Like everyone else, I noticed Dr Weinberger’s and Doc Searls’ World of Ends this morning, linked from Bb. I have taken the liberty of making a response, of sorts, in the form of a satire fetchingly entitled – in true profane wonderchicken style – ‘World of Assholes’.
Although I do disagree with many of their points, I recognize the good will in their intention, and intend this in turn as good-natured if pointed ribbing, not ideological warfare. Manifestos by their very nature invite a kick in the ass, though, and I’m willing as always to step up to the plate. (And mostly I was just annoyed that I didn’t get one of those emails Shelley mentioned. Heh.)

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The Nutshell

  1. The Internet is complicated.
  2. The Internet isn’t a thing or an agreement : it’s a place.
  3. The Internet isn’t stupid, but it’s filled with stupidity.
  4. Adding value to the Internet adds to its value.
  5. Value on the internet goes unnoticed unless some high-traffic node connects it to the mainstream.
  6. Money moves to the greedy.
  7. The asshole of the world? Nah, the world of assholes.
  8. The Internet’s three vices:
  9.   a. Americans dominate it
      b. The wealthy populate it
      c. More inhabitants does not automatically mean more value, except to those who want to sell you something

  10. If the Internet is so complicated, why do so many seem driven to try and simplify it?
  11. Some mistakes we can stop making already.

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1. The Internet is complicated.

The internet is probably the most complicated thing in history, although it’s built on technology (TCP/IP) that is deceptively simple. Confusing the technology with the creativity and conversation is like confusing the truck with the beer it’s carrying.

2. The Internet isn’t a thing or an agreement : it’s a place.

Actually, it’s probably all three, but aphorisms have to be pithy, so you’ll excuse the confusion. The best way to understand something that’s complicated is to examine the metaphor or metaphors one uses to describe it or think about it. In America, football is a metaphor used to think about business, and war is a metaphor used to think about football, for example. This helps us to understand why bombing the living sh-t out of Iraq will magically make problems with the economy go away.
The internet feels like a place to most people – an environment that exists out there independantly of whether of not they are participating in it. The wires and servers, the hardware and the software – the things give the protocols a way to interact. The protocols are an agreement, and they allow the space to exist. The space is where we exist when we are on the net. See also : highway, truck and beer.

3. The Internet isn’t stupid, but it’s filled with stupidity.

The internet isn’t about packets, it’s about people. Just like in the real world, many of those people are egregiously stupid, and say and do stupid things. There are a few barriers to entry – literacy and money are two, for example
– so this makes the situation slightly less excruciating than it is in our daily lives offline.

4. Adding value to the Internet adds to its value.

If you change something about the way the internet works to favour a certain way of communicating or a certain technology, you may well be having a negative impact on other aspects of the environment. If all you are doing is adding something, however, the expected rules apply. More is, however, not necessarily better, for anyone except those who want to make money. See also : 8c.

5. Value on the internet goes unnoticed unless some high-traffic node connects it to the mainstream.

It’s entirely possible that the most brilliant minds of our generation are out there in the net hinterlands, exposing their genius for the world to see, and nobody is seeing it except the googlebot. Unless a higher-traffic node or nodes of the net (with a human intelligence in the driver’s seat) notes and disseminates the value that is being created out on the edges back into the middle and out again, nothing happens, and our new Shakespeare or Einstein labours unnoticed.

6. Money moves to the greedy.

If value goes unnoticed until the Big Nodes notice, then you or your product needs to get noticed by the central hubs somehow. Once that happens, the greedier you are, the more you’ll make. Mostly it’s about knowing the right people, just as it is in Real Life.

7. The asshole of the world? Nah, the world of assholes.

Because the internet is a place, it’s populated by all sorts of folks : the good, the bad and the fugly. Many people with even a shred of decency and integrity left bemoan the cesspool of evil, filth and stupidity that much of the internet has become. For some, the metaphor we used to use to describe my end-of-the-world hometown when I was young might be appropriate : The Asshole of The World.
This comes as a natural consequence of human nature, of course, and is to be expected. Just as in any other place, there are the good neighbourhoods and the bad, the saints, the sinners, and the scumbags. The internet may route around damage, but it builds a bus route directly to porn and cheap laughs. (You got here, didn’t you?)
Regardless of whether the internet is the rectum mundi (ahoy! fake latin to port!) or not, the place is unimportant without the people who populate it. Unfortunately, just as in real life, many of them are deeply unpleasant : the world of assholes.

