I’ve spent so much time reading blogs and writing comments this morning that I don’t have the time to write much – bah! There are so many blogs that if all I wanted to do was read and comment I would have my mornings cut out for me. Still, I shan’t complain too much, because it has been an interesting morning.
There’s an interesting interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on the BBC which is well worth a read (Tim Berners-Lee on blogging: “When you write a blog, you don’t write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I’m very, very happy to see that now it’s gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium.“)
The interviewer was annoying though because he kept asking stupid questions: “Tim, don’t you think it’s your fault that there’s porn on the web?”
ML [interviewer]: You must reflect though on the law of unintended consequences because it wasn’t remotely ever your intention when you started on this that so much of the web would be given over to sexual exhibitionists masturbating in their bedrooms with webcams. Do you ever have bad moments about that?
TBL: Well I don’t see that stuff.
ML: But you know it’s there though?
TBL: Some people tell me. I suppose the question is to what extent the people use it for things which should seriously concern us. For example, are people using the web to get information about how to do illegal things, whether it’s to make explosives, how to kill people, poison people, or whatever it is. So there’s a certain amount of danger that this tool can be used for bad purposes. It’s a very powerful tool.
ML: And you’ve never had a sleepless night over that?
TBL: No I haven’t. I haven’t had a sleepless night over it because I suppose I’m so much more surrounded by the good things that people are doing with it. There are lots of positive stories of people doing great things, putting educational information out there for people in developing countries and things, for example. There’s a huge spirit of goodness. Most of the people I meet who are developing the web are focused on all those things.
I’ve had a similar conversation with someone dear to me about The Dangers of The Internet – I pointed out that I don’t usually find porn unless I look for it… And heck, if I do stumble on a site with pictures of people doing stuff to each other, it isn’t the end of the world! (Is this the same sort of fear that causes a game like Grand Theft Auto to be banned? Never mind the violence, but sex?? – OMG you can make the toons can have sex with each other!)
Hooray for Tim Berners-Lee!* Imagine life without the Web!
*I know it’s corny to say Hooray for anybody, but that’s what I feel. Anyway this is my blog, so I’ll be as corny as I like 🙂
2 Comments
Good link and read about Sir Tim – thanks! 🙂
Re: the hypocrisy of violence vs. sex. I think many ppl online have pointed it out already – that in the game, you can steal cars, beat up cops and prostitutes but NO! You can’t have sex *with* the prostitutes. Hahaha….
Maddox has a good write up about it.
“You are gazing into the pixels of moral decay”
“I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game. Frankly, I’m appalled that Rockstar would allow such wholesale corruption of our youth. Years from now when America has become a withered husk of the morality it once stood for, historians will look back at what triggered it all and point to one event: a boolean variable that unlocked a simulated sex scene in a video game.”
ROFL! That’s the best part about this, you have to download a mod to unlock the “naughty” bits – you have to TURN IT ON! Without it all you have is the killing and theft etc.
M read the rant and laughed too 🙂