Hi(gh)!

Am 23.01.2013 10:54, schrieb Kenneth:

> Internet addiction is indeed a problem, and a growing one. I'm an older guy;
> when I was growing up, we had *limited* interaction with the wider outside
> world: three TV channels(!) plus newspapers, that was about it.

Same with me - West Germany in the 1970s and early 1980s was exactly 
that way (East Germany even worse)!

> It leads
> to more extremism, in all forms.

The Internet is truly the place where McVeighs and Breiviks are born! 
After the Norway massacre in 2011, I in fact posted suggestions to shut 
down the Internet entirely (or at least to limit it strictly to the 
scientific community) in reader commentary columns of German newspapers' 
online editions...

> (That's one reason why I don't visit Facebook
> very often: too many 'fringe' opinions about things.)

Most of my real world friends do not have any Facebook account, nor do 
I... but it must be one of the dark traits of human nature (or at least 
Yadgar's nature), that perverse fascination of extremist ideas, whether 
it be that the Islamic world should be nuked to oblivion, unemployed 
should be starved to death in forced labour camps, Jews are no human 
beings but incarnations of Satan, gays should be gassed before they 
enter Hell, yadda, yadda, yadda... but I do absolutely not positively 
identify with that stuff, instead I wish myself being kicked to death by 
rabid neo-Nazis, thrown into to a future Auschwitz 2.0, perishing like a 
rat in clouds of Cyclone B... in word, ultimately punished for my mere 
existence. This mindset prevails since my childhood days, only to be 
reinforced from 2008 on by my discovery of the Calvinist doctrine of 
"total depravity" - man generally deserves nothing but everlasting 
pow(Auschwitz, infinity) (to put in POV terms), unless he completely 
surrenders to the Bible. The perfect confirmation of my deeply ingrained 
self-hate!

> So getting away from the internet (if only temporarily) is highly recommended!

Sometimes I wish that Peak Oil and the following total collapse of 
industrial civilization would rid the world of the Internet... then 
permaculture gardens, bicycles (if not even donkeys - I never had, and 
probably will have the chance to visit Afghanistan, but perhaps this way 
Afghanistan comes to us all...) would be far more important than 
programming languages, smartphones and Twitter accounts! And also POV-Ray...

See you on my screen!

Yadgar

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