Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
Everyone is horrified lately about stuff on the internet.
From degrading comments to vile posts to videos that urge self-harm, the internet is a cesspool that shows the worst of humankind. Pedophilia, hate, racism, sexism, rape, animal abuse, bullying, and murder are everywhere. But it’s not the internet that is the problem. It’s humanity.
Children are urged to self-harm…maybe.
There’s the ultra-creepy Momo Challenge, which is a suicide “game” aimed at young children. Some sick individually actually took videos meant for children and spliced in horrible, creepy instruction of how to kill themselves, with threats that a creature