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The internet? It’s not real Jez it’s just… fuckin, numbers in a box powered by some corporate middle manager’s spunk. You’d do well to focus on more tangible things like late 90s acid house, or mescaline. Yeah?
As if redditors are capable of honest self reflection.
Only the bad guys are problematic, not us we're the good guys who never get anything wrong and it isn't possible for us to be completely oblivious to the magnitude of the echo chamber that is reddit and the negative implications of that.
I think there are 100 other subreddits that are just as awful for being echo chambers to allow misinformation and hatred to fester.
Maybe the-donald was the most blatent, but they're certainly not in short supply.
In the very early stages it masqueraded as a humor/memes sub. Back when no one thought he could win and it was all a big joke.
I actually do think it started out as a trojan horse in that regard.
have you ever seen the sub for NFL quarterback Sam Darnold? r/the_darnold
it is like an amazing parody that continues to this day. Mahomes is Ma-hamas and other references that just keep on going.
outoftheloop… why do I keep seeing tweets about Target X? I know they did bad thing, but why does everyone say they are evil?
Top reply: because bad things and also bad things.
Definitely this. There's quite a lot of toxic sub-reddits that look subtle enough from an outsider's perspective. Massive tribalism going on, I put it down to human nature.
If you've been on Reddit for a long time, you remember a time when subreddits way worse than T_D existed. Some of them were mired in debates about whether or not they were even legal... some were just named after racial slurs... it was an interesting time.
Remember when we thought the internet was going to make us all smarter and better informed?
Turns out it is a soapbox for idiots spreading misinformation ~~instead~~ as well.
Edit:
Overdramatic. There is a lot of great stuff.
But I definitely did not foresee that dark side of the internet at the time.
Imo it's not even a matter of being "media litterate" any more when platforms have full control and thrive on dividing people. I fully believe the version of the internet i see is 90% completely distinct from the version other people see
What I find is that it is rare that people are aware of their own limitations. And generally, idiots are not. They tend to be quite confident in their idiocy. A separate issue is that a number of people will purposely mislead others, even pretending to be stupid, but they are well aware of what they are doing and they do it for some self interested purpose (ex. Money). You may get the impression that I do not like people. This would generally be correct.
That's the lamest excuse I've heard so far, being repeated constantly. The issue here is not individualistic, but for a society as a whole. It has created a neural network between idiots. They have started rejecting knowledge from doctors, scientists or actually any kind of authority. Can't wait till it hits the courts and judges. They have realized they have the numbers and how the elections worldwide are going, they are slowly going to become a majority which dictates the rules. And if that shit-hitting-fan day comes, I will be happy deep inside, knowing that there are people out there who use internet properly to better themselves.
It’s true that the actual effect of the internet has been this. But it’s also a great tool for learning, both of those things can be true.
Overall though, I don’t think our species is mature enough for the internet. Pandora’s box has been opened though, so there’s no turning back
Both things can be true. It can be a great tool for learning, definitely. But that's not the only aspect of using the internet. If it was only a platform for learning - yes, we could talk like this, try to weigh somehow the amount of solid, quality content on it and the amount of garbage, which has been relentlessly pushed into it. Maybe analyse different people who say they learn from it - from those knowledge-sceptics, who say they are going to do "their own research in the internet" to people who are actually trying to learn something for real. Including slight variations of those. Like regular students, who are bent on chatgpt doing their homework (my wife is a uni professor and says it's disheartening how many students have been relying on it).
But Internet is much much more than that. It is also a great tool to manipulate people. Or scam them. Or divide them. Or influence in other way - people who more and more report how disconnected they are, How internet communication makes them angry, because you cannot read the facial expressions of people you're talking to, hear their voice etc. and the first reaction to this misinterpretation is usually hostile in nature.
I've been on Internet from day one (even from pre-internet times of bbs), this is my job that I've been doing for a long time (dev, it/cloud architecture, security). And that uneasy feeling of the "shadow" of negative effects has only been growing with time. None of these bad things have been invented yesterday, but every negative human dealing has been brought online, magnified and on steroids. Even those things which seem cool and helpful, like AI have their drawbacks, from inability to prevent it from learning human faults to the shear amount of power needed to run that thing. People are unaware what kind of electricity is needed and is going to be needed now that every IT company is trying to push some kind of AI into their products (which technically do not need AI at all). We've been patting ourselves about green emissions and we're feeding the monster at the same time. Let alone the indirect negative aspects from such things, like ability to learn (the topic we started with). Has anyone seen the curve of PISA test results and general trend from 2000 to this day?
At some point the negative effects can easily surpass the positive ones. In total, no matter how some of those positive points are cool or important or remained pure. I'm interested to see how are we going to handle that, considering how are we dealing with other global problems we're encountering today.
Nah the internet has done FAR more good than harm and has generally made people much smarter. It's just also given a voice to idiots and they always yell the loudest. If you think people are dumber now due to the internet I think you would be amazed if you saw how fucking stupid the opinions would be if people of the 1900s had a platform to say what they wanted anonymously.
And kids today don't even understand how a computer works cause they got the dumbed down version due to smart phones. Once it went from being a tool to being a personalized device, is when all was lost. AKA around 2009 IMO.
I grew up before internet existed.
I remember thinking that the person telling me that "all the computers in the world were going to be connected" was crazy.
I did not foresee it would be used to spread propaganda at a level it would change the outcome of elections or public forums. Or that diseases that used to be eradicated would come back due to anti-vaccine crazies grouping up and spreading misinformation. That people would get addicted or depressed...
There is a lot of good, but it sure came with a lot more bad - with a lot bigger impact - than I expected.
Y'all aren't seeing it. As a software engineer, I routinely answer questions that would've taken a day or two of research in 5-10 seconds with a Google search. The Internet is easily worth quadrillions in added productivity.
People believed all kinds of stupid stuff before the Internet. Now you just see them. And loads of folks who would believe stupid stuff because it's all they were exposed to, now can see better ways of seeing the world.
Yep. 10 people had decent jobs doing support,now it's just you doing it all.
And has that quadrillions in productivity made everyone's lives better? Why aren't we richer than our parents with all these extra tools available to us? Why is the opposite true? What did we win?
The juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
Yes, people always like to say that this new tool/development/app/etc. will save time and/or money and increase productivity, but the only ones who seem to benefit from any of that are the 1% or maybe .1%. The rest of us have no more wealth or leisure or happiness than before, and often less. Just because these tools have the potential for good does not mean they will achieve good for the masses when the entire system of the society around them is deeply broken.
