing monopolization by big capital.

With the fragmentation of information and journalism, authority, expertise, training, and knowledge are held in suspicion ("I don't trust the mainstream media"). At the same time, the web has enabled people to retreat from the confrontation inherent in real communities into discussion groups and online communities of like-minded people, i.e., people with the same beliefs. At its most extreme this leads to any intellectual challenge being seen as an act of violence. Perhaps even the popularity of "safe spaces" in universities is connected with this.

The original Dark Ages, it turns out, weren't really all that dark; the period has been unfairly maligned by anti-clerical propagandists. But that doesn't mean we couldn't experience a real Dark Ages, in which you go to David Avocado Wolfe for your cancer treatment, to Jim Carrey for advice on how to protect your children from measles and polio, to David Icke for your lessons in geopolitics, and open up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion--which has made a web-enabled comeback--to learn about the recent history of the Jewish people.

So like the Order of Leibowitz, I see our role at TPF growing into nothing less than the preservation of civilization.

Thorongil

I would add pornography to the list of the Internet's ills. Its effects, especially on young people, I think are being greatly understudied and underestimated.

I would rather a world without all this technology, to be honest. A world perhaps not too dissimilar to the Dark Ages.

So like the Order of Leibowitz, I see our role at TPF growing into nothing less than the preservation of civilization. — jamalrob

You have my sword.

OglopTo

I like the easy access to (most) information provided for by the Internet.

What I think is causing a lot of disappointment is, sorry for the lack of a better term, the horde of ignorant people doing their thing. Their presence would destroy any pre-conceived romantic setup. I'm not blaming them entirely for being so; there sure are systemic problems. But it doesn't change the fact that while their activities help one to learn more about the human condition, it can also get really really annoying.

BC

The pioneers of the World Wide Web thought it would usher in an era of people power and the free flow of knowledge.

> era of people power
> free flow of knowledge
> serious journalism accessible to all
> nation states would become obsolete
> social hierarchies would be dissolved
> emerging conventions would ensure a pleasurable and accessible experience for all — jamalrob

That is rather a lot of transformation to expect in 25 years. Expecting all these things from the Internet is similar to the early high expectations for photography, telegraph, telephone, recorded sound, radio, and television. Wired and broadcast communications have had huge benefits, and some drawbacks, true enough. But so did Johannes Gutenberg's printing press. Both the sublime and the fecal would end up in book stalls.

It may be that electronics will yet deliver but more likely, counting on wiring schematics and total digitalization of everything to deliver the goods will be a non-starter. That's because the listed benefits of the Internet derive from social activity, not from bytes and bits flowing along wires or through the air.

To the extent that the Internet improves social activity, it can be a good thing. But freedom and totalitarianism are both outcomes of human social activity. To the extent that the Internet fosters acedia, alienation, angst, anomie, atomization, and all that, it is a bad thing. But "all that" depends on individual and social actions.

We all need to get out more to mingle, mix, socialize, gossip, agitate, organize, argue, make love, make war, make peace--real stuff, not virtual reality.

Cavacava

The red or the blue pill?

The internet is radically democratic, and it has taken on the status of almost a birth right. A journalist with the internet can reach people far removed from the paper's local circulation and it gives voice to people who would never be heard otherwise.

Ads are problematic. I installed Ad Blocker, now several sites see that you have Ad Blocker and limit your viewing. There appear to be new ad blockers coming out that claim to be invisible, but I have not tried them yet.

As far as porn goes, I think it is healthy. It enables fantasy, the blue pill. There is a study I have read that suggests that societies which have very liberal attitudes toward porn also have less problems with rape, pedophilia and other real problems, the red pill.

http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2010to2014/2010-porn-in-czech-republic.html

Thorongil

As far as porn goes, I think it is healthy. — Cavacava

Bullshit.

Thorongil

We all need to get out more to mingle, mix, socialize, gossip, agitate, organize, argue, make love, make war, make peace--real stuff — Bitter Crank

No we don't. Everything you mentioned is superfluous garbage. People need to read, think, and be compassionate. All else is howling in the void.

BC

No we don't. Everything you mentioned is superfluous garbage. People need to read, think, and be compassionate. All else is howling in the void. — Thorongil

"Life together" is howling in the void?

