Death to the Blogosphere, Luddites Rise Up

Reader Kermit Johnson wrote quite a dissertation on my post Sir Elton the Luddite. He raises a lot of damning concerns about the internet/blogosphere that deserved a post of it’s own. Here it is in it’s entirety:

Of course the blogosphere is going to get defensive if anyone of note says “boo” about it. While we are defending the internet and the blogosphere, lets consider the benefits:1) Anyone who can’t write can now publish a blog and pretend they can write. They can even pretend that they have a meaningful audience. Some bloggers even think they are journalists!

2) Kids (and parents) can disconnect from natural communities and join virtual ones. They can also enjoy pornography just like adults can. (Do you seriously think you are going to keep them from it?) They now have even more reasons to stay indoors and fatten up in front of a screen. Hey… what about you out there? How many hours a week do you sit in front of a computer looking at trash or useless drivel? We now call that “community” and “culture”. Some people even think that giving all of the kids in the world laptops will make them well-educated. (I think I remember that Abraham Lincoln learned his lessons by writing with a piece of coal on the back of a shovel. Too bad he did not have Porn Tube.)

3) Gambling is now easier than ever.

4) Local merchants, workers and businessmen can become “disintermediated” by online multi-national corporations.

5) At one time, people like Tom Paine, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson would go to the taverns to drink, sing songs, and toast each other all night long. Other people would go to the neighbors for Sunday dinner to argue religion and politics.Not any more… Now we can go to the coffee shop (how pathetic) and hunch over our laptops and not even know who is sitting next to us.

6) Eventually, our whole lives can become digitized. It certainly will be easier to control all of us, wouldn’t you agree?) Mediocrity now reigns supreme under the guise of some sort of “digital democracy.” But hey, maybe quantity IS more important than quality and more data is better.

We now have more “information” than we even asked for… unfortunately, 99% of it is scam, spam, more marketing, “bait link” or just plain poor quality.

9) Perhaps we will all like the “Singularity.” By the

10) Oh, yes.. the “paperless office.” Funny, though, our offices now consume several times the amount of paper they used to.

11) Soon blog content will be computer generated, if some of it isn’t already. You will not be able to tell the difference.

12) Luddites will have to master internet technology in order to destroy it. But it is a great comfort to know that advanced surveillance technology will probably put a stop to that.

I’m sure that people will have all kinds of wonderful defenses for the internet and blogosphere. They can celebrate them as much as they wish.

As for myself, I don’t see how the internet has contributed to the quality of my social, family, or business affairs. I certainly don’t have any more free time than I had during the pre-internet era. If my business world had not moved to the internet, I probably would have not moved there either. My life is not any richer in any way because of the internet.

Hmm… he seems to make a point doesn’t he?

While I would agree the internet and computers have created their own set of problems, does the negative outweigh the benefits?

What do you think?