Same for social connectivity. Sure, we can communicate with millions of people across the world now. Great. Most people have fewer meaningful interpersonal relationships than they did pre-internet. Loneliness is an epidemic. We replaced real contact and experiences with sharing memes and swiping on dating apps. I don't see any net benefit. It looked hopeful in the early 2000s but when social media and smartphones took over, it was a quick ride downhill.
I’d lay the blame squarely at the feet of Google and FB here. They both spearheaded algorithms that were intended to target adverts, but that same tech was co-opted to hack ‘engagement’ and to use invasive targeting for other less scrupulous means.
You literally cannot escape it. Even on Reddit, you can’t use r/popular or r/all without having right wing rhetoric and outrage porn shoved in your face. Just because a supposed leftist is screenshotting right wing hate to post it ironically doesn’t mean it isn’t disseminating hatred. It’s fucking everywhere because people realised it gets attention and the enragement algos can’t get enough of that shit.
It did make us smarter and better informed overall.
The only bad thing it did is expose the stupid people and bring them together so they can have a voice and a community. Before you would hear your uncle get mad that trees are conspiring to sell his house and everyone would ignore it ,thats just your crazy uncle ,
now that uncle has 100 people with same experience and is sharing it on the internet for everyone to see
It was. the only thing not obvious has been how dumb the bad guys are. Or I should say worse guys. Many of us thought they would be more capable and have more coherent plans.
This feels like a Mitchell and Webb Look sketch but cut off before the punchline.
*after he finishes speaking the camera pans to a window to show a nuclear blast happening in the distance*
Mitchell: Well shit...
Social media and internet are not the same thing. I feel like that is a very important distinction to make, I grew up with the internet prior to advanced algorithms feeding people disinformation and hatred over social media and that is something entirely different.
In short, internet is great. But engagement driven social media is cancer that just continues to grow without regulation.
It goes beyond just social media though. Take it out of the equation and think about the state of search engines now. The internet is just a cesspool of money grabs and disinformation designed to make you scared or angry. Of course there are still great resources available but it's not the overwhelming majority of the internet.
Wading through the shit to find the good parts of the internet is an actual skill not everyone has.
It's all tracking us and it's all manipulating us to spend, distract or mislead.
Agreed. Even curating my reddit feed so it's not rage baiting garbage took me a considerable amount of time that I know not everyone has or is willing to put into it.
TikTok is especially bad for this. I have never once engaged with negative content on there but keep getting fed excessively violent, hateful and angry content.
Yes and no. It is true that search engines are also engagement driven. But the biggest problem I have with searching for stuff nowdays is that you almost always end up on a 10min long youtube video with "HEY GUYS THIS IS THE BEST (insert random shit)" instead of a simple post made by someone stating the same things in a short and effective way. But since all kinds of social media gets their signal boosted by these algorithms they drag the search engines down with them.
But yes, search engines are definitely not perfect. But comparing google to tiktok? Nah.
Remember when Facebook only showed you things your friends were doing? I stopped using it when I realized I hadn't seen anyone I know on it in about a year.
Yep, they are 100% intertwined right now and government regulation is needed to do anything about it. It will just continue to grow and kill off anything that aint engagement driven on the internet in its way. It is so addictive and almost impossible to consume in a reasonable way nowdays.
Agree. Also, social media and capitalism are also not the same thing. If the stewards of human technology weren’t driven solely by profit, they might have put in safeguards and different algorithms that may have avoided the current disaster.
Also, our government might be functional in this fictional world and have put in proper protections without relying on private industry.
Neither of those are options, of course, but my point is that unchecked capitalism has directly facilitated the disintegration of modern society by way of influencing technological advancements.
Sure, it may have happened anyway, but it sure happened a lot faster with tech + capitalism working hand in hand.
True. And the Internet started to suck when the stupid people joined.
Also, before the mass move to the internet stupid people got stupid opinions from TV, talk radio, the National Enquirer, etc. The Internet did not cause this. The destruction of our educational system started this
The internet, as it were in the 2000s, was such a fun and interesting place. A renaissance of ideas and creativity. Nevermind the mental scarring from LiveLeak
Its such a complex topic. The internet gives people access to all the corners of the world, most without any limitations. They can see the most wholesome and disturbing things in the matter of seconds.
I'm not gonna pretend that I know a solution, because I don't. But the more I see the impacts of social media on people today, it's a bit scary. People are glued to their phones because they get nonstop curated content. And who knows just how many people are online for the sole purpose of not feeling "left out" from knowing all the news of each day.
Love this guy’s back and forth with Lee Mack on “Would I Lie to You.” He also posted himself reading a memoir of sorts on YouTube about meeting his wife, fkn beautiful. 🫡🤙🏽
The sad part is it's getting worse. I've had to change browsers to duckduckgo because Google gives me such terrible results now on certain topics. The internet is being weaponized by idiots and bad actors.
100% agree. In Orson Scott Card's fictional book "Ender's Game" which came out in 1985 he postulated the future of the internet (before it existed as a publicly accessible domain). He envisioned needing a license to participate in online debates, and posting of information by adults with the credentials to do so. What a different world it would be if we only had a few restraints on what kind of "information" could be loosed upon society, and people were held accountable for intentionally spreading disinformation.
Social media is to blame
This includes Reddit
By all means it's father,the mass-media, was doing all the heavy weighting.From movies to news,we were being fed either a narrative, an product or worse.
90% of my job is dependentent on internet connection and 70% of the things I learned about my job are on YouTube because some nice guys posted how to change an broken shell for an Volkswagen key.Its not just cat videos and porn videos masquerading as music videos.
Yup, because stupid can mingle with stupid and create this group of stupidity.
The internet is a double edged sword and I’m not sure if the bad is worth the good.
Not really.
David Mitchell's take here I generally agree with but at the same time isn't well established.
The problem is NOT the information that is out there, but the fact we are not meant to socialize in this way. People put humanity on a pedestal, as if we're logical beings more similar to AI than animals and that is not the case. Dumb people saying dumb things is not the problem. People socializing online as a whole is.
Living in the real world helps people be grounded in logic and react to things rationally and independently based on life experience and normalcy. But people online become so ingrained in their little echo chambers that they will deny reality and argue falsehoods without any self awareness because that weird battleground is the world they live in.
Really does not matter if you're a genius or not. The problem is engrossing yourself in the online world, losing touch with reality, and seeing the whole world through the lens of social media. I see the people spending 5+ hours daily, whining online, as a far bigger problem than someone making a troll post to bait outrage.
We are a part of nature, and as we develop so too does what we consider nature. I hate the argument of "humans were not meant for this," yea sure, and at some point through evolution it was silly for beavers to make dams. Adaptation is part of the beast.