How do you suppose the people of the middle ages carried out their lives, if not by mingling, mixing, socializing, gossiping, agitating, organizing, arguing, making love, making war, making peace, etc? Literacy levels weren't very high in the middle ages, so they weren't doing a lot of reading. As for compassion, one has to be in real personal contact with other people in "life together" to be able to exercise compassion. (That's still true.)

Life in the middle ages, at least where it can be documented, wasn't all that bad, at least in good weather and between outbreaks of major illness, crop failures, etc. People sat together, ate together, talked, laughed, danced, worked, all that real stuff.

BC

I would add pornography to the list of the Internet's ills. Its effects, especially on young people, I think are being greatly understudied and underestimated. — Thorongil

Pornography hasn't been understudied. There have been efforts to nail down the effects of sexually explicit, and explicit violent material, for many years, without conclusive results. I like porn, and my guess is that yes, it probably does have effects on young people, just like reading Jane Austin or becoming very interested in mycology or baseball has effects on young people. I'm not sure what the effects are, of course, and nobody else does either.

Pre-pubertal children should absolutely not be surfing the XXX Internet; maybe children should not peruse hard core porn before they are...13? 14? 15? At some point, though, like it or not, porn is available and has been available in one form or another since sometime in the mid-20th century. Teen agers (boys, especially) will, sure as the day is long, use it for masturbation. IF they don't mingle, mix, socialize, rub up against each other, and so forth, that's about all they will be doing. Elites had access to porn. It could be explicit, but it was drawn rather than photographed.

Films depicting (not documenting) gang rapes, S&M, etc. should be reserved for consenting adults.

One certain effect of pornography is that it defines what sex is for the uninformed. That's why younger children shouldn't be exposed to porn -- they are not biologically, psychologically, or socially ready yet. Once they are ready, it would be much better if they saw porn devoted to basic heterosexual or gay sex. Save the four-ways, double entry, S&M, and all that for a bit later. Young people should have good, ordinary, vanilla sex before more... exotic experiences.

Cavacava

↪Thorongil

If you go to Las Vegas to try your luck, are you a gambling addict? No, I don't think so, but a small percentage of those that do go there do have a problem.

If you like a draft beer in the evening, does that make you an alcoholic, no but if you can't stop drinking then you have a problem.

Moderation is the key, to enjoyment. Too much of most anything can be harmful or addictive.

The study I cited looks the effect on a society where porn was previously rigorously censored. The Czech Republic and it

"... found in all other countries in which the phenomenon has been studied, rape and other sex crimes did not increase. Of particular note is that this country, like Denmark and Japan, had a prolonged interval during which possession of child pornography was not illegal and, like those other countries, showed a significant decrease in the incidence of child sex abuse."

I am not denying porn's addictive potential, no more than I am saying that drinking, gambling or other potentially addictive behaviors cannot be harmful. What I am suggesting is that such fantasies in normal adults is not harmful, rather they are healthy.

_db

I would rather a world without all this technology, to be honest. A world perhaps not too dissimilar to the Dark Ages. — Thorongil

I mean... you don't have to use the internet...

Technology has been and is the best way of improving the quality of life for human beings.

Had you lived in the Dark Ages, you would either have been (likely unimportant) priest or a serf/peasant on the estate of your lord, tilling the land, or maybe a liege knight of a petty king. You apparently had more free time back then, but then again there wasn't much to do, education was little to none (so much was lost in the sacking of Rome and the burning of Alexandria), income was little to none, life expectancy was mid forties to fifties, medicine was herbal and inefficient, pain killer was practically non-existent (alcohol was the only real one known), sanitation was quite relaxed in comparison to today (especially in cities and castles), and depending on where and when you lived you had to deal with the very real threat of invasion, or being conscripted (since you are a male), or dying in childbirth (if you're female), or plagues, not to mention the general superstition and irrational thinking that you of all people would have abhorred. Even the Catholic Church was filled with superstitious priests (it was a religion after all), corrupt higher-ups, and only a select few actually knew how to read and write and even less did philosophy. You're chances of being an Aquinas, Anselm, Augustine, or the Medieval Schopenhauer would be negligible.

