DeeGeesLifeBlog ~ Life as Art ~ Or is it Heart?

But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. ~ Daniel 12: 4

As one who, on a daily basis, spends quite a bit of time on the internet, debating whether or not it’s a good or bad thing is pointless. It exists, isn’t going away anytime soon, so rather we get used to it and embrace its positives, as opposed to worrying about how much time we spend there.

It’s a bit like debating whether the interstate highway system is a good or bad thing.

Thousands die on interstate roads every year – a bad thing – but no one would argue we’d be better off without them. Which is why we teach our young’uns to learn how to drive, for heaven’s sake.

Same goes for the internet. Learn how to use it. Learn a little something about history and the human condition so you don’t get fooled by fake news. Be skeptical and discriminating.

For some of us curmudgeons, the same debate ensued in the early 1950s about television, and how watching too much of it would eventually turn you blind.

I kid you not.

Yours truly has met many people through what you might term ‘virtual reality’, whose commentary and insight have given me a broader worldview and perspective that perhaps I wouldn’t get if I relied on discussion with only those within my own immediate circle of influence.

Even though I’ve been a world traveler (still am, as a matter of fact) getting a broader perspective is important to me.

The internet like so many other things is a blank slate. It can be used for so many different things and is.

As a for instance, we know, from the raw experience of socializing on Facebook say, that many are shallow and angry and bigoted, ignorant, rude and stupid, fake and too credulous.  The question is, what of it?  

What if the way to get past all this was not to be connected less, but to be connected more?  To see others more for who they are so we can get a clearer picture of them – and thus of we ourselves?  

What if the cesspool of humanity known as the internet was only a window to the things that were already there, which we hadn’t confronted because we hadn’t seen them; which we’re shocked to find, can only hope to improve, but can never really erase?

As such, the answer to the foolishness of Facebook isn’t getting rid of Facebook. It’s learning how not to be a fool on it. People keep saying we’re addicted to it, but this isn’t the truth of it at all.  The truth is that Facebook gives us a new way to be addicted to each other, and when you put it that way it’s actually kind of sweet.  The program is not the problem.

There is no problem.

The Internet is no more immoral or destructive than any other invention of man like guns or television or nuclear power. As I was taught by a former professor of mine many years ago, the physical universe is fundamentally amoral, thus, physical entities do not have a basic morality.

We and the internet have simply become too close – and we are only now learning how to express this new, unprecedented, electronic kind of neighborhood interface.

May the force be with you.

Then I Daniel looked, and, behold, there stood other two, the one on this side of the bank of the river, and the other on that side of the bank of the river … And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? ~ Daniel 12: 5-8

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See Jeremy Egerer: For better and for Worse the cost of the Internet

And his The case for banning Facebook

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Soli Deo Gloria!