The Internet is killing us.
That might sound like a silly statement, especially from someone spreading his beliefs on the Internet, but bear with me for a minute.
In a piece in today’s Washington Post, conservative columnist Max Boot points out from various credible sources that a quarter of Republicans support Qanon’s beliefs, a third believe that the government is using the coronavirus vaccination campaign to implant microchips and more than half believe Donald Trump actually won the last election.
Couple that with less than half the folks in the GOP have a solid belief in science and you have a country getting closer and closer to terminal stupidity.
Don’t get me wrong. There are things I love about being online, all the way back to the days of America Online and the World Wide Web. I remember the days of dial-up, when an incoming phone call would kill the connection. I remember being naive enough that when someone sounding official asked me for my AOL password, I gave it to them.
But I also remember my friend Mick calling me in the late ’90s and asking me to check a website someone had sent him an all numbers ID for. I was at work, and I called up a truly vile hard-core pornographic site. It was only on my screen for about two seconds, but it made it onto the list of reasons for getting rid of me 10 years later when they wanted to dump my salary.
I remember when Amazon started out as an online bookstore. I know I would be tens of thousands of dollars wealthier if it had stayed that way, but isn’t it wonderful to order something you can’t find locally and have it in two days?
Almost wonderful enough not to begrudge Jeff Bezos his $200 billion fortune.
If the Internet had stayed about chat and shopping, knowledge and even porn, it might not be doing the damage it is. But folks who are a taco shy of a combination plate started using it to put forward some of the most bizarre beliefs known to man.
Take QAnon, for example. This group has only been around since about 2017, starting out with the idea that liberal politicians and A-list celebrities around the world had created a network to facilitate child sex abuse. They evolved into a strongly pro-Trump group that believes cellular 5G networks are being used to spread the coronavirus.
QAnon members made up a large part of the terrorists who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, and they actually elected Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress in 2020 from North Georgia.
Groups like this couldn’t exist without the anonymity of the Internet.
They give a legitimacy to people who live their mental lives far beyond the pale. In the past, if a man got his jollies by engaging in sex with goats, he likely kept it to himself and hoped no one would find out. Now he can see a website for men who love goats and say, “Hey, there are lots of other guys like me. I must be normal.”
The site might have all sorts of useful information for him like where to find goats. Or how to seduce the goats. Or what techniques result in the most pleasure (for the man, not the goat).
Now substitute the word “children” for “goats.”
Love that internet.