8. The Internet’s three vices

So, those are the facts about the Internet. See, I told you they were complicated.But what do they mean for the behavior of the corporations and corporatists that keep trying to make the internet into a mall or a propaganda tool or a surveillance network?
Here are three basic rules of behavior that are tied directly to the factual nature of the Internet:
  a. Americans dominate it
  b. The wealthy populate it
  c. More inhabitants does not automatically mean more value, except to those who want to sell you something
Let’s look a little more closely at each…

8a. Americans dominate it

Americans, with their brash ways, their aspirations to Empire, their big hair and good teeth. Ah, those wacky Americans. They built the internet, and they’re determined to make it a mirror of their crumbling society. It’s a safe bet they’ll succeed.

8b. The wealthy populate it

Not too many poor folks on the net. Damn near none, in fact. Most people who can’t find enough fresh water to drink on a daily basis (well over half the population of the planet) don’t have access to a personal computer. And the wealthy got wealthy f–king the poor, personally or by proxy, so nothing’s new there.

8c. More inhabitants does not automatically mean more value, except to those who want to sell you something

A virtual space cannot get overcrowded, but it certainly can get messy and loud. But more people online means more targets for marketers, more data for surveillance units, more money for telcos. Go go go!

9. If the Internet is so complicated, why do so many been seem driven to try and simplify it?

There’s money and recognition in talking down to people.
Could it be because the three Internet vices are the exact analogue of how governments and businesses view the world?
Americans dominate it: The American government (and many of its people) are keen to dominate the world politically, militarily, and economically. Why should the net be any different?
The wealthy populate it: If you haven’t got enough money to buy my products, then f–k you.
More inhabitants does not automatically mean more value, except to those who want to sell you something: More human targets mean more sales, and more data for the Information Awareness miners. If they’ve got the money to get online, they’ve got the money to buy stuff, and if they’re breathing, they’re quite possibly a threat to the American government.

10. Some mistakes we can stop making already.

Enough already. Let’s stop banging our heads against the facts of Internet life, and go outside for some fresh air.
We have nothing to lose but our cupidity.

Category:
Thoughts That, If Not Deep, Are At Least Wide, Uncrappy
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Join the conversation! 21 Comments

  1. Tasty send up. A great deal of truth in your description of who dominates the internet.
    I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned the email, not being a done deal and all. I am a Bad Woman who never did learn proper weblogging etiquette.

  2. I am a Bad Woman
    which is one of the reasons I likes ya so much!

  3. DAG! WonderStavros!! You have REALLY raised the bar, and now I may not be ABLE to reply… (Thaz a round’bout way of sayin’.. NICE!!!)
    I didn’t know You weren’t American. One thing non-Americans don’t understand about Americans is this: Most-a us never ASKED for the U.S.S.R. to collapse, thereby (along with WWII) making us the socio-cultural-geo-politico-economic leader-a the entire frickin’ planet. (Which galls a LOTTA people.. Including many Americans who don’t zactly WANT the rich-and-famous-pop-culture-types settin’ social trends in our OWN country, let alone the rest-a the world.)
    So the U.S. sort-a went on a binge during the 90’s, and the responsibility still hasn’t really sunk in.
    imo, ‘course…
    Shelley, You ain’t a Bad Woman. You’re jes a baldfaced LIAR
    ..(and, of course, I’m making an assumption there.. that You’re baldfaced…;-)..
    for SAYING Your a Bad Woman. For shame, You liar…;-D

  4. Lots of simple, obvious truths in there, but why do you hate America so much? 😉
    Seriously though, good stuff.

  5. The hidden subtext here is you agree with The Wonder of Ends. Hope you sent a link to David and Doc. I’m certain they will both get a kick out of it.

  6. I hope they do/did…sending an email to say ‘hey looka what I wrote guys!’ would feel a bit too self-promotional for me, though. Hopefully the blog-geist will lead them this way of its own accord….

  7. Whoops… I see by the little recent referrers gadget below that they have noticed, and have taken my little parody in the spirit in which it was intended. Welcome! Look upon my Works, Ye Mighty, but don’t despair!