All in all the Dark Ages would not have been like an extended camping trip in the wilderness. So many people fail as ascetics, or just hermits, because they aren't able to let go of all the comforts of modern life. There's a lot of trouble that comes along with these comforts, but I think it would quite decadent to say that these technological comforts are bad when you're currently benefiting from them.

Mayor of Simpleton

The pioneers of the World Wide Web thought it would usher in an era of people power and the free flow of knowledge. — jamalrob

I feel here's the foundation of the problem.

Did the pioneers of the World Wide Web simply assume that the people could handle this power much less possess knowledge to let free to flow?

How often were they out of the lab?

Meow!

GREG

With the fragmentation of information and journalism, authority, expertise, training, and knowledge are held in suspicion ("I don't trust the mainstream media"). — jamalrob

With regards to the mainstream media, in some cases, rightly so. Need I provide examples?

BC

Bullshit. — Thorongil

One theory is that some people are prone to becoming "addicted" to whatever gives them pleasure, be that drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, exercise, pornography, etc. Couple that with the tendency of some people to behave impulsively or in obsessive/compulsive patterns, quite apart from any addiction. "Some people" is a small minority of the population as a whole. Most people occasionally use drugs or drink alcohol; gamble; have sex; look at pornography, and so forth. They find them pleasurable, but not so compelling that they become addicted.

If 10% of the population becomes "addicted"or "dependent" or "compulsively attached" to drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography, and so on, the 90% who do not need not be "protected" from exposure.

I understand the desire of persons who have been harmed by addictive substances (directly or indirectly) to restrict access to adults. It is unreasonable, though, to restrict access to everyone because some people are harmed.

Thorongil

How do you suppose the people of the middle ages carried out their lives — Bitter Crank

I didn't say I wanted to live in the Middle Ages exactly as it existed.

I mean... you don't have to use the internet... — darthbarracuda

And I'd rather not, and in fact, my plan for the future is to be independent and financially stable enough so that I can drop kick this stupid machine out the window. At the moment, however, I have to use my computer and the Internet.

you would either have been (likely unimportant) priest or a serf/peasant on the estate of your lord, tilling the land, or maybe a liege knight of a petty king — darthbarracuda

No, I would have been a monk.

All in all the Dark Ages would not have been like an extended camping trip in the wilderness. — darthbarracuda

Ditto my reply to BC above.

Thorongil

They find them pleasurable, but not so compelling that they become addicted. — Bitter Crank

I find this dubitable. What counts as addiction? Some shrink putting a stamp on your forehead? I think we're living in unprecedented times, when adolescents and adults, mostly males, and virtually all of them, can and do view as much sex and, from a biological perspective, potential mates as they want, something which they haven't been able to do in the 100,000+ years of our evolution. How many who look at porn would be able to go cold turkey at the drop of a hat? Not many. Head on over to the reddit NoFap page to understand just how difficult that is for many people. They are slowly realizing that pornography addiction is much more powerful, widespread, and insidious than they first realized.

If everyone is an addict, then no one is an addict. The standards of sexual addiction have dropped to such an extent that it is not difficult to come across soft core porn on television ads for general audiences.

BC

No, I would have been a monk. — Thorongil

It's not too late. Even though the Middle Ages are over, some of the institutions spawned back then are still in business. You can still become a Benedictine monk, live a monastic lifestyle, wear a dark brown wool robe, and practice poverty (been there, done that), chastity (horrors) and obedience (double horrors). You could even be a cloistered monk and never have to type www again. (Even cloistered monks have web pages these days ... http://www.carmelitemonks.org)

Thorongil

↪Bitter Crank

One does not simply join a monastery. One has to join a Catholic or a Buddhist or an Eastern Orthodox monastery. I am not ready to accept the doctrinal commitments incumbent on me were I to join one of these. I also have the temperament of a scholar, not a monk. In the Middle Ages, monks were the scholars, so that's partly why I said I would have been one. One must give up all of one's possessions to join a monastery, including one's books. I haven't even completed my book collection yet, so I couldn't join one anytime soon. Additionally, some of the books on my list would better inform such a decision, such that I would want to read them first. Lastly, I have a good bit of student debt, and most monasteries do not accept one with debt, and even if they do, I wouldn't feel comfortable burdening them with it.

