There once was a dream.
The dream was that the Internet, with capital I, would bring the world together in unity, to cross all political, religious and other gaps and make our world, in a lack of better word, whole.
Unfortunately this didn't happen. Exactly the opposite did. The world is, if possible, more divided than it ever has been.
These days everyone, and I do mean everyone, including myself, is firmly dug in their own little foxhole of opinion, and they won't even hear anything else. And this is all because of the internet as we know it.
The original dream was (I think, with my entrenched opinion) that since everyone could connect with everyone, there would be lot of cross-cultural and cross-political dialogue, bringing people together. After all, this had happened before, under more physical circumstances. Trade between neighbors brings the world together like nothing else.
That didn't happen on the internet. What did happen, instead, is that internet allowed people to find peers, other people that think alike and dig in with them, blasting out their own version of Ride of the Valkyries so that no dissenting voices could be heard, and actually actively closing themselves out from hearing anything not in line with their opinions. People all over the world did this very same thing with their own peer groups, often without even realizing it, and the result is what we have now. World divided.
There are, of course, people who love this division, thrive in it and even actively work to encourage it. Divide et impera - divide and conquer. Make people hate each other so they don't notice what you are doing to them. Some people of course are true believers, but these days it seems that the huge majority of active - that is, most often posting and most vocal - people are fake. Imaginary people, made up by someone just to further the division.
The main service providers in internet - and this with absolutely no exceptions includes every single large-scale service operator you might know or have heard of - are actively contributing to this problem by implementing services and policies that allow and even encourage this behavior. The rich and the politicians have their own goals and since this benefits them, too, by distracting people from nefarious stuff they are doing, so they, too, encourage it.
As I write of this, another huge distraction appears to be nearing flash point at middle east while huge chunk Australia is burning with temperatures reaching all time records.
I often try to think up some hope when discussing this kind of current topics, but alas, this time I see none. Too many people have too much to gain from the current situation, either by allowing them to live in denial or by allowing them to profit from said denial, so I can't see anything changing anytime soon.
So in meantime, here's a puppy enjoying a summer day at a lake.
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