back to article Why has the web gone to hell? Market chaos and HUMAN NATURE

It's possible to have a certain sympathy for Sir Tim Berners-Lee as he looks at what people have done to his glorious world wide web. Instead of it remaining the glorious bottom-up egalitarian creation it once was, it's become infested with people like Facebitch using it to scramble for filthy lucre. Diddums to that, really: …

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  1. R Soles

    "teenagers hogging the phone line "

    That's so twentieth century

    1. AdamT

      Re: "teenagers hogging the phone line "

      I think you mean "That's so TwenCen" ...

      Saying or writing it in full, like, just, like, takes too long, dontcha know?

      1. Paul_Murphy

        Re: "teenagers hogging the phone line "

        C20 for the lazy, CXX for the latin-trained

        :-)

        1. Charles Manning

          Re: "teenagers hogging the phone line "

          BY2K

        2. Bleu

          Re: "teenagers hogging the phone line "

          Way to display ignorance, as the Americans say.

          CXX means 120, not twentieth century.

      2. fran 2

        Re: "teenagers hogging the phone line "

        TL:DR

  2. Khaptain Silver badge

    Human Nature

    The web is simply a reflection of contemporary society.

    The downside that we see is a mirror of what man desires most, Wealth, Estate and Power.

    The updside is that we have a marvellous communication tool that can help us to advance as a race ( the human race)

    Unfortunately the upside often leads to an abuse by which someone can achieve the downside.

    Inversely, the downside is a motivation for invention pushing the barrieres increasingly, thereby improving the tools.....

    Catch 22 - One needs the other, it's Yan and Yang of contemporary life.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Human Nature

      "The web is simply a reflection of contemporary society."

      Maybe, but it's not a true reflection. It contains more than a fair share of the views of people who are extreme in one form or another, because they're motivated enough to spend the time putting their views out there.

      Easy communication favours the nutter, whether of the cold fusion type or the Nazi type. The danger is that communication is the carrier for culture and if we continue to leave these views unopposed - and I mean strongly unopposed, not just a bit of tutting and saying "well, it's the modern world" - then they will get to shape the future. Mostly in the form of the mediaeval past.

      So, the question is: should tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is, I think, not if it wishes to continue.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Human Nature

        >Maybe, but it's not a true reflection. It contains more than a fair share of the views of people who are extreme in one form or another, because they're motivated enough to spend the time putting their views out there.

        But isnt that exactly how our society/government function today.. The extremist views are put intot the limelight and everything else ignored. When we look at the other forms of media, television, Radio, Newspapers,Cinema etc this is exactly the picture we are presented with.

        >Easy communication favours the nutter, whether of the cold fusion type or the Nazi type. The danger is that communication is the carrier for culture and if we continue to leave these views unopposed - and I mean strongly unopposed, not just a bit of tutting and saying "well, it's the modern world" - then they will get to shape the future. Mostly in the form of the mediaeval past.

        Agreed, it gives the nutters a vector by which they can vent their spleen but they require an audience first and that audience must be receptive... Today there appears to be a lot of receptive people....in a multitude of sectors adn this I find is reflectd in the Web.

        As an example : Even El Reg uses some of the same techniques as the mainstream media in order to obtain clicks.... they have a recepive audience, so it works.

        >So, the question is: should tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is, I think, not if it wishes to continue.

        Question : define "tolerance" and/or "intolerance".

        Society's definition of what is tolerable is a cyclic variable not a constant. The fine line between the two is used by both the Extremists and the Moderates in order to gain ground.

        If the web is showing signs of going to hell then I think that that is very reflective of where we are heading ourselves.

        1. roselan

          Re: Human Nature

          >Easy communication favours the nutter, whether of the cold fusion type or the Nazi type.

          Fun you say that, as just now a new article on NYT tends to say the exact contrary. Internet, or at least social media, seem to promote conformity.

          http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/upshot/how-social-media-silences-debate.html?abt=0002&abg=0

          Let's admit for a minute that army is a refuge for fascists. Do the army favor fascism? If we want to get rid of it, shall we get rid of the army? Then, what will become of the fascists? Won't they be more dangerous if "let out"?

          For each nutter able to feel happy to shoot his opinion, how many abused people able to find support?

          I have no mean to answer these questions, so my opinion is just noise.

          1. Rol

            Re: Human Nature

            Wikipedia will one day become the de facto source of all knowledge on this planet, not unlike the Encyclopaedia Galactica. However to reach this revered place it must be accepted by everyone to be true and factual, something which today seems unattainable. It is so because some entries are biased and have been written with alternative agendas in mind by individuals and organisations that seek to distort the truth. These contentious articles do not overtly advertise they are such and that is where Wikipedia and the rest of the internet fails.

