Jonathan Spencer's Tales of Ordinary Wisdom

In Kurt Vonneguts Cats Cradle, I am sure it begins with something like…everything I am about to tell you is a lie.

So they say the shops are taking a hammering because of the internet, well maybe like overpriced CDs that were hammered by iTunes its about time the high street woke up and realised people won;’t continue to pay over the odds for things.

So here are my 5 and 5

Negatives:
1.The internet has no ‘telling’, no mysticism, mythology or soul, it purports to be a an idea or ideal but really has none, its just electronic wires, signals and circuits.
2. Things you read, or people say on the internet are not necessarily true, conversations in which “I read it on the internet” are used as evidence are becoming as commonplace as “scientists say”.  Remember the internet is run by humans and they lie, hoax and play practical jokes.
3. An online community of people who don’t use their real names or perhaps even real images of themselves is not a community, it is a pretence.
4. When you don’t receive an email, but someone says they have sent it, of course it could have been mislaid, the servers might be down, but if in doubt refer to 2.
5. Any email you get saying there is a dreadful virus around or that a little boy in Arkansas needs you to send him bottle tops or compliment slips…refer to 2. again.

Positives
1. Yes you can shop safely on the internet
2. SOME things are really cheaper on ebay
3. People date and get together/married with people they “meet”on the net
4. If it can be reduced to electronic data then someone somewhere is offering it for FREE on the internet.
5. Its the FREE stuff that inspires the rest, think of how Napster originally inspired music downloads and hence iTunes.
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