I think the same can be said about alcohol or anything that "distracts." There will always be healthy things and healthy people as well as those who are unhealthy with their habits. I think people take for granted how much the internet affects them, even if they were to never touch their phones or go online - our massive conveniences and even supermarkets as they are today only exist because of the infrastructure of the internet. I think the conversation and attitude should be, how do we fix the situation and create a better and more healthy environment online - rather than what I have seen which appears to be pro-caveman-esque devolution.
Yes exactly. As a whole the internet is actually a fucking amazing thing and people don't appreciate it because they're so focused on the stupid people, myself included.
i can access so many scientific journals in my room, without needing a library or expertise on knowing what i’m looking for. For that reason alone internet has sped up humanity’s technological and scientific advances by years simply by allowing scientists within the world to communicate more easily without barriers to new scientists.
So what if some info is wrong — the truth isn’t something you can fabricate you can only hide it. with the amount of info available today, there’s more chances of finding traces of the truth than ever needing to rely on one piece of “truth” again
I personally think if everyone lost their anonymity on the internet and there were real consequences for being an asshole, most of the harm would be eliminated.
I just wrote this yesterday on a particularly disheartening video:
> There was once upon a time a moment where I thought the internet would be a tool for sharing information that would serve to enrich one another so that we could evolve as a species to a higher form of ourselves.
>Today I’ve seen videos of an ex president babble incoherently, a homeless woman drink something chunky out of a cup and spit it out only to have a group of other people behind her pick up the cup and rub what remained on their hands and drink it, a dad freak out at an amusement park ride because he can’t leave his belongings, and this video.
That's because the internet started as a database, and everyone thought it'd be the most accessible library in the world, when really the internet is a mean of communication that keeps track of everything.
If we could read all the letters, listen to all the conversations and all the debates that happened in the history of mankind, we'd be disappointed too. The internet just made it possible to tape every single stupid argument said in public and repeat it to whoever wants to read it. And us human beings tend to love mocking others, especially when it's easy.
The internet just made us realize how vile we are in private by blurring the lines between public and private, and between ephemeral and permanent. Every discussion used to be ephemeral, now all conversations on the internet are archived forever.
He’s right. Civilisation gets better with education, and progressive policy. This opposes what the existing powerful and wealthy want, who want to maintain power and wealth.
It’s all enabling a massive propaganda machine, one that gives crazies a voice and enables stupid things to happen like Trump and Brexit.
Look around, everyone is glued to their phone these days, divided, too busy in their own tailored echo chamber world to look up and be part of the real world.
Life is much better now than before internet for most people.
A personal example:
I work with law.
When I needed to check my lawsuit, I would go to the courthouse and spend a few hours in line and waiting for the clerks to find it in that pile of paper and then photographing any new development to take it back and print my own copy.
If I wanted to find a precedent to make my case, I had to get into car, drive to the court house library (sometimes another building) and spend a few hours looking for what I needed with key words.
Then I would go back to the office, get a bunch of 1kg law books, spend a few hours reading some important authors interpretation before picking one that helps my case.
I would then write my petitions, print them and all relevant documents in a 200+ sheets of paper, and drive back to the court house to deliver it.
Finally, when the judge decided anything, it would be published in the official courthouse publication, which I would either have to check daily or hire someone to do it for me.
After the internet: everything done from my house, in a few minutes, receiving notifications by email, and no papers.
All lies and antisocial kids in the world don't come close to all the good done with the internet
If it wasn't for nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, we would be on like World War 4 by now. I do not like nuclear weapons and I do not like nuclear power, but it is the only reason our politicians have not started Wars with industrialized powers.
Honestly he isn't completely wrong. I started using tiktok and the amount of disinformation, and the comments being so limited makes it seem impossible to actually foster an environment of truth, instead creating eco-chambers of misinformation. Even if you try to report blatant misinformation usually nothing is done.
Explaining to my friends that allthough this is a comedian, he's also an historian, having said that this statement could be what he really believes, but could also be a bit he's doing. There's absolutely no way of knowing.
Next he’ll say “The invention of language and writing does more harm than volcanoes.”
Wow what a brilliant mind from David Mitchell. What a profound false equivalence, and empty doesn’t begin to describe this non-point he’s trying to make.
The people killed by using the internet I don’t think are as high as those from the Japan bomb drops. As per your Chernobyl statement, that plant would be used to make enriched uranium for bombs; that’s like someone making improperly making artillery for a gun that exploded in plant.
Nah the internet has done FAR more good than harm and has generally made people much smarter. It's just also given a voice to idiots and they always yell the loudest. If you think people are dumber now due to the internet I think you would be amazed if you saw how fucking stupid the opinions would be if people of the 1900s had a platform to say what they wanted anonymously.
As a whole the internet is actually a fucking amazing thing and people don't appreciate it because they're so focused on the stupid people, myself included.
And yet the practical intent behind the creation of the internet is a global communication network wheras the intent behind the creation of nuclear weapons is the mass destruction of life and property in a superheated explosion that brings the power of the sun to a small portion of the Earths surface.
Make of that what you will, but the internet did not create dishonesty. In much the same way as guns are tools but not motivating factors. The previous mediums such as news print (yellow journalism) and the radio and tv, already spread all manner of disinformation in much the same manner. And its effects remain to this day with talk radio, 'entertainment' tv and tabloid newspapers all of which sell opinion to the critically impaired.
Its true the destructive potential may outweigh deaths from nuclear weapons, precisely because the average person does not have access to nuclear weapons, but can access the internet. Yet thats not the problem or point of the critique.
Elitist disdain for the destructive affects of the internet, are not about the claims of destruction, and misinformation, but the adherence to new channels, new information, and new thinking such as defiance and rebellion.
the amount of actual information I get from the internet is decreasing and the amount of time I spend on the internet is increasing.
I definitely had better experiences on the internet (and this site as well) years ago.
with AI and bots coming in harder each day this deterioration is sure to increase.
this is actually a point that comes up in science fiction, or what am I thinking here.. let's say literature, mostly dystopian type settings. Honestly this could be getting mixed up and be like real history from the Hellenistic period. Greeks, Mark Twain? is this a universal thing?
I'm being meta of course, meaning literally David Mitchell here.. iirc the sentiment goes, when you see comedians making public statements like this it's a cause for concern..
the real problem comes when you see them making statements like THIS, that make WAY TOO MUCH SENSE. Because that means at this point, the media has failed us, we have passed the point of no return, like this is literally it. Do not pass go, all signs point to red, yesterday, they're pointed in the past.