            As a user it is difficult to see what is generally agreed as right, honest, correct, etc, from the rest of the guff. Everything is busy promoting itself as the truth, while it is only the users diligence and tenacity that might eventually cut through the crap and see it for what it is.

            If web-pages could be rated by users and those users votes weighted by their historic use / abuse of the system then we might get a little nearer to an acceptable marketplace for knowledge.

            The internet is one of the best foundations to build a democracy on, but underpinning that has to be a comprehensive educational system that transforms children into rational thinking adults.

            The war shouldn't just be against terrorism, but also ignorance and disinformation, the breeding ground for all the worlds troubles.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Human Nature

              "If web-pages could be rated by users and those users votes weighted by their historic use / abuse of the system then we might get a little nearer to an acceptable marketplace for knowledge".

              Back in the 1980s, when the likelihood of a global internet was increasing, I gave these matters some thought. Apparently the big issues, regardless of technology, are security, reliability, and trust. I mean "trust" in the sense of the reader trusting the content she reads, nothing to do with security.

              One way of calibrating trust would be to have a hierarchy of evaluators, working rather like S&P, Moody's, and Fitch for credit rating. Their job would be to look at the content available on the whole Web in various categories, and assess it according to some kind of star-rating or percentage system. What refines this idea is that those evaluators, in turn, would be evaluated by a set of meta-evaluators. Rather recursive, but the idea is that market forces would work on the evaluation system so that the best evaluators become more successful.

              Of course, different types of reader would need different evaluators. Someone who reads "The Sun", for example, and wants similar Web content, would have to patronize an evaluator specializing in that kind of thing. Whereas those who want informed, articulate, and objective political commentary would need an entirely different service.

              Market forces can work efficiently, even on the scale of the Web. But they need the right institutions through which to work.

              1. asiaseen

                Re: Human Nature

                "working rather like S&P, Moody's, and Fitch for credit rating"

                Not necessarily a good example given the revelations about how they actually work.

              2. Bleu

                Re: Human Nature

                Back in the eighties, there were already at least three global 'nets: what has now become the Internet, mainframe-based Compuserve, and Fidonet.

                Personally, my strongest feelings are for the last, truly an independent development.

                You might try not to comment when you don't know what you are talking about.

                1. Bleu

                  Re: Human Nature

                  ... not to mention the global telephone, telex, and telegraph networks, telex deceased afaik, telegraphy still going in a few places.

          2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
            FAIL

            Re: roselan Re: Human Nature

            ".....Let's admit for a minute that army is a refuge for fascists....." Let's not. Instead, I suggest you go do some actual reading, such as Mike Curtis's book "CQB: Close Quarter Battle", for an insight into how a quite Leftie, non-Fascist from the 'Little Moscow' of the Rhonda Valley ended up in the SAS and then the private security sector.

            1. Bleu

              Re: roselan Human Nature

              Always interesting posts from Matt, so you get an 'up' from me, will look at whether the book is worth reading.

              OP's 'fascist' is pretty silly.

              Still, in my experience, people in maritime and air services dread the thought of armed conflict, army people in a country at peace or in our case, a constitutional ban, frequently bemoan a lack of action.

              Doesn't make them fascist, though I have my doubts on that in our case.

              ... but it does make them warmongers.

        2. WalterAlter
          Devil

          Re: Human Nature

          People really need to firm up their understanding of PHASES. All comment on this thread assumes that what we see as the Internet is the forever and final shape. This is absolutist noun-based descriptivism of the sort semanticist Alfred Korzybski tried to stamp out. Put this thought in your head: the Internet is in its FETAL phase, period. All its present odious attributes will be shaken out with the hangover and its true efficiencies vis a vis human cognition will find expression, much to the surprise of tyrants large, small and inner. We all have an autistic savant inside waiting to get out. The Internet will take the tyke across the Golden Gate Bridge of the mind within a generation.

          As for nutters...let me slap your forehead for you. There hasn't been a new idea, invention, adventure, poet or genius that has not been labeled "nutter" at one point or another. Calling novelty "nutter" is the mother sport of all necktie wearing congregationalists.

        3. Vanir

          Re: Human Nature

          Extremists, who by definition are extremely intolerant of others, love living in a tolerant society.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. Cipher

        Re: Human Nature

        >Easy communication favours the nutter, whether of the cold fusion type or the Nazi type.

