Rant of the Week

Televisionization of the Internet

You probably don't think of our society as Totalitarian. A Totalitarian society is a society that is rule by a pernicious doctrine to which all societal functions must be subordinated to one exclusive purpose.

By golly, we're free to live as we choose, in our society. Aren't we?

Suppose I wanted to come up with a new type of communication network that combined the functionality of the telephone, television, and radio, into one powerful medium, with one small proviso. The proviso is this: no commercial use of the medium is allowed. None whatsoever. No advertising, no selling, no profiteering. The system would be created and run by volunteers only.

There's a lot of technical obstacles, of course. But probably not as many as you think. But there is one overwhelming obstacle: our society is totalitarian and will not stand for a non-commercial communications network.

Think that analysis is a little extreme? No television network will allow Adbusters to run their advertisements criticizing advertisers and the consumerist lifestyle. They won't accept the money, they won't run the ads. You can sell gas-guzzling cars, unproven pharmaceutical products, and booze, and even scantily-clad women, but you can't challenge the fundamental religion of our society: consumerism.

And now the internet. When it started, it was beautiful, free, clean, and amazing. Have you browsed around the net lately? All you see is advertising, on every single damn site. And if you aren't seeing advertising on the site itself, you are getting whacked via e-mail, or in the browser frames, or with pop-up windows.

You might think it's merely a case of a lot of internet users deciding to try to make a few bucks. But that's not all it is. Why on earth should your browser permit a pop-up ad? Why should it enable such a function? Why should it be difficult or impossible to turn off that function? Microsoft and Netscape design the browsers. They have incorporated features into the browser to guarantee that you will be whacked every time you go on the internet.

And Microsoft has designed the operating system to encourage the user to become a passive drooling idiot, gushing over the little animations and sound effects playing on his computer, while relinquishing control over his eyeballs and ears to the corporate politburos of America.

The internet is the largest single source of pollution. It is so bad, that for the first time since I first went "on-line" way back in the early 1990's, I am seriously considering getting off.