The internet was a mistake

[Adam Strange]

Is the problem with the internet supposed to be the amount of deceptive information available? Because creatures have been misrepresenting themselves (putting out false information) since the dawn of life. Your job, as someone in the fray of life, is to see through the deception.

Or is the problem that people tend to cherry pick information from the internet which reinforces their prejudices? If so, this probably dates back to early herding behavior. "I like these cows. They're just like me. Not like those bad crocodiles or lions."

Or is the problem with the internet the fact that some people use it to extend their social lives, rather than interacting directly with others face-to-face? If you go out to dinner with a bunch of random people, you will find about half of them staring at their phones instead of talking to the person in front of them. I don't think the internet is responsible for this behavior. It may facilitate it, but it didn't cause it.

Personally, I see the internet as a fantastic tool for information gathering and exchange. I was born back in the Pterodactyl days when all we had was dirt and the internet didn't exist, and I can tell you with some confidence, life is better with it than without it.

Here is one small example. In 1968, there were three national TV stations (ABC, CBS, and NBC) and three national news magazines, and all of them were telling the American people that the Vietnam war was going well and we were winning. A respected news reader, Walter Cronkite, shockingly stated on air that he had been there and things were not going well at all. This was the beginning of the end for the war advocates.
If the flow of information had not been only through these news outlets, there might not have been a war in the first place. IDK if you've noticed, but it's getting harder for the military-industrial complex to start random wars. Which is not to say that they respond to the will of the majority of Americans. They do not. But wars are getting harder for them to start.

Another example is that I've probably gotten the equivalent of three college degrees from the internet, and I didn't have to give some rent-extracting school the cash equivalent of three houses for that information.