        >So, the question is: should tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is, I think, not if it wishes to continue.

        The real question here, to follow this line of thought to completion, is: Who gets to decide what is right thinking and what is wrong thinking? Which ideology is allowed and promoted to the exclusion of all others? Does a free and tolerant society ban certain viewpoints in the name of the common good? Is said society then really free and tolerant, or is it just as repressive as the evil it claims to be saving us from?

        Are some animals destined to be more equal than other animals?

        1. Khaptain Silver badge

          Re: Human Nature

          >Who gets to decide what is right thinking and what is wrong thinking?

          The answer has always been the same : Those with the most power and the desire to retain it... ( Driving force = Greed = a very powerfull motivator).

          >Which ideology is allowed and promoted to the exclusion of all others?

          The ideology that will be allowed is related to the above response as the idealogies are "controlled" by the same people. ( Churches and Government work hand in hand when necessary but will work single handedly when they have enough turf, most often it is they who nurture the ideologies, until such times as a Ghandi, MalcomX, Mao, Hitler arrives which usually results in the changing, be it temporary or constant, of idealogies.).

          >Does a free and tolerant society ban certain viewpoints in the name of the common good?

          A "free society",it is an oxymoron. Free can only ever been taken into consideration on an individual basis. Societies require "laws" and law in general *control/restrict" freedom . Freedom is potentialy a huge risk for Society. We can only live in a society when we limit our freedom. ( Otherwise I would use my freedom to kill my neighbour for drinking too much, firing his gun after watching the world cup and seeing his team win, having a potentially dangerous dog, rude children and a car that insults good taste. )

          >Is said society then really free and tolerant, or is it just as repressive as the evil it claims to be saving us from?

          Definately, hence the catch 22 situation of the serpent biting it's own tail.

          >Are some animals destined to be more equal than other animals?

          Yes, this resolves down to the basic law of nature "Kill or be Killled".

          The result of all this - BAU....

          1. antimatter

            Re: Human Nature

            Freedom is playing by the rules and obeying the Law

            1. Turtle

              Re: Human Nature

              "Freedom is playing by the rules and obeying the Law"

              What was it that Hegel said? "The Orientals knew that one is free; the Ancients knew that some are free, but today we know that all are free." See Popper's The Open Society And Its Enemies for a detailed explication of what Hegel meant, and why he (Popper) said, thank god that beyond the world of Prussian philosophers there was the world of Prussian militarists.

              The "Orientals" were right, though. One is free.

          2. P. Lee

            Re: Human Nature

            >Is said society then really free and tolerant, or is it just as repressive as the evil it claims to be saving us from?

            The problem is that soundbite combative "never let it happen again" politics has conflated "toleration" with "acceptance." To be tolerant is to live along side those we *disagree* with without seeking their destruction. We might seek to convert them to our way, but we don't try to destroy them or to silence them.

            I find modern society increasingly intolerant. Dissent is either made illegal or shouted down without coherent arguments being put forward. It is very difficult indeed to openly say, "I think you are wrong because..." Where there is wrong, people want to bring the law to bear, often where it can't or shouldn't. The law is trying to replace moral values and the law is a very blunt instrument which is becoming very intrusive. We are trying to safeguard freedom by building a barbed-wire fence and gun towers around it and every time we mark off one freedom as protected, we cut ourselves off from others.

            1. Mark 85

              Re: Human Nature

              I suspect you're closer to the truth than you think you are. The freedom to swing my arm, stops at your nose. And vice versa. But some in society think it doesn't apply to them. Thus, more restrictions. A deeper concern is those whose society have not evolved yet or are evolving and still live under the pressure of "do it my way or die". The middle east is filled with these groups, some more brutal than others. So the last sentence of your post is very true, indeed. Maybe in another 100 years it'll be different and those societies will have finished evolving.. Or they'll have torn down the ones that already have and everything will be at their level.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: Human Nature

          "Are some animals destined to be more equal than other animals?"

          Yes. Pigs. With funny hats.

          Only pigs can give us bacon.

      3. scrubber
        Big Brother

        Re: Human Nature

        Well, I for one, am particularly grateful that we have someone as benevolent and wise as Robert Long 1 to tell us what can, and should, be tolerated in a tolerant society. There was me worrying that we might overstep the mark and stifle debate and curtail the presentation of ideas, new and old, but that was silly - we have ROBERT LONG 1 to tell us what we can and can't think, say, do and tolerate.