Wayfarer

I agree with the OP *except* that we have crossed the Rubicon already, there's no conceivable way of going back. Besides I was lucky enough to earn a good living for two years as a tele-commuter, and may do that again, but it would be impossible without the net. I was lucky enough to catch the Internet boom at a point in my career where I could eke out a living in technology, and shouldn't bite the hand that feeds me, but I so see the dangers.

I agree that porn is a scourge but I know from hard experience that criticizing porn on an internet forum is like criticising beer in a pub.

There was a television documentary in Australia about 4 year ago about internet-enable criminal activities, and it was truly frightening. The hard-bitten federal cop in charge of the policing efforts was in no doubt that internet malfeasance posed a real and present danger to the social order; he said the day would come when therre would be talk of cutting off access to it. The Dark Web is a truly scary global ciminal conspiracy, I'm betting we don't know 1% of what is going on.

Just last night, the national census was knocked off line, by hackers, for fun. (Mind you, they should have stuck with paper.)

Thorongil

I agree that porn is a scourge but I know from hard experience that criticizing porn on an internet forum is like criticising beer in a pub. — Wayfarer

Zing! I might have to use this one....

OglopTo

That's because the listed benefits of the Internet derive from social activity, not from bytes and bits flowing along wires or through the air. — Bitter Crank

I like this.

And I guess, by extension, everything that mankind gets its hold of and how it's used, reflects the condition that he is in -- there's a lot of potential for something great but at the same time lost, alone, and without any particular direction.

Wosret

The internet is for porn, and stealing intellectual property. Anything else is obscene.

The Great Whatever

I grew up on the internet. For me it wasn't an appendage or a tool but a fact of life, so I can't judge myself apart from it. I largely agree that most of its promises have disappointed in the way most of life's promises do. But what it offers is the possibility, open to those who look for it, to get what you wouldn't have access to before.

For those willing to listen to the mainstream media to begin with, the internet is not going to ameliorate that defect. But for those who had no inclination to begin with, it offers new and exquisite pleasures: fringe thinkers, social outcasts, dispirited academics and reconstructionist cults (along with storage of mainstream intellectual life, of the kind published in Mind). There are places on the internet that have taught me things about people that I just couldn't have learned otherwise. No one who learns of the existence of a Christian Weston Chandler or Henry Darger, and absorbed what they've done, rather than dismissing it, can look at the world in the same way. It's given me an appreciation for how broad and bizarre human experience is. There is also a post-ironic kind of discourse that only occurs on the internet, and that can really become your bread and butter once you get the hang of it, and make every other mode of human interaction look like socially retarded trash, or culturally dated.

I agree about pornography, though. I consumed a large amount of it as a teenager, much of it not at all socially appropriate, and I hit a backlash at some point in the last few years. I can only speak for myself, but on me it was a bad influence, a bad experience, and helped devalue sex and life.

Wayfarer

It would be interesting to hypothesise as to what the reaction would have been a decade or so back, if some technology company had announced that in the near future, every individual (including children) would be provided with interactive touch-screen devices which gave them unlimited access to any kind of pornography - no ID, credit card, or other credentials required. If it had actually been spelled out, there probably would have been an uproar. But it wasn't stated - it simply happened, came in 'under the radar' with all the other massive changes that the culture went through in that period. So now it has been thoroughly normalised, a fact of life. And sure, life goes on, people seem to be coping OK, but I do wonder what the long-term consequences are. And not in an abstract, sociological sense - I suspect there are many individuals who are going to suffer as a result, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, because it's very insidious.

Sure, we also have access to uncountable web resources, and can google the answer to any question. Social media are often beneficial and the internet provides great opportunities for relationships, employment, collaboration, and creativity. But the silver lining comes with a cloud.

Jamal

You have my sword. — Thorongil

I'm honoured.

And though I used to be one of those who defended pornography, I've changed my mind about it now. I think it really is changing the way people relate to each other, and not in a good way.

With regards to the mainstream media, in some cases, rightly so. Need I provide examples? — Sapientia

No need. You're right, but it's a baby/bathwater thing. It's one thing to dismiss Fox News, but it's another thing to dismiss work by professional journalists in favour of sensational conspiracies peddled by YouTubers.

