The internet is full of opinions. There's never going to be a shortage. The world is never going to have an emergency meeting and say, "We need more opinions on the internet." Barack Obama's not going to put together a stimulus package. [1] He's not going to address Congress and tell them, "ChristianKiller144 used to post 8.4 comments a day on YouTube. Now it's down to 4.3. We need to hire people to get him to run his mouth more."
There's no shortage of opinions. But there is a shortage of patience. The Internet is killing patience. It's using up the world's supply. Pretty soon, there won't be much left anywhere. We've become so used to getting everything instantly.
Before, we had to go to the library and find the right book, or get on the phone and find the right person, or wait for a channel to air our favorite sitcom episode. But with the internet, you're seconds away from watching that sitcom episode while reading that book while chatting with that person. And there's pornography, too.
And there's so much on the internet, available through a click or search, that it makes us kind of flighty. The internet's a strange place. You can go from one universe to another in just one click. There's no counterpart for that in the real world. There are no concerts featuring Garth Brooks, Tupac, and Barney the Dinosaur. No one holds gun club meetings right next to an Abercrombie and Fitch.
I wonder what a gun club member would do in an Abercrombie and Fitch. He'd probably end up using his gun. He'd point it at one of the greeters and say: "You better turn of that freaking music."
But anyways, the internet is begging us to jump from one thing to another to another--and that has a major effect on most of us. It's giving people ADD. I'll bet the makers of Ritalin were happy when the internet took off. I should buy some stock in that company.
Nowadays, if we don't get everything all at once, we lose our minds.
Tim Berners-Lee--it's your fault. You founded the web. The blood's on your hands.
A few years from now, he'll realize he brought an end to patience. "What have I done! I didn't know this would happen. I was just doing some html http whatever." Yeah--you didn't think that one through, Timmy. I guess you're not the visionary we thought you were.
The Internet: Land of Opinions and Impatience.
I think we're getting a little carried away with the internet. We don't even confine it to computers anymore. It's on our phones. We need people to develop some patience. Maybe we should just start throwing people in the hole every once in a while. The government should just force people to spend an hour a week in a room containing nothing at all.
We might have to do that. It'll be part of the patience conservationist movement. The hell with saving trees. We need to save patience. Because Internet City: The Land of Opinions and Impatience is heading into an even more insane era.
At least nowadays, we actually wait for something to happen before we form opinions. But ten years from now, opinions will actually precede events. We'll beat them to the punch. You won't even have to wait. There won't be a waiting period.
You won't have to wait for a celebrity scandal. People will start forming opinions before the scandal. [Person 1:] "That Angelina Jolie is trash. I can't believe she left Brad Pitt for Jake Gylenhall." [Person 2:] "But she's not with Jake Gylnehall. She doesn't even know him. She hasn't left Brad Pitt." [Person 1:] "She's going to, though. I know she is. She's unbelievable. I hate her!"
And presidents will be judged before they're even elected. Before they're even born. [Person 1:] "George Bush III is the worst president ever. He's a war criminal, he's a terrorist, and he doesn't like Arrested Development." [Person 2:] "He hasn't even been born yet." [Person 1:] "I don't care. We need to impeach him. A preemptive impeachment. He's like John Connor. We need to sterilize his mother."
Yeah. That'll be the internet five years from now. But it's not like things are any less ridiculous now.
1. Although you could argue that his initial unwillingness to show his long form birth certificate was in fact an internet opinion stimulus.