Opinionators in Paradise

It's a golden time to have an opinion. Broadcasting your personal viewpoint to the world has never been easier. The chances of fame, if only momentary, are the same for millions of bloggers. The risk of retribution is basically nil. Therefore, a new democracy has arisen, the democracy of "You want to know what I think?" It used to be that a cat could look at a king. Now the cat can post on the Web every tidbit of court gossip, and the king can do absolutely nothing about it.

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Comments

[msjimmied]

The internet community has been alive and buzzing since the days of the BBS and the sysops for decades...its just that the net has now a far greater reach. I think it is more democratic when you have all the voices heard, the garbage, the toxic, the inane and the bizarre. And also the inspired, the transcendent, the elders and the sages.

They are all out there, but when you post it, it takes shape with the power of words and it gets a reaction. The reaction will perhaps temper your view or strengthen it, depending on the argument. It's all good. When there are a lot of opinions out there, you hear, and think, and change.

And you don't have to pay a caterer to bring them all together.

[haramagoti]

I'd like to see your answer to my reply to your opinion that women and children should be left in the brutalizing and murderous throes of a WarZone. You called my notion of HopeTowns in places where those resources were able, a LaLaLand. What's your solution? Given these wars are happening and these women and children getting caught in the middle, given the utter lack of safety, how can you condone leaving them there? Are wars the problem? Yes. Do we all wish we could change the fact of them? Yes. Once they have begun, there is no option but to deliver the innocent to safety. I cannot understand your response whatsoever. Sorry i'm off thread, but your take on my attempt to establish a viable solution was abominable.

[PSZ]

This fits in with what I was just thinking yesterday - that now that we as humans have well polluted the earth, we are turning to cyberspace and filling (and sometimes polluting) it with information. This information can be true, useful, accurate, and valuable, or it can be fabricated, pointless, inaccurate and damaging. Regardless, there is no internet police or the equivalent of a cyberspace environmental protection agency to monitor what goes into it.
A new democracy, yes, but what about the garbage and the toxic stuff?