(Warning: The following journal of random bloviating is apt to include explicit language from time to time. They're just fuckin words. Don't be priggish for the benefit of your contemporaries. Get over it. Your pre-teen, if you have one or more, is currently discovering them on their own without your knowledge and taking every opportunity to wear them out like the soles of their thumbs on their cell phone.)
THE INTERNET - "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time"
Sermon on Mount Ozempic - Oze. 63 45:78-9
In the annuls of human intelligence the internet may be #1 on the charts of "It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time", holding off notable challengers like the Chinese guy who wondered, on a whim, if uncooked bat tastes like chicken
or our past (and present) elected lawmakers who steadfastly hold that banks and corporations were best left to regulate themselves since legislators really know nothing about finance or business and are only proficient at graft.
Nobly created to speed and share information among the science and medical community world-wide and later adapted to enhance our defenses and make government more efficient. Some argued it could be used to bring the knowledge of the world's libraries into the home and its use could be adapted to increase the efficiency of business. The concept took off. There were mountains of wealth to be acquired in its implementation and constant evolution. Good things were happening! Then someone realized, "Hell, we can show porn on this!" What? What else can we do?
Contrary to what Rudi Giuliani would have you believe, it was the internet not he, that struck the dagger in the heart of the large organized criminal organizations!
One by one, major divisions of their operations slipped away into back alleys the web. First porn, then sex trafficking, then gambling. Seedy untraceable minions, in basements, with horn rim glasses with taped nose bridges led the way. Seeing their success, legitimate well organized corporations and state governments muscled in swinging brief cases filled with legal briefs. These nerdy roaches came out of their basements, bought suits at Sy Syms and found themselves being offered million dollar executive positions at these firms.
Craigslist became the new Super Fly and the state, sites like Draft Kings and OTB replaced Auggie, your local bookie.
Major pharmaceutical companies took notice. Anything Pablo Escobar and clandestine U.S. Government operations could do, Richard Sackler and his world-wide wandering-eye network of pusher /physicians could do it better.
Other companies joined the bandwagon, even creating elaborate musical dance numbers to drown out low monotone voice over actors reciting extended litanies of horrific warnings, while joyful irritating people danced through neighborhoods, scaring passers-by at yard sales.
Sex, drugs and gambling - the cornerstones of income for the mob! Marone!!! The heart and soul was sucked out of John Gotti and he relegated himself to a lifetime of having his meals in tasteless outfits at Sorvino's Prison Pastaria.
But the appetite of Silicon City wasn't sated. Nooo! Not by a long shot. Leave it to previously ridiculed brainiacs, with pocket protectors, to ferret out every closeted addiction and vice of the human race.
Next up … the need to belong, the need to be heard, THE NEED TO BE A KAREN! Enter Social Media - destined to suck the "social" out of the species! What had been limited to small cliques usually found out of earshot in places like the Sunday pancake breakfasts, Saturday kid's soccer game sidelines, the bowels of local fish & game blinds and the putting greens of exclusive country clubs was now available 24/7 through your computer. This proved so addictive and successful as venue for advertising, they found a way to miniaturize those screens horning in and squeezing out the traditional functions of devices such as phones, watches and cameras.
As with anything new, there were unintended consequences. People who were previously quietly considered morons and lunatics by neighbors, co-workers and themselves found there were others like them and then found each other. They no longer only ventured out at the annual county fair.
It was revealed there were 'conservatively', at least 70 million of these mental defectives in the United States alone based on data collected in the last Presidential election.
But the human race is not deterred by the unlimited number bright ideas that have come down the pike and the speed bumps which may have resulted. They consider it a sunk cost of progress. As you read this, they are putting the fate of the world in the hands and minds of people with names like Gary, Ravi, Ohlov, Akimbatu, Weychu and Bob who have been thoroughly vetted by Indeed, probed by Intelius, and held in high esteem at their local place of worship. Their task? Create a world where software which can think for us! The same people who brought you porn, gambling and a cure for impotence into our home will seek to create an intelligence substitute!
This group of brilliant coders will go largely unsupervised since computer language is totally unintelligible to everyone else and those who can make heads or tails of it, eyes gloss over and doze off while reviewing it. And of course, our Republican and some Democratic members of Congress and the Courts will attend week long brainstorming sessions, as guests of the CEO's of these institutions of unending Bobs to get hammered … I mean hammer out regulations safeguarding the world, at the birthplaces of modern progress known as Cyprus and the Cayman Islands.
Accordingly, those government officials will congratulate themselves after insisting this artificial intelligence come in pink or yellow packaging so as not to be confused with the real intelligence in the white packets.
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