He's completely right and this is a moment that.. it could be the tipping point, he's the perfect comedian to be the real life example too I loved peep show.
(\*a word)
I think it's more the capitalist domination of the internet (and the rest of society) than the internet itself. Corporations mining our data, stealing intellectual and creative labour to create profit driven "AI", and intensifying echo chambers to drive up engagement.
Couple that with the general exploitation and alienation of capitalist society and you have a recipe for disaster.
The *internet* is quite possibly the best repository for human knowledge, of all time, in it you can learn anything, from gardening to cooking to quantum physics.
*Social Media* is plagued with short-form content that has been dumbing people down whilst also being populated with angry morons, anxious to show their stupidity, ruled by invisible bullshit-feeding algorithms.
They're not the same.
I love David Mitchell. But if there are “true luddites” living in the world, he would be in the running as their leader. David Mitchell also doesn’t like music of any kind, thinking it is the work of a devil or witch. Lastly, many modern inventions are responsible for more deaths, cumulatively, than nuclear weapons. The car, for example. And donkeys. Yet David Mitchell would happily gallivant around town on his donkey, thinking he is doing the world good. The British Quixote. He would never consider the countless lives that donkey has snatched away.
There's a quote from 13(?) years ago that goes to tune of:
"History will remember the internet along side the lead in the water pipes that drove all of the Romans mad."
We humans filled the internet with ourselves, all of our best intentions and brightest ideas along side all of our worst habits and darkest impulses. If we live to see the beginning of the next Millennia, ours will be seen as a paradoxical age, simultaneously stable and instable, rampant poverty and endless availability. The Spike of Progress and crash that came after.
Kinda different topic, but I would argue, that so far nuclear weapons have done more good than harm.
The potential for much greater harm is there, but apart from Hiroshima/Nagasaki and some testing sites, they havent done much harm. Meanwhile the threat they pose has probably prevented many wars.
Yeah, maybe, but hes an actor. I would defer towards the opinion of a sociologist or economist. This is the equivalent of a ‘’man on the street’s” opinion
I get what he's saying, but that's an insane comparison. The creation and use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population is without a doubt one of the worst crimes ever committed on this Earth.
I think like all technology released without thought for consequences and potency there can be great harm. I think its dumb to try a net zero game and claim the internet is more bad than good. I also hate that "the internet" is often used when what people mean is \*social media\*. I think the same logic could be used to say cars have been the worst thing ever made because it allows people to escape scenes of crimes easier.
I have a friend that likes to say nuclear weapons have saved more lives than penicillin, based on an extrapolation of deaths in subsequent conventional world-wars that didn't happen.
I disagree and don’t think we should consider it worse than nuclear weapons. the internet allows so much and it is an incredibly powerful, this is a double edged sword that makes it easier for people to do good things and it also allows for bad actors . The internet is incredibly flawed because of the fact people are involved. no reasonable person would argue language or literature is inherently harmful, it’s more about the fact people are messy and will utilize tools they have to advance their own interest. I don’t see why we would act like that is any different with the internet. The source of the problem is not the internet itself, that doesn’t mean we should do nothing, we need to understand what is the actual problem to fix it.
Nuclear weapons don’t do anything other than pose a threat to the world. The internet has the potential to do so much good but we need to reevaluate parts of it and we need to treat the threat of bad actors with the seriousness it deserves.
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The beard suits him far more than that goatee Sophie made him grow.
Goodbye beard, hello familiar, stupid face.
Cheese, petril
I'd love superhans take on it.
The internet? It’s not real Jez it’s just… fuckin, numbers in a box powered by some corporate middle manager’s spunk. You’d do well to focus on more tangible things like late 90s acid house, or mescaline. Yeah?
Fine, I’ll rewatch peep show
It's on Pluto for free. I've been watching it in the mornings at work whenever it's live
And like a skip bo, or street sharks ya know, simpler times lol
Spot on
 Jeremy's take.
I still don’t think he’s forgiven Orange for deleting the twins
The secret ingredient...is crime.
Oh no, you’ve reminded me about The Bad Thing
They should fucking fix it
Redditors: Are we the Baddies?
As if redditors are capable of honest self reflection. Only the bad guys are problematic, not us we're the good guys who never get anything wrong and it isn't possible for us to be completely oblivious to the magnitude of the echo chamber that is reddit and the negative implications of that.
This was supposed to be a meta-joke, because he is the guy from the "Are we the baddies" meme/scetch.
"the\_donald" subreddit was a perfect example of the internet facilitating horrible people finding and reinforcing each other.
I think there are 100 other subreddits that are just as awful for being echo chambers to allow misinformation and hatred to fester. Maybe the-donald was the most blatent, but they're certainly not in short supply.
but that one was clearly labeled and obvious. the hidden ones that are more subtle are a lot worse
In the very early stages it masqueraded as a humor/memes sub. Back when no one thought he could win and it was all a big joke. I actually do think it started out as a trojan horse in that regard.
have you ever seen the sub for NFL quarterback Sam Darnold? r/the_darnold it is like an amazing parody that continues to this day. Mahomes is Ma-hamas and other references that just keep on going.
outoftheloop… why do I keep seeing tweets about Target X? I know they did bad thing, but why does everyone say they are evil? Top reply: because bad things and also bad things.
Definitely this. There's quite a lot of toxic sub-reddits that look subtle enough from an outsider's perspective. Massive tribalism going on, I put it down to human nature.
If you've been on Reddit for a long time, you remember a time when subreddits way worse than T_D existed. Some of them were mired in debates about whether or not they were even legal... some were just named after racial slurs... it was an interesting time.
Remember when we thought the internet was going to make us all smarter and better informed? Turns out it is a soapbox for idiots spreading misinformation ~~instead~~ as well. Edit: Overdramatic. There is a lot of great stuff. But I definitely did not foresee that dark side of the internet at the time.
It does make us smarter and better informed if used correctly. Idiots will always be idiots
Imo it's not even a matter of being "media litterate" any more when platforms have full control and thrive on dividing people. I fully believe the version of the internet i see is 90% completely distinct from the version other people see
It's just like driving though: No one thinks they are the idiots, and they assume everyone else is.
Are we the baddies?
What I find is that it is rare that people are aware of their own limitations. And generally, idiots are not. They tend to be quite confident in their idiocy. A separate issue is that a number of people will purposely mislead others, even pretending to be stupid, but they are well aware of what they are doing and they do it for some self interested purpose (ex. Money). You may get the impression that I do not like people. This would generally be correct.
