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Comment by grungydan | Hacker News Reader

I'll go one further, though I expect to receive mockery for doing so: I think the internet as we conceive of it today is ultimately a failed experiment.

I think that society and humanity would be better off if the internet had remained a simple backbone for vetted organizations' official use. Turning the masses loose on it has effectively ruined so many aspects of our world that we can never get back, and I for one don't think that even the most lofty and oft-touted benefits of the internet are nearly as true as we pretend.

It's just another venue for the oldest of American traditions at this point: Snake Oil Sales.

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I won't mock you, I get where you're coming from, but I think you're forgetting just how revolutionary many aspects of the internet have been. The ability to publish to a potentially global audience without a corporate mediator. Do commerce without physically going to a store or ordering over a phone. Access to information, culture and education beyond what can fit in one's local library. Bank without an ATM. Even just being able to communicate worldwide without long-distance charges (remember those) or an envelope and stamp. Even social media, which everyone hates, was a revolution in that it got people easily using the web to network and communicate en masse, whereas prior it was just people behind pseudonyms on niche forums. There is a real and tacit improvement in the quality of life for at least millions of people behind each of those.

Reducing the internet to only world-destroying negatives and writing off its positives as "snake oil" seems unnecessarily hyperbolic, as obvious as the negatives are. Although I suppose it's easier to accept the destruction of the internet if you believe that it was never worth anything to begin with. But I disagree that nothing of value is being lost. Much of value is being lost. That's what's tragic.

Humans will use whatever means available to us to spout bullshit, misinformation and peddle snake oil.

The Internet has just made it easier for us to communicate, in doing so it has made the bad easier, but it has also made the good easier too. And fortunately there's still a lot more good than bad.

So I totally disagree with you there, bettering communication only benefits our species overall.

Gay rights is a great example, we only got them because of the noise and ruckus, protests, parades, individuals being brave and coming out. It's easy to hate a type of person if you've never been exposed to or communicated with them. But sometimes all it took to change the opinion of a homophobic fuck was finding out their best friend, their child, their neighbour who helps out all the time, was gay. Then suddenly it clicks.

Though certainly the Internet is slightly at odds with our species; we didn't evolve to communicate in that way so it's not without its challenges.

Get off my lawn! ;]

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