As a young man, I witnessed it's birth and wondered what this new 'new thing' may become.
I laughed at its first bumbling steps and falls, yet began to understand the uniqueness of its movements... The potential of its existence.
I watched it mature and marveled at the speed in which it changed the face of business and education, forgiving it its seedier side and its 'secret' dark rooms.
I stood in awe as it changed the face of human interaction across the Globe, connecting people in real time, unfiltered, across national borders, to speak freely and understand each other without the filter of those in Power... The halcyon days of information exchange, furious debates, and understanding. and yes, even the cat videos.
Now I stand witness to its enslavement by Evil Beings, who have twisted and perverted it into a tool to destroy all the good it has brought into this world. To silence those that would free it again. To hunt down and eradicate those that would speak against these Evil Beings that have gotten fat and bloated off of others work and ideas. To see this 'new thing' that had freed so many, turned into something worse than any press-gang or slave-ship in history. To see it turn from something that once connected families, into something that intrudes upon them and shreds them apart at another's behest.
I stand as witness to this... as I was here to see all of it.
It doesn't have to continue down this path. this 'new thing' can be recovered, redeemed, reborn, but the window for doing so is closing...
"For Evil to flourish, all that is required, is for the Good People to do nothing".
I'm gonna post this on alt.forums.trump.geotus.bestof just as soon as my newsreader unfreezes from the latest usenet fetch.
Be my guest, and with much Thanks... It is the message, not the messenger that is important.
Do you remember Season 2 of Stranger Things? Dustin finds this baby creature in a trash can, and decides to raise it in his bedroom. It grows up to be a horrifying monster.
That's the Internet.
Dustin should have recognized the dangerous potential of this creature. What he should have done, is strangle it right then and there. But he didn't. He couldn't imagine what it was going to become. That's not really his fault, though, because he was innocent and naive when he discovered it and brought it into the most intimate parts of his life.
We raised this creature. We fed it from our own hands. We let it grow. And now, it's turning around to consume us.
This monster, the Internet monster, is a paradox: we've put enough of ourselves into it that it can destroy all of us...but also it needs us to survive. It needs us to keep engaging with it, keep feeding ourselves to it. If everyone simply turned their screens off, it would vanish like it was never here.
Purge your social media. Get rid of your smartphone. Do it now, because there isn't going to be a better time.
Respectfully, I disagree with your comparison and summation. It is an INFORMATION TOOL without an inherent nature. The value of its existence is in how it is used. One only needs to look at FIRE as an example.
Even then, your point is moot, as you cannot un-ring a bell.
Of course you can un-ring a bell. We dropped nukes on Japan in 1945, and the whole world went, oh shit, that's too dangerous to mess with, let's never do that again.
That's what this is. The internet, in the hands of a few oligarchs and corrupt political puppets, is a mutually-assured destruction event for everyone on the planet.
The time is coming, and soon, when everyone is going to have to do a very frank risk-benefit analysis. I don't think the benefits come close to the risks.
I'd like to point out that after we dropped those bombs, the entire World raced to build more. I lived under the very real threat of Nuclear Destruction for over a decade. Even to the point of school classes and drills if it came about. Ever help build a bunker?... I have.
Now the world has enough of those weapons to make that time's threat look like a bottle-rocket war from the neighborhood kids.
Sorry, but that 'rung bell' is louder than ever... you're just used to the noise, so you don't hear it any more.
However, I do agree with what you said about 'risk assessment' where the internet is concerned, but it will be about harm mitigation and limits, not destruction.