      4. Squander Two

        Network effects

        > [The Web] contains more than a fair share of the views of people who are extreme in one form or another, because they're motivated enough to spend the time putting their views out there.

        Yes, it does, but motivation is not the main reason. It's an interesting network effect to do with the size of minorities.

        If you have a minority interest that is generally rejected by society at large -- the classic example being paedophilia -- until recently it was quite difficult for you to meet other people with the same interest: you wouldn't tend to come into contact with them via coincidence and you couldn't advertise. Your sphere of existence was your town or city, in which very very few people agreed with you and you couldn't find the ones who did. What the Net -- and more so the Web -- has enabled is for people with interests which are unpopular in any given region but which are widespread across a large number of regions to find each other and to organise.

        It may also be the case that the very fact of being able to form communities online makes it easier for people with such views to convert new adherents: there's a world of difference between joining the village weirdo and joining a group of two hundred weirdos spread across three continents.

        I still think the pros outweigh the cons, though.

      5. Charles Manning

        Tolerating Intolerance

        If you don't tolerate intolerance, you're just back to where you started:effectively going back to the past where the church or the BBC or whatever were the gatekeepers of society.

        Those who have the mindset of thinking they should be in a position to tell others what to do seldom seem contented with a backseat approach. Instead they slowly get more and more intrusive into other people's lives.

        It is why government intrusion is always increasing, never decreasing. It is why we have crap like home owners' associations.

      6. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Human Nature

        "So, the question is: should tolerant society tolerate intolerance? The answer is, I think, not if it wishes to continue".

        Have you overlooked the fact that if society doesn't tolerate intolerance, it is no longer tolerant?

        Incidentally, this was one of the moral foundations of Ian Fleming's James Bond books (not to be confused with the virtually unrelated movies). Fleming was uncomfortably aware that a tolerant liberal society fell into the aforementioned bind when (or, as it actually turned out, if) confronted by ruthless enemies who did not play by its rules. His answer was that a handful of people like Bond should take it upon themselves to fight secretly in support of our values. In doing so, Bond knew very well that he was deliberately sacrificing his own moral character - a sacrifice that was all the more inspiring because it was so great.

        1. Squander Two

          Tolerance

          > Have you overlooked the fact that if society doesn't tolerate intolerance, it is no longer tolerant?

          No, tolerance isn't just a binary on/off switch; there are degrees. For instance, saying "We'll tolerate any type of sexual behaviour, as long as the participants are all over eighteen" is not intolerant: it's simply setting a boundary within which tolerance will happen.

          Also, there are two different classes of thing here: the opinions and behaviours that members of society exhibit, and the bounds within which society allows them to exhibit them. There is no logical inconsistency in allowing the airing of any views whatsoever as long as they are aired without violence, for instance.

          Thatcher's policy towards the IRA is a good example: there was no censorship of Irish Republican views -- which were routinely openly espoused by the SDLP and the Labour Party -- but there was censorship of anyone who was trying to achieve their aims via terrorism and/or war crimes, on the grounds that you either join the debate in civil society or you kill people outside civil society, but you can't have the advantages of both. I know a lot of people disagreed with the policy, but my point here is not whether it was right or wrong, merely that it was not logically inconsistent and that it was clearly not intolerant of any political belief. It quashed a particular strategy, not an opinion.

      7. unitron
        Headmaster

        Re: Human Nature

        So you're saying we should be intolerant of intolerance?

        How would that work, exactly?

    2. Bleu

      Re: Human Nature

      More than anything, it seems to have become a major factor in de-evolution.

      Only way it could have gone, given current cultural, political and social trends.

  3. MrT

    Cimrman...

    ...reminds me of Baron Munchausen. Or Dr Evil's dad, inventing the question mark. Two answerphone messages/three missed calls aside, he's a fascinating character.

    1. Tim Worstal

      Re: Cimrman...

      Indeed he is fascinating. I'd never heard of him until I started working in Bohemia a year or so ago. Quite the cultural icon. When they had one of those contests where people vote for "Greatest Czech Ever" he was winning handily until they insisted that it had to be a real person.

      Not quite an invention of Vaclav Havel and the Plastic People of the Universe crowd but contemporary with and part of roughly the same movement.

    2. Deebster
      Happy

      Re: Cimrman...

      The Cimrman Wikipedia article reads more like a HHGTTG entry.

      1. MyffyW Silver badge
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Cimrman...

        Cimrman, as well as being the commanding officer of the good soldier Svejk, also contributed a number of articles to the Hitchhikers Guide. Or he will have done shortly.