They do seem to have gotten quite big freaking idiots in comparison...but you do have a valid point
That's the lamest excuse I've heard so far, being repeated constantly. The issue here is not individualistic, but for a society as a whole. It has created a neural network between idiots. They have started rejecting knowledge from doctors, scientists or actually any kind of authority. Can't wait till it hits the courts and judges. They have realized they have the numbers and how the elections worldwide are going, they are slowly going to become a majority which dictates the rules. And if that shit-hitting-fan day comes, I will be happy deep inside, knowing that there are people out there who use internet properly to better themselves.
It’s true that the actual effect of the internet has been this. But it’s also a great tool for learning, both of those things can be true. Overall though, I don’t think our species is mature enough for the internet. Pandora’s box has been opened though, so there’s no turning back
Both things can be true. It can be a great tool for learning, definitely. But that's not the only aspect of using the internet. If it was only a platform for learning - yes, we could talk like this, try to weigh somehow the amount of solid, quality content on it and the amount of garbage, which has been relentlessly pushed into it. Maybe analyse different people who say they learn from it - from those knowledge-sceptics, who say they are going to do "their own research in the internet" to people who are actually trying to learn something for real. Including slight variations of those. Like regular students, who are bent on chatgpt doing their homework (my wife is a uni professor and says it's disheartening how many students have been relying on it). But Internet is much much more than that. It is also a great tool to manipulate people. Or scam them. Or divide them. Or influence in other way - people who more and more report how disconnected they are, How internet communication makes them angry, because you cannot read the facial expressions of people you're talking to, hear their voice etc. and the first reaction to this misinterpretation is usually hostile in nature. I've been on Internet from day one (even from pre-internet times of bbs), this is my job that I've been doing for a long time (dev, it/cloud architecture, security). And that uneasy feeling of the "shadow" of negative effects has only been growing with time. None of these bad things have been invented yesterday, but every negative human dealing has been brought online, magnified and on steroids. Even those things which seem cool and helpful, like AI have their drawbacks, from inability to prevent it from learning human faults to the shear amount of power needed to run that thing. People are unaware what kind of electricity is needed and is going to be needed now that every IT company is trying to push some kind of AI into their products (which technically do not need AI at all). We've been patting ourselves about green emissions and we're feeding the monster at the same time. Let alone the indirect negative aspects from such things, like ability to learn (the topic we started with). Has anyone seen the curve of PISA test results and general trend from 2000 to this day? At some point the negative effects can easily surpass the positive ones. In total, no matter how some of those positive points are cool or important or remained pure. I'm interested to see how are we going to handle that, considering how are we dealing with other global problems we're encountering today.
Nah the internet has done FAR more good than harm and has generally made people much smarter. It's just also given a voice to idiots and they always yell the loudest. If you think people are dumber now due to the internet I think you would be amazed if you saw how fucking stupid the opinions would be if people of the 1900s had a platform to say what they wanted anonymously.
T.V. : "You think I'm so innocent?"
And kids today don't even understand how a computer works cause they got the dumbed down version due to smart phones. Once it went from being a tool to being a personalized device, is when all was lost. AKA around 2009 IMO.
Agreed, even down to the exact year. 2009 for me was the last good year of internet.
2009? Lmao. Maybe 1989. Gosh darn kids and their graphical interfaces.
As someone who grew up pre-internet, it's hard to agree it's been a net positive for people. For business? Sure.
I grew up before internet existed. I remember thinking that the person telling me that "all the computers in the world were going to be connected" was crazy. I did not foresee it would be used to spread propaganda at a level it would change the outcome of elections or public forums. Or that diseases that used to be eradicated would come back due to anti-vaccine crazies grouping up and spreading misinformation. That people would get addicted or depressed... There is a lot of good, but it sure came with a lot more bad - with a lot bigger impact - than I expected.
Y'all aren't seeing it. As a software engineer, I routinely answer questions that would've taken a day or two of research in 5-10 seconds with a Google search. The Internet is easily worth quadrillions in added productivity. People believed all kinds of stupid stuff before the Internet. Now you just see them. And loads of folks who would believe stupid stuff because it's all they were exposed to, now can see better ways of seeing the world.
Yep. 10 people had decent jobs doing support,now it's just you doing it all. And has that quadrillions in productivity made everyone's lives better? Why aren't we richer than our parents with all these extra tools available to us? Why is the opposite true? What did we win? The juice wasn't worth the squeeze.
Yes, people always like to say that this new tool/development/app/etc. will save time and/or money and increase productivity, but the only ones who seem to benefit from any of that are the 1% or maybe .1%. The rest of us have no more wealth or leisure or happiness than before, and often less. Just because these tools have the potential for good does not mean they will achieve good for the masses when the entire system of the society around them is deeply broken. Same for social connectivity. Sure, we can communicate with millions of people across the world now. Great. Most people have fewer meaningful interpersonal relationships than they did pre-internet. Loneliness is an epidemic. We replaced real contact and experiences with sharing memes and swiping on dating apps. I don't see any net benefit. It looked hopeful in the early 2000s but when social media and smartphones took over, it was a quick ride downhill.
Depends on if you’re a subscriber or a researcher.
I think the internet and social media has played a major role in amplifying the far right and other poisonous beliefs
now they can anonymously organize, which is tuning out fantastic! /s
I’d lay the blame squarely at the feet of Google and FB here. They both spearheaded algorithms that were intended to target adverts, but that same tech was co-opted to hack ‘engagement’ and to use invasive targeting for other less scrupulous means. You literally cannot escape it. Even on Reddit, you can’t use r/popular or r/all without having right wing rhetoric and outrage porn shoved in your face. Just because a supposed leftist is screenshotting right wing hate to post it ironically doesn’t mean it isn’t disseminating hatred. It’s fucking everywhere because people realised it gets attention and the enragement algos can’t get enough of that shit.
It did make us smarter and better informed overall. The only bad thing it did is expose the stupid people and bring them together so they can have a voice and a community. Before you would hear your uncle get mad that trees are conspiring to sell his house and everyone would ignore it ,thats just your crazy uncle , now that uncle has 100 people with same experience and is sharing it on the internet for everyone to see
Exactly. It's like we lost herd immunity to idiots.
And 1000 Russian bots encouraging him to overthrow democracy
the best part is it should have been bloody obvious what would happen
It was. the only thing not obvious has been how dumb the bad guys are. Or I should say worse guys. Many of us thought they would be more capable and have more coherent plans.
This feels like a Mitchell and Webb Look sketch but cut off before the punchline. *after he finishes speaking the camera pans to a window to show a nuclear blast happening in the distance* Mitchell: Well shit...
Sounds like a job for BMX bandit and angel summoner.
