Born into the Age of Awful

Welcome to the Age of Awful. A time when almost no one is happy and those that say they are happy are angry most of the time. Liberals are miserable, conservatives are grouchy, libertarians are morose and fascists who are always adverse. The people who don't have an unreachable itch are irritated by the squirming from the folks trying to scratch. Compassion is running 10 points lower than the worst politicians approval rating. We could rule the world if we could orchestrate a displeasure based economy.

How did we get here? Easy, we ignored ourselves. We ignored each other. We accepted platitudes; don't rock the boat, silence is golden, do as I say and not as I do. We have been overly forgiving when someones words and actions didn't match. We have held our tongues when we should speak and it has made us false and miserable. If we had become false and happy, that might be OK. Phoney and happy is at least happy.

We have also forgotten how to listen to each other. Look at our childcan en - they don't talk or listen, they exchange. It is very different. It is an easy way to lose compassion, or maybe lose more compassion. We are drifting away from the social cues which have evolved over millennia and that loss is making us emotionally ignorant, bitter and our differences mutually abhorrent.

The good news is, we are very adaptable, Evolution is not just physical. Mental evolution is what has kept us alive long enough for the physical evolution to catch up.  We can survive this age of awful, if we choose to. Our children will, as children have before, become something new and wonderful. Awful is like manure, a smelly byproduct that will have help grow great things which can make the age of awful just history.

Curing the Internet. Will the Patient Survive?

There is no denying it, the internet has a hate problem. Call it an infection, a virus, a cancer or whatever. Our first reaction is to demand its cure, its removal. As much and as fast as possible. Give no quarter. Does that actually accomplish what we need? No. It removes an influence, a contributor, yes. Unfortunately those posts are only outward indicators of a larger problem which never went away in the first place. Despite tolerance, affirmative action and positive speech, hates proponents have kept it alive just below the surface.

The survival of hate has been going on for decades. Frustration and anger by users, law enforcement and communities is understandable, maybe even mandatory.  Extreme concern is certainty justified.

European governments,  emboldened by earlier success legislating content off Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and others, have taken a similar shoot-the-messenger approach to creating new legislation. The problem is Facebook, Twitter and other socialized media is not the same as the other companies they have legislated previously,  and even the internet is not the same as when they had previously enacted laws.

Various governments have steadfastly refused to acknowledge that what they're doing may not be effective at best, and may actually damage the usefulness of the internet,  at worst.

The companies are not without fault or responsibility here. They are like teenagers who spent too much time in the sun without sunblock and have now developed a melanoma on their arm which they have ignored a little too long.  The EU, rather than accepting the consultation of knowledgeable doctors, have opted directly for punitive amputation and is now openly suspicious of anyone with arms.

Make no mistake, liberty and personal cultural sovereignty are on the line. Choking free expression "for the public good" by controlling the transmission medium has little to do with the public good and everything to do with avoiding the problem. Avoiding the reality of hate by silencing the symptom and manifestations.

We are faced with the internationalization of local European internet laws. As well meaning as it may be, it translates to  internet content everywhere reflecting the most restrictive laws and attitudes in the world. How boring would the internet get. How useless would it become when religions, politics or new ideas deemed offensive in one country had to be removed everywhere on the internet or the platform where they appeared would suffer being fined into submission.

Would we still get innovative, daring start-up companies. Would there be creativity? Would users still be drawn to it? Would the internet survive?  Maybe, but maybe history has some clues how much could be lost.

Google "Hays Commission," come back afterwards and we'll talk.