There is also a post-ironic kind of discourse that only occurs on the internet, and that can really become your bread and butter once you get the hang of it, and make every other mode of human interaction look like socially retarded trash, or culturally dated. — The Great Whatever

What exactly do you mean by this TG? I ask because I'm instinctively one of those who agrees with statements like this from BC:

We all need to get out more to mingle, mix, socialize, gossip, agitate, organize, argue, make love, make war, make peace--real stuff, not virtual reality. — Bitter Crank

Yet it feels a bit too easy to think like this, as if I'm falling back on prejudice. It's facile to say that virtual relationships are eroding real relationships and it's the end of civilization, even if there's some truth in it. I'm interested in an alternative attitude, one that embraces quite different ways of living and interacting.

I like the easy access to (most) information provided for by the Internet. — OglopTo

I do too. It has certainly enriched my life. I wouldn't have been able to read and discuss philosophy without it.

Jamal

Allow me to ramble about something. Because of my job I'm hardly away from my computer, day and night, but I do make time to go out for bike rides and trips to see places. I plan these trips using various online stuff like route-plotting applications. One feature I particularly like is using a Google map in conjunction with street view. I don't use any kind of sat nav when I'm out so I just memorize the route and what certain crucial road junctions look like on street view.

The thing is, often when I'm out and about I can't remember whether I've actually been there before or have merely seen it on street view. In fact I've been sure I'd been to places that, as it turns out, I'd only seen online. There's something about using street view, quite different from just looking at photographs, that makes it feel like you've really been to a place (no doubt the moving around is a big part of it). And being out, as opposed to being at my computer, although it's great and everything, it doesn't really have the feel of the primary experience any more. Real things are a bit flatter than they used to be. (I suspect this is partly an age thing though.)

The Great Whatever

What exactly do you mean by this TG? I ask because I'm instinctively one of those who agrees with statements like this from BC: — jamalrob

After getting a taste of the way people interact in certain environments, it gets harder to care about the way they interact in others. I know people generally understand that certain phatic or 'cocktail' forms of small talk are supposed to be banal, either because the content of the speech isn't its main purpose, or because it's just an unfortunate facet of life you have to accept since not everyone can be close to everyone else, or share their interests and specialized modes of emoting.

The internet, for whatever reason, lends itself to a certain kind of irony that then collapses in on itself and becomes again, not sincere, but for lack of a better term, post-ironic, made with self-conscious irony that hits on truths without committing to them straightforwardly, and has a casual contempt for the sincerities of the real world that reveal, rather than mere contrarianness, a kind of deeper sincerity, or I shouldn't even really call it that, but a new way of thinking that is past being sincere. After tasting the kind of expression that's possible in that mode of interaction, it's just hard to be surprised by or interested in what passes for even 'real' conversation in the real world. It feels like a kind of irreversible disillusionment, I don't know. And certain places on the internet of course are better at it than others, and many don't partake in it at all, treating the internet as just an extension or proxy for real life.

I'm unsympathetic to the appeal to a return to real-world interaction because I think disillusionment of this kind is a one-way street and that once human interaction is seen as trivial you can't reverse seeing that. There is nothing 'real' about what goes on in the real world.

The Great Whatever

Real things are a bit flatter than they used to be. (I suspect this is partly an age thing though.) — jamalrob

Probably, yeah. Age flattens everything.

Jamal

↪The Great Whatever

Thanks for going into that. It's fascinating, but personally I can't say I've experienced anything remotely as complex and interesting, in terms of personal interaction, as the real face-to-face stuff. So I can't quite get a handle on your post-ironic trans-sincerity.

_db

And I'd rather not, and in fact, my plan for the future is to be independent and financially stable enough so that I can drop kick this stupid machine out the window. At the moment, however, I have to use my computer and the Internet. — Thorongil

My point was that you're currently using the internet to contribute to a philosophy forum, a forum that I suspect you do not have to use.

_db

I'm unsympathetic to the appeal to a return to real-world interaction because I think disillusionment of this kind is a one-way street and that once human interaction is seen as trivial you can't reverse seeing that. There is nothing 'real' about what goes on in the real world. — The Great Whatever

The grass is always greener on the other side.

The promises and disappointments of the Internet

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions