The Internet: Humanity's Global Cancer? Jan 31st 2024.

The Internet: Humanity's Global Cancer?

Can't live with it, can't live without it. We're hooked, plugged into, and addicted to minute by minute, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep. It's the world at our fingertips. The font of nearly all knowledge inside a brain that encompassed the planet, growing daily in size as we feed its hunger with increasing amounts of knowledge in nanoseconds.

So, what exactly is this monolith created by Tim Berners-Lee and sold for a little over $5 million that may quite possibly become the death of humanity, as we know it, and why?

Let's just take a couple of minutes, or so, to roll back the years to a time way before even I was conceived: or thought of, for that matter. It was the end of the Second World War when the country was in a state of rebuild, and people had very little except for the stoicism and determination to rebuild their lives, and their country. They knew what hardship was on a scale we couldn't even begin to imagine now, in 2024. This was a country that grew from Nizzen huts and Anderson shelters to prefabs: (prefabricated homes) that were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage, and then real homes again, that became a 'castle' in the language of back then, and the main householder a king, albeit metaphorically. A time when tears from war became tears of joy as brighter, and brighter futures appeared on the horizon for grandparents, parents, and children alike. Overall, in fact, unity in comm'unity, and still a country with increasing purpose, and ambition.

From rolling back to rolling forward, towards 1989, and my era. As kids then, we would learn from books, because this was all we had; and libraries would provide our source of knowledge outside of school hours. We went off and built dens out of whatever the surrounds provided, and parents could contribute to. We learned to build makeshift toys and play equipment, in pretty much the same way. Some would even kick a ball around the streets. Others would be out for hours at a time on their bikes exploring. We were nearly always covered in cuts and bruises of one type, or another, from falling over while playing as well. It may have hurt or stung for a while, and while parents weren't entirely unsympathetic we were soon patched up and back out again because we were taught, and learned damn quickly, that these were just practice runs for the many times ahead of us in years to follow we would fall down, pick ourselves back up and carry on. Basically, our lives would be full of hard knocks along the way, and this was all part and parcel of character building and, "get used to it because we won't always be around to pick you up when you fall." Mollycoddling, What the hell was that?

There were no five-minute faux friends who, sometimes thousands of miles away we 'liked' when the moment suited us, as the friends we had were real from school and the local neighbourhood. Facebook! Are you kidding me? Yet, we managed quite well without it - and if anyone was that keen to make new acquaintances in other countries, those they made were penpals. We also managed quite well without TikTok, Google, mobile phones, Fitbits, Zoom, Twitter (X), and all the other available sites our lives have now become so reliant on. Perhaps, surprisingly for some, we could make telephone calls around the world, and learn of so many other things via television programme makers.

Now, while I'm not in any way pining for the good old days, as one might say. Or, for that matter appear to demonise how much more technically advanced the world has become as a result of it, because for me, at least, there are wider and deeper questions I feel need satisfying. While I fully accept that to some people their lives and the world around them may feel like a tough place to live nowadays, I'm bound to ask, "Is it really"? You see, compared to way back before the internet began to take off in a big way, life now is a comparative bowl of cherries where so much is provided for people, and resources for just about everything are at their fingertips, and, are generally speaking, all the more comfortable in their everyday lives for it. Basically, for a lot of people, we live in a day and age where arguably, life's needs are provided on a plate - and for some, a platter.

The problem being, that the more life provides for people the less inclined they become to do things for themselves because others will satisfy their every need through the provision of one product/service, or another. So, where within is that post-war spirit and appreciation of having to work hard for everything in life, and where are those hard knocks that used to toughen people up?

Two days ago, I was reading about a twenties female who complained to one of the lottery companies because she didn't receive the prize she was expecting, and instead, became the recipient of some luxury candles, when suddenly, it seems, her life descended into meltdown and she claimed "emotional damage" from this experience. For one thing, with all the issues and problems going on in the world, winning candles isn't armageddon. Secondly, this is a classic example of someone who simply wasn't prepared for the world ahead of her, and the fact that big, or small, a win in life, no matter what the circumstances is still a win. You take the rough with the smooth and simply accept it's just another day in the life of.

T the risk of repeating myself from the previous blog, and sod it, I'm going to anyway, society as we know it now began to severely fall apart after the beginning of this millennium when the clock struck one minute

past midnight. Oh, and, I go into greater detail within my book 'The Sexual Philanthropist' on Amazon/Kindle. Yes, a further unashamed plug. Anyway, I don't know how it became possible, but somehow a millennium gene mutation suddenly appeared as if by miracle, and something called ADHD was conceived. Perhaps this was the bug that would end the world people were speaking of. It's just taken far longer than expected to kick in. Nonetheless, behaviours in people began to change to the point where we lean towards a more feral society where, it seems, everyone - well, almost, is out for themselves in a narrative that spells survival of the fittest.

While I fully accept that not every behaviour can be attributed to ADHD nowadays, I simply question why it wasn't so prevalent as it is nowadays compared to Gen X, Z, and before that, the sixties to nineties? Feral and disrespectful, destructive and violent behaviour now seems almost vicarious by association of proxy, and it causes me to wonder as to the extent internet addiction affects the post-millennials whose lives seem ruled by this subterfuge god of newer-age worship? Arguably, more powerful than heroin it keeps the Gen X's and Z's so addicted it has been party to, rather than the cause of, suicides in some instances.

The perniciousness of the internet is clever, in as much as it draws us in, like a closer than-closer friend who is always there for us, and provides almost every solution to every question and every challenge we face on a day-to-day basis, twenty-four-seven; because it never sleeps, and unlike people fuelled by emotion, this object of our virtual albeit worship, in itself isn't capable of judgment or criticism, to which I add, yet. As I believe, both the best and the worst are yet to come.

Whereas, once upon a time I used to greet everything internet-related with the excitement and enthusiasm of a child opening presents on Christmas Day, I now pause for breath on almost every day of accessing it, and constantly question my allegiance to it. You see, I'm somewhere between the devil and the deep blue nowadays. More cautious, and less trusting.

While having to accept its necessity for things such as banking, and of course writing, I don't in reality want anything to do with it now. I've had my time, and freely admit my enjoyment of all that it offered me over the years of usage. It's just the increasing level of intrusion in my life that I've arguably become more cynical of. The fact that everything I do online can be tracked and traced, and I couldn't even begin to imagine the level of data my millions, if not trillions of footprints have provided to who knows what, and for purposes I probably haven't even consented to with any degree of knowledge in doing so.

China was the first country to raise my suspicions with the introduction of social credits, and, as for here in the UK, the way we are all being surreptitiously driven in favour of a cashless society where every aspect of our income and expenditure will be recorded and used, simply increases what were arms-length suspicions even further. In expressing this I'm sure you can also begin to join the dots where the human reliance on the internet is concerned. It's not exactly what I call rocket science. Yet, as far removed from conspiracy theories as I am, and will hopefully ever be, you'd have to be sleepwalking through your life and blind too, so as not to comprehend the sheer magnitude of the situation in which humanity finds itself, where every aspect of our individual lives are being fine-tuned towards be accepting of, and submissive to a higher power over which we will have no control whatsoever.

Now, if you're entirely comfortable with this, then I can say no more, and with mutual respect for our positions, we will part company. I, for one, will stick to my guns, and continue with my beliefs, regardless.

I will expand on this in the following post.

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