        Any similarities between the Guide and Wikipedia are entirely intentional.

  4. Salts

    well...

    More links in this than I could be bothered to follow:-)

    It's a bit late here, but really technology diverted and used differently to what the inventor envisioned, shocking, stop press :-)

    It could, or could not be true that the first human to discover fire, really did mean for all to use it too cook food and keep warm, but the fact it is also a good means of torture, destruction…

    Many disruptive technologies, were never intended to be used the way the inventor envisioned them, they are just the genie out of the bottle.

  5. Shannon Jacobs
    Holmes

    Two problems: Live and let spam and abuse of anonymity

    I think the two main problems can be tagged as the spammers and the flamers. The first are motivated by sociopathic greed, but many of the second group are apparently just plain sociopaths without rational motivations. Maybe I'm too much of an economic animal, but at least I can understand the spammers--and I actually hate them more than the flamers.

    To me, the most amazing thing about the spammers is that they can only survive on our collective sufferance and tolerance. They are criminals waving signs, but we basically ignore their activities because it is too much bother to care. From the spammers perspective, the marginal cost of email is regarded as zero, so another million annoying spam messages is quite well justified if it gets one more sucker to give them a credit card number.

    However, since I think most people are basically good folks, I actually think there is a solution for most of the commercial spam: Cut off the money. In simple terms, if any of the big email providers gave us better anti-spam tools, and if only a few of the annoyed people used those tools, we could completely overwhelm the tiny number of actual suckers who feed the spammers. The spammers would lose their money and hence their motivation. They wouldn't become decent human beings, but at least they would crawl under less visible rocks.

    The abuse of anonymity thing is actually more difficult to deal with because there actually are legitimate cases where anonymity is called for. My weird constraint is that all legitimate secrecy is justified by other secrecy, but that doesn't break the chain. At least I haven't come up with any example where anonymity is justified for its own sake. The classic example of the secret whistleblower is predicated upon a secret crime to be reported, but if the crime was already known, then there would be no need of reporting it. How about the secret ballot? Well, if any revenge-seeking measures were public, then again there is no need for secrecy. (If the vengeful politician can take public revenge and get away with it, then it wasn't an actual election in the first place, and the secret ballot would have made no difference.)

    The people who abuse anonymity to attack other people solely because they can't be caught are abusing the legitimate need for anonymity in some cases, but I don't see a solution--unless maybe it's the total collapse of all secrecy, which certainly seems to be where we are headed. Obviously if they only attack because of the secrecy, the death of secrecy will cure them. Seems to be one of those problems that will cure itself with a bit of patience, but I'm not especially comfortable with the idea of living in a goldfish bowl.

    1. Shannon Jacobs
      Holmes

      Re: Two problems: Live and let spam and abuse of anonymity

      Just reflecting on why I don't hate the flamers so much. I dismiss them as loonies of the essentially harmless sort.

      Probably the source of the down votes, however. They might not like to be held in contempt and they don't have the sick cleverness required to become spammers?

  6. Frankee Llonnygog

    As I always say

    Build a better mousetrap and the world will use it as a cheese grater

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: As I always say

      Pepper sir? Would sir like some grated mouse on his pasta?

      1. Frankee Llonnygog

        Re: As I always say

        Pasta with a choice of topos

  7. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

    How very "Guardian"

    To protest the "global spread of misogyny", yet to ignore that the web is also used to spread misandry or that thanks to the web, many women, in many parts of the world, now have a far greater access to useful information, and far greater control over their own lives, than ever before.

    Oh, and be careful about those ball bearings. Pack them round some semtex in a backpack and they have a whole different use. Will the Guardian be campaigning to control washing machines next?

    1. Zuagroasta

      Re: How very "Guardian"

      Indeed... the Graun complaining about how the hoi polloi won't follow its "enlightened" path... holier-than-thou leftist hogwash at its purest.

      Funny how the defenders of the people always seem to complain so much about what the people do... perhaps they don't love them as much as they profess to do? *snicker snicker*

  8. Peter Johnston 1

    Alexander Graham Bell was Scottish. American's love to take credit for all inventions, and will change people's nationalities to fit. But don't be taken in.

    1. dogged

      Nevertheless, you could be forgiven for calling the telephone an American invention. It was born there.

      1. JonP

        The classic case here is American inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who thought that the telephone would be a method of listening to concerts remotely

        Sooo, he was right then?

        1. DropBear
          Joke

          Sooo, he was right then?

          Clearly not. It's being used for looking at concerts remotely...

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