  8. Wicked, wry article, and quite on-point. Keep it up Mr. Fantastic Poultry.

  9. World of Assholes

    EmptyBottle: “If they’ve got the money to get online, they’ve got the
    money to buy stuff, and if they’re breathing, they’re quite possibly a
    threat to the American government.”

  10. This is a comedy sort of….

  11. I’m on the internet; so why ain’t I rich?
    Seriously, Good Read.

  12. Manifesto Shmanifesto

    I’m sure people who write up ClueTrain style manifestos mean well, but I think things suffer sometimes when you dumb

  13. You’re rich and you don’t know it, TomZ.
    I like the World of Assholes piece, nice to see some criticism when many bloggers seem to point at The Enlightened Gurus and say ‘read this, it’s more interesting than anything I am capable of writing’.

  14. De eerste parodie is er al!

    Ah heerlijk! De eerste parodie op het manifest van Doc Searls en Dr. Weinberger, World of Ends, is gearriveerd! EmptyBottle.org: World of Assholes Heerlijk! Ten eerste zijn dit soort manifesten van weblog-guru’s altijd een prachtig doelwit voor een aan…

  15. Please don’t put all Americans into the same neat little box. Replace “Americans” with “capitalists” and I’ll almost agree with you.

  16. you got your nose out of joint and therefore your smelling ability is less than accurate…also, hope you will have your hair and your teeth fixed. Then go and take some good computer classes, get a passport come over here and get filthy rich with your computer knowlege…you will love every minute of it.

  17. Check out our new line of novelty candles at http://www.flamingasshole.com
    Everyone knows at least one!

  18. come join me…I am a bodiless entity roaming about to devour you; and have adventure. I need your mindless and brainless bodies to have more adventures. I can promise you imortality in the expance of blackness with me, though my leader Lucifer has built a throne out of his pyre whicvh is our guiding light. Let me inhabit your mindless vessel and I promise you will be free forever!

  19. A Canadian who has lived in Sydney and Seoul. A spoilt brat.
    Come to China and you’ll find most of the rubbish you’ve written is self-centred drivel.
    Even if the vast peasantry don’t have access to the Internet, most people in China who use the Internet are not rich by any means.
    And very few look at American websites.
    Stop your self-gratification (masturbation if you want to call a spade a spade) for long enough to see what’s going on in the world.

  20. Jesus Christ, you are fucking brilliant… your blogsite is spectacular… The comment on the female version of “avunculur” which you decreed “ajummacular” had my loins tingling like a bevvy of car alarms going off in South Central Los Angeles. Then I went downstairs and slapped my mom for not giving me the genetic and/or environmental stimuli to come up with verbal caviar like this…
    I never thought a non-Korean could accurately portray the intricacies and the nuances of the Korean culture as you have captured it… The way you encapsulate the essential nature of Korea as a huge contradiction, a neo-Confucian superpower built upon sexism, Christianity and governmental corruption as equal cornerstones… Shit is Genii… I can’t even use the singular form of genius, your work deserves plural status. I hope I’m not making it seem like I’m blowing smoke up your ass, I was just really, really impressed.
    Anyway, I live in Los Angeles right now, and seeing that I’m a Korean-American male, who’s recently graduated from UCLA, I was thinking about doing the whole “teaching/working in Korea shtick”. If and when I do get there, you have to let me buy you a beer or three, man. Tell me how you ended up in Korea of all places, and how long you’ve been there. Seriously, you kick some azz.
    John Shim

  21. Well, I don’t usually delve this far back into the archives to answer comments (this was posted on March 8th) but I think these might be here because of poor sidebar design on the front page.
    A Canadian who has lived in Sydney and Seoul. A spoilt brat.
    You haven’t a clue, ham. I’ve lived a lot of other places besides, at almost 40, am hardly a brat, and having supported myself (and been both rich and poor at various times) for more than two decades, I’m hardly ‘spoiled’. Crawl back under your rock, dipshit.
    Tell me how you ended up in Korea of all places, and how long you’ve been there. Seriously, you kick some azz.
    John – I’ve been here about 5 years of the last 5. Ended up here by random chance, as with most places I’ve ended up. Thanks for the praise. I lose my temper somtimes, but I do try to call ’em as I see ’em….

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