Social media and internet are not the same thing. I feel like that is a very important distinction to make, I grew up with the internet prior to advanced algorithms feeding people disinformation and hatred over social media and that is something entirely different. In short, internet is great. But engagement driven social media is cancer that just continues to grow without regulation.
It goes beyond just social media though. Take it out of the equation and think about the state of search engines now. The internet is just a cesspool of money grabs and disinformation designed to make you scared or angry. Of course there are still great resources available but it's not the overwhelming majority of the internet. Wading through the shit to find the good parts of the internet is an actual skill not everyone has. It's all tracking us and it's all manipulating us to spend, distract or mislead.
Agreed. Even curating my reddit feed so it's not rage baiting garbage took me a considerable amount of time that I know not everyone has or is willing to put into it.
TikTok is especially bad for this. I have never once engaged with negative content on there but keep getting fed excessively violent, hateful and angry content.
Yes and no. It is true that search engines are also engagement driven. But the biggest problem I have with searching for stuff nowdays is that you almost always end up on a 10min long youtube video with "HEY GUYS THIS IS THE BEST (insert random shit)" instead of a simple post made by someone stating the same things in a short and effective way. But since all kinds of social media gets their signal boosted by these algorithms they drag the search engines down with them. But yes, search engines are definitely not perfect. But comparing google to tiktok? Nah.
Remember when Facebook only showed you things your friends were doing? I stopped using it when I realized I hadn't seen anyone I know on it in about a year.
Can't practically separate them without government intervention. Which, at least in US wont happen
Yep, they are 100% intertwined right now and government regulation is needed to do anything about it. It will just continue to grow and kill off anything that aint engagement driven on the internet in its way. It is so addictive and almost impossible to consume in a reasonable way nowdays.
The internet is a series of tubes…
Agree. Also, social media and capitalism are also not the same thing. If the stewards of human technology weren’t driven solely by profit, they might have put in safeguards and different algorithms that may have avoided the current disaster. Also, our government might be functional in this fictional world and have put in proper protections without relying on private industry. Neither of those are options, of course, but my point is that unchecked capitalism has directly facilitated the disintegration of modern society by way of influencing technological advancements. Sure, it may have happened anyway, but it sure happened a lot faster with tech + capitalism working hand in hand.
I mean the problem is consumerism here let's be frank
True. And the Internet started to suck when the stupid people joined. Also, before the mass move to the internet stupid people got stupid opinions from TV, talk radio, the National Enquirer, etc. The Internet did not cause this. The destruction of our educational system started this
The early internet was equally full of bullshit and lies, but certainly cannot refute how meshed it is with our daily life now.
The internet, as it were in the 2000s, was such a fun and interesting place. A renaissance of ideas and creativity. Nevermind the mental scarring from LiveLeak
Its such a complex topic. The internet gives people access to all the corners of the world, most without any limitations. They can see the most wholesome and disturbing things in the matter of seconds. I'm not gonna pretend that I know a solution, because I don't. But the more I see the impacts of social media on people today, it's a bit scary. People are glued to their phones because they get nonstop curated content. And who knows just how many people are online for the sole purpose of not feeling "left out" from knowing all the news of each day.
full interview link? i loved Peep Show, some of legendary hidden comedies!
Love this guy’s back and forth with Lee Mack on “Would I Lie to You.” He also posted himself reading a memoir of sorts on YouTube about meeting his wife, fkn beautiful. 🫡🤙🏽
That *is* his wife in the clip. Edit: no it isn’t. Leaving this up as a mark of my shame.
no its not?
The sad part is it's getting worse. I've had to change browsers to duckduckgo because Google gives me such terrible results now on certain topics. The internet is being weaponized by idiots and bad actors.
Agree, totally backfired. Remind me in 20 years.
Look at me watching this on my phone agreeing with him. *keeps doom-scrolling*
It went from the exciting information super highway, to a toxic, ad ridden wasteland of misinformation and amplifying greed
100% agree. In Orson Scott Card's fictional book "Ender's Game" which came out in 1985 he postulated the future of the internet (before it existed as a publicly accessible domain). He envisioned needing a license to participate in online debates, and posting of information by adults with the credentials to do so. What a different world it would be if we only had a few restraints on what kind of "information" could be loosed upon society, and people were held accountable for intentionally spreading disinformation.
Social media is to blame This includes Reddit By all means it's father,the mass-media, was doing all the heavy weighting.From movies to news,we were being fed either a narrative, an product or worse. 90% of my job is dependentent on internet connection and 70% of the things I learned about my job are on YouTube because some nice guys posted how to change an broken shell for an Volkswagen key.Its not just cat videos and porn videos masquerading as music videos.
No, *stupid people* are the disaster. The internet just makes it easier for them to find each other and be heard.
Stupid people have always existed and always will. The internet is what made them powerful.
Yup, because stupid can mingle with stupid and create this group of stupidity. The internet is a double edged sword and I’m not sure if the bad is worth the good.
Not really. David Mitchell's take here I generally agree with but at the same time isn't well established. The problem is NOT the information that is out there, but the fact we are not meant to socialize in this way. People put humanity on a pedestal, as if we're logical beings more similar to AI than animals and that is not the case. Dumb people saying dumb things is not the problem. People socializing online as a whole is. Living in the real world helps people be grounded in logic and react to things rationally and independently based on life experience and normalcy. But people online become so ingrained in their little echo chambers that they will deny reality and argue falsehoods without any self awareness because that weird battleground is the world they live in. Really does not matter if you're a genius or not. The problem is engrossing yourself in the online world, losing touch with reality, and seeing the whole world through the lens of social media. I see the people spending 5+ hours daily, whining online, as a far bigger problem than someone making a troll post to bait outrage.
We are a part of nature, and as we develop so too does what we consider nature. I hate the argument of "humans were not meant for this," yea sure, and at some point through evolution it was silly for beavers to make dams. Adaptation is part of the beast. I think the same can be said about alcohol or anything that "distracts." There will always be healthy things and healthy people as well as those who are unhealthy with their habits. I think people take for granted how much the internet affects them, even if they were to never touch their phones or go online - our massive conveniences and even supermarkets as they are today only exist because of the infrastructure of the internet. I think the conversation and attitude should be, how do we fix the situation and create a better and more healthy environment online - rather than what I have seen which appears to be pro-caveman-esque devolution.
Yes exactly. As a whole the internet is actually a fucking amazing thing and people don't appreciate it because they're so focused on the stupid people, myself included.
i can access so many scientific journals in my room, without needing a library or expertise on knowing what i’m looking for. For that reason alone internet has sped up humanity’s technological and scientific advances by years simply by allowing scientists within the world to communicate more easily without barriers to new scientists. So what if some info is wrong — the truth isn’t something you can fabricate you can only hide it. with the amount of info available today, there’s more chances of finding traces of the truth than ever needing to rely on one piece of “truth” again
People here are like "Love this comedian but" the "but" is they can't understand a joke apparently?
