just a note

In 93 my philosophy teacher asked us, if we can imagine buying or selling things over the internet and how it would affect the society and individual beings. I thought it would be a great thing and people could be more connected. Do you remember how the telephone has changed the world? And so did the internet.

The first Computer we had was an IBM in 86 or 87. The second was a 486 with modem and belonged to my Mothers boyfriend. That must have been around the late 80's or early 90's. That was also the first time, when I used a computer as a design tool. A Friend of mine had a funny program with that you were able to make simple animations. I spend tons of hours by pushing one and another pixel back and forth on x and y and that was so awesome! ïÅ

For somehow I've stopped the computer thing for a while and I nearly failed the computer coding class but in 95 a friend of mine introduced me to a guy who was a real geek and so Iââ?¬Ë?ve started hanging out at his place and did music with Cubase and Emagic logic. I don't want to repeat myself, but that was awesome again and so I bought my first own machine.
I made my first email account and met Julian in a AOL BBS like thing (I am addicted to names like Julia(n|ne)) and that was my first friend I've met over the net. Hehe, and it was really complicated to explain my Mom what the internet is and why do I need it so much and why it costs so much;) Then coding HTML in notepad, experimenting with JavaScript to crash browser, reading lots of interesting stuff in newsgroups and of course conspiracy theories, faking ISP accounts and became an IRC victim ;)

All these are nice and funny stories from »back in the days« but if I'm think about what my teacher has asked us ââ?¬â?? the internet has truly affected our life in an unpredictable way.

You do not call your friends via landlines or meet them like back then, you SMS, ping them via IM and or send virtual greeting cards. You buy and sell items via ebay/amazon/etc and instead of discussing your feelings and interests with real persons, you write in communities and chat rooms. You do not even talk for real with your pals at work, you chat.

Every invention has its positive and negative effects and one big negative effect is that we separate us from real human or natural behaviours. When we LOL, we do not roll on the floor and laugh, it's just a smile. We loose control or better said we forget to show real facial expressions, because there is no need to. But that's not all. We're just sitting in front of a screen and just use some fingers. Due to that lots of people get fat, besides all the unhealthy fast food. We're seeking for more extremes and I honestly do not think that sex with animals would have been so famous without the net. In real life we do not loose inhibitions; we do not even smile when we walk through crowded places but when we use the computer, we start to unfold our deepest feelings and depths.

Nevertheless: I like the internet and the internet itself is not bad but I believe we should use it more responsible. I am strictly against any censorship or regimentation but for a responsible use. You do not let your child drive your Porsche; you may buy a bobby car or three wheeler. If you allow your children to access with administrator rights to access the internet, you are responsible for it. It is not the internet s or nations fault that your kid has found sites it shouldn't. You are. If someone breaks into your Computer, it is not the fault of the internet; it is your own fault, that you had no knowledge of computers.

In Germany we have an idiom like expression: »Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht«, which is similarly to the English: ââ?¬Å¾ Ignorance is no excuseââ?¬Å?. You can not plead ignorance to get away from consequences.