Oh How I Miss The Good Old Days

A time when the WorldWideWeb was a safe and exciting place to visit, a time before it became infested with parasites
A time before social media provided a means for cowards and bullies to post hateful, abusive, and offensive comments from behind a veil of anonymity
A time when the WorldWideWeb consisted of many small fish in a very large pond, a time before the wealthy and powerful took over
A time when “privacy concerns” mainly related to the bathroom, a time before our overall privacy was inexorably eroded
A time when the WorldWideWeb was all about sharing, a time before the quest for the almighty dollar became paramount
A time before clickbait and sensationalism superseded accuracy and honesty
A time when email was purely a means of communication, a time before scammers and spammers contaminated the system
A time before political correctness and woke culture allowed the noisy minority to unduly influence decisions
A time before reality TV — I loathe reality TV

While the advent of the WorldWideWeb has undoubtedly provided many benefits, greed and the need for power have all but obliterated the original concept. Today the WorldWideWeb has become so polluted that the unwary user is almost certain to fall victim to malware or some scam. According to Google, roughly one in ten web pages will almost certainly contain malicious code.

Maybe I’m experiencing a wave of nostalgia in my old age but I truly do miss the innocence and excitement of those early years when we trusted websites and software to do the right thing. These days, we need to check and double-check everything before taking that plunge, a sad state of affairs. And political correctness has gone mad these days eliciting the silliest of decisions.

True Story: Very recently a high school in Perth (Western Australia) cancelled its production of Grease because “some” female students complained that the musical is sexist and discriminatory. A spokesperson for the parents responded that it was only a very small minority of students who complained — it was still cancelled anyway.

Perhaps it’s time for the silent majority to rise up and protest against this crap. What do you think?

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Bruce Robin

11/26/2021 at 5:11 pm

I couldn’t agree more. But how does one rise up?

Jim Hillier
11/26/2021 at 6:50 pm

That’s a very good question Bruce and a large part of the problem, the majority of us are passive onlookers. I guess we need to adopt the same tactics as the noisy minority- become more vocal and actively protest these silly decisions. Trouble is, that’s out-of-character for most of us.
1. Brian
  11/26/2021 at 10:30 pm
  
  What we need is an update to Kevin Mitnick’s book, THE ART OF INVISIBILITY, so we can take control from the bad guys. Do you have a book that can offer an update and provide how we can proceedto address the many challenges?