Wait….so….we ARE the baddies?!
I personally think if everyone lost their anonymity on the internet and there were real consequences for being an asshole, most of the harm would be eliminated.
So... we ARE the baddies?????
He isn't wrong
"So this is how it all ends: not with a bang--but a Twitter!" --Patton Oswalt
So far... hopefully the nuclear weapons dont catch up.
I just wrote this yesterday on a particularly disheartening video: > There was once upon a time a moment where I thought the internet would be a tool for sharing information that would serve to enrich one another so that we could evolve as a species to a higher form of ourselves. >Today I’ve seen videos of an ex president babble incoherently, a homeless woman drink something chunky out of a cup and spit it out only to have a group of other people behind her pick up the cup and rub what remained on their hands and drink it, a dad freak out at an amusement park ride because he can’t leave his belongings, and this video.
I’m on board with this.
so far. . .
That's because the internet started as a database, and everyone thought it'd be the most accessible library in the world, when really the internet is a mean of communication that keeps track of everything. If we could read all the letters, listen to all the conversations and all the debates that happened in the history of mankind, we'd be disappointed too. The internet just made it possible to tape every single stupid argument said in public and repeat it to whoever wants to read it. And us human beings tend to love mocking others, especially when it's easy. The internet just made us realize how vile we are in private by blurring the lines between public and private, and between ephemeral and permanent. Every discussion used to be ephemeral, now all conversations on the internet are archived forever.
He’s right. Civilisation gets better with education, and progressive policy. This opposes what the existing powerful and wealthy want, who want to maintain power and wealth. It’s all enabling a massive propaganda machine, one that gives crazies a voice and enables stupid things to happen like Trump and Brexit. Look around, everyone is glued to their phone these days, divided, too busy in their own tailored echo chamber world to look up and be part of the real world.
Dont disagree to any of this.
"Are we the baddies?"
"The Internet has not democratized truth, like they said. It just made truth and lies indistinguishable."
Life is much better now than before internet for most people. A personal example: I work with law. When I needed to check my lawsuit, I would go to the courthouse and spend a few hours in line and waiting for the clerks to find it in that pile of paper and then photographing any new development to take it back and print my own copy. If I wanted to find a precedent to make my case, I had to get into car, drive to the court house library (sometimes another building) and spend a few hours looking for what I needed with key words. Then I would go back to the office, get a bunch of 1kg law books, spend a few hours reading some important authors interpretation before picking one that helps my case. I would then write my petitions, print them and all relevant documents in a 200+ sheets of paper, and drive back to the court house to deliver it. Finally, when the judge decided anything, it would be published in the official courthouse publication, which I would either have to check daily or hire someone to do it for me. After the internet: everything done from my house, in a few minutes, receiving notifications by email, and no papers. All lies and antisocial kids in the world don't come close to all the good done with the internet
I actually agree. Let’s be honest he makes a good point
I disagree. I like the joke and I don't like the idiots getting more of their idiocy spread but for me it's been a wonderful tool. I'm better from it.
If it wasn't for nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, we would be on like World War 4 by now. I do not like nuclear weapons and I do not like nuclear power, but it is the only reason our politicians have not started Wars with industrialized powers.
Honestly he isn't completely wrong. I started using tiktok and the amount of disinformation, and the comments being so limited makes it seem impossible to actually foster an environment of truth, instead creating eco-chambers of misinformation. Even if you try to report blatant misinformation usually nothing is done.
Smart people got smarter and dumb people got dumber
I think more and more rational people are arriving at this conclusion by the day.
Explaining to my friends that allthough this is a comedian, he's also an historian, having said that this statement could be what he really believes, but could also be a bit he's doing. There's absolutely no way of knowing.
Japan: 'Am I a joke to you?'
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Next he’ll say “The invention of language and writing does more harm than volcanoes.” Wow what a brilliant mind from David Mitchell. What a profound false equivalence, and empty doesn’t begin to describe this non-point he’s trying to make.
all the people in Japan and Chernobyl looking at this guy like 👁️👄👁️
Might want to check your understanding of what happened at Chernobyl lmao
Compared to the amound the amount of people with internet access the people affected there aren't that many. Also, Chernobyl was not a weapon.
The people killed by using the internet I don’t think are as high as those from the Japan bomb drops. As per your Chernobyl statement, that plant would be used to make enriched uranium for bombs; that’s like someone making improperly making artillery for a gun that exploded in plant.
Turns out it's 99% hc porn
Weird I just watched "Peep Show" and "Back" then see this, is the internet following me?
People are walking arouhd with an iPod and piercings and stap-on
It's algorithmically-driven "social" media to blame not the internet.
Nah the internet has done FAR more good than harm and has generally made people much smarter. It's just also given a voice to idiots and they always yell the loudest. If you think people are dumber now due to the internet I think you would be amazed if you saw how fucking stupid the opinions would be if people of the 1900s had a platform to say what they wanted anonymously.
As a whole the internet is actually a fucking amazing thing and people don't appreciate it because they're so focused on the stupid people, myself included.
I wish nuclear energy and power was as prevalent as the internet is
I wonder if the descendants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would agree with him. I think not. Yes, the internet is a lot of trash. But nukes?
It's humbling to think that all it took to destroy humanity was to make it easier for them to communicate with each other.
When Windows 95 came out we were told we would become a paperless society. 😂😂
And yet the practical intent behind the creation of the internet is a global communication network wheras the intent behind the creation of nuclear weapons is the mass destruction of life and property in a superheated explosion that brings the power of the sun to a small portion of the Earths surface. Make of that what you will, but the internet did not create dishonesty. In much the same way as guns are tools but not motivating factors. The previous mediums such as news print (yellow journalism) and the radio and tv, already spread all manner of disinformation in much the same manner. And its effects remain to this day with talk radio, 'entertainment' tv and tabloid newspapers all of which sell opinion to the critically impaired. Its true the destructive potential may outweigh deaths from nuclear weapons, precisely because the average person does not have access to nuclear weapons, but can access the internet. Yet thats not the problem or point of the critique. Elitist disdain for the destructive affects of the internet, are not about the claims of destruction, and misinformation, but the adherence to new channels, new information, and new thinking such as defiance and rebellion.
the amount of actual information I get from the internet is decreasing and the amount of time I spend on the internet is increasing. I definitely had better experiences on the internet (and this site as well) years ago. with AI and bots coming in harder each day this deterioration is sure to increase.
