This was written when 'Internet' meant Internet Explorer 6, before Facebook or the iPhone or youtube. Sine then, shit has evolved. The smart phones brought 'th

This was written when 'Internet' meant Internet Explorer 6, before Facebook or the iPhone or youtube. Sine then, shit has evolved. The smart phones brought 'the shit' into everyone's pockets and the social networks made the shit ubiquitous. We now have access to all the movies, music, documentaries (back in 2003, broadband was still surfacing, HD video streaming was a still a wet dream back then). Basically, anyone, anywhere can consume everything that was ever learned or created and communicate with anyone anywhere on the Planet. This is incredible. The awesome part of the Internet (and technology in general) is the part of the iceberg that's above water. Below water lurks a chunk of ice so big and dark that few people want to look at it or acknowledge that it is indeed an iceberg, not a fluffy white mountain of awesomeness. Below water there is misinformation, mass surveillance, information wars, espionage, monopoly and control on a global scale. But the darkest part is that we are totally addicted to this shit. We sleep with our phones. We 'go online' (2003 term) when we wake up and offline when we're asleep. We have to read, watch, comment and discuss everything and then go ahead and forget everything the next day, because, well, there's more shit to read, watch and comment on. By 2014, the Internet, with all it's infinite amount of information, has created a generation of clueless, spoiled information and entertainment junkies who live in a system of control beyond any dictator's wildest dreams. I've seen a stroller with a smartphone holder yesterday and the 1-year-old was watching videos while his father was pushing the stroller through the park. Instinctively I understand that that is fucked up, but I can't explain why, because I know "that's the future". Part of it. But there are other parts of the same future that scare the shit out of me. The fact that it has accelerated the rate of planetary destruction to unprecedented levels, by making globalisation possible and required. The fact that tech is now controlled by several corporations with mantras like 'don't be evil', which is telling, because it means that it is possible to be evil with this tech and the amount of evil that can be done is equal to the amount of good that it brings. This tech is godsend for evil people and in many countries, control of the Internet is the most important condition for holding power with an iron fist. Maybe, just like the splitting of the atom, the Internet is one of those things that shouldn't have been invented?