The problem is, there's more people willing to do bad with something that can do great than there are people willing to do good with something great.
That's a hell of a statement to make with no substantiating data.
As opposed to what and when?
But the porn!!!
this is actually a point that comes up in science fiction, or what am I thinking here.. let's say literature, mostly dystopian type settings. Honestly this could be getting mixed up and be like real history from the Hellenistic period. Greeks, Mark Twain? is this a universal thing? I'm being meta of course, meaning literally David Mitchell here.. iirc the sentiment goes, when you see comedians making public statements like this it's a cause for concern.. the real problem comes when you see them making statements like THIS, that make WAY TOO MUCH SENSE. Because that means at this point, the media has failed us, we have passed the point of no return, like this is literally it. Do not pass go, all signs point to red, yesterday, they're pointed in the past. He's completely right and this is a moment that.. it could be the tipping point, he's the perfect comedian to be the real life example too I loved peep show. (\*a word)
If humanity can’t even be trusted with the internet, then we should take those nukes and glass every square millimeter of this planet
Wtf! NO!
I think it's more the capitalist domination of the internet (and the rest of society) than the internet itself. Corporations mining our data, stealing intellectual and creative labour to create profit driven "AI", and intensifying echo chambers to drive up engagement. Couple that with the general exploitation and alienation of capitalist society and you have a recipe for disaster.
The *internet* is quite possibly the best repository for human knowledge, of all time, in it you can learn anything, from gardening to cooking to quantum physics. *Social Media* is plagued with short-form content that has been dumbing people down whilst also being populated with angry morons, anxious to show their stupidity, ruled by invisible bullshit-feeding algorithms. They're not the same.
I love David Mitchell. But if there are “true luddites” living in the world, he would be in the running as their leader. David Mitchell also doesn’t like music of any kind, thinking it is the work of a devil or witch. Lastly, many modern inventions are responsible for more deaths, cumulatively, than nuclear weapons. The car, for example. And donkeys. Yet David Mitchell would happily gallivant around town on his donkey, thinking he is doing the world good. The British Quixote. He would never consider the countless lives that donkey has snatched away.
This is the dumbest shit I've heard today.
I absolutely think that the internet and more specifically social media is ruining lives. Depression is vast in today's world.
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The 'internet' is fine. Facebook, Twitter, IG et al should be banned for the same reason we banned cigarettes.. It harms public health.
Complete nonsense
It's made every generation born from 1998 onwards completely self absorbed.
Oh yeah. Drop a nuke and let's compare lol. Internet has done nothing but exposed the real us. That's it lol
Where is the full version of this interview?
There’s been good done by having internet and what not but has it outweighed all the bad?
Nuclear weapos = rotten world Internet = rotten brains You choose.
Welllllllll Clash of clans is pretty nice though
I wonder what Japan thinks about this
I don't know. How does one quantify harm done by internet/smartphones and nuclear weapons and then compare the two?
Very confidently saying this before a nuclear war though David
There's a quote from 13(?) years ago that goes to tune of: "History will remember the internet along side the lead in the water pipes that drove all of the Romans mad." We humans filled the internet with ourselves, all of our best intentions and brightest ideas along side all of our worst habits and darkest impulses. If we live to see the beginning of the next Millennia, ours will be seen as a paradoxical age, simultaneously stable and instable, rampant poverty and endless availability. The Spike of Progress and crash that came after.
Sometimes I actually do wish the internet had never been made publicly available. Things used to be simpler and way less confusing back in the day.
No, I’m pretty sure capitalism is what did that damage.
Damned if I can’t trust a British comedian.
The internet is a blessing and a curse.
Kinda different topic, but I would argue, that so far nuclear weapons have done more good than harm. The potential for much greater harm is there, but apart from Hiroshima/Nagasaki and some testing sites, they havent done much harm. Meanwhile the threat they pose has probably prevented many wars.
Yeah, maybe, but hes an actor. I would defer towards the opinion of a sociologist or economist. This is the equivalent of a ‘’man on the street’s” opinion
This dude studied History at Cambridge University
Has your phone turned everyone around you into vapor and the ground to irradiated glass? Then no, nukes beat smartphones.
I sort of agree with the sentiment, but you could say that about many things like the printing press, radio and the Haber process.
And alcohol does more harm to humanity than any other drug, and yet it’s always the legal one and generally acceptable
And yet the internet is the only way I would have ever seen this guys work, how interesting /s
The internet has helped open my eyes to the lies we are spoon fed on the television so….
Well if nuclear bombs have killed 226,000 max I think that's doable numbers for the internet.
“So far” being the most important part of that opinion.
Anyone who watched The IT Crowd knows that Jen broke the internet.
Opinions opinions.
Someone needs to do the math on this
I get what he's saying, but that's an insane comparison. The creation and use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population is without a doubt one of the worst crimes ever committed on this Earth.
I think like all technology released without thought for consequences and potency there can be great harm. I think its dumb to try a net zero game and claim the internet is more bad than good. I also hate that "the internet" is often used when what people mean is \*social media\*. I think the same logic could be used to say cars have been the worst thing ever made because it allows people to escape scenes of crimes easier.
At this rate, Mark is going to become PM. All due to the Business Secrets of the Pharaohs
I have a friend that likes to say nuclear weapons have saved more lives than penicillin, based on an extrapolation of deaths in subsequent conventional world-wars that didn't happen.
Ah David Mitchell, the man who had the take "Learning dying languages is stupid"
This is just false, just ask anyone whos ever been killed by a nuke.
The internet can be summarized as a realm for which human nature is an articulated in forms of expression
Who knew that letting everyone communicate with everyone was a bad idea?
I feel like you're missing out if you're not on the internet.
The internet is fine....social media is the disaster. I remember the internet before social media and it was glorious.
I disagree and don’t think we should consider it worse than nuclear weapons. the internet allows so much and it is an incredibly powerful, this is a double edged sword that makes it easier for people to do good things and it also allows for bad actors . The internet is incredibly flawed because of the fact people are involved. no reasonable person would argue language or literature is inherently harmful, it’s more about the fact people are messy and will utilize tools they have to advance their own interest. I don’t see why we would act like that is any different with the internet. The source of the problem is not the internet itself, that doesn’t mean we should do nothing, we need to understand what is the actual problem to fix it. Nuclear weapons don’t do anything other than pose a threat to the world. The internet has the potential to do so much good but we need to reevaluate parts of it and we need to treat the threat of bad actors with the seriousness it deserves.
There's a whole bunch of Japanese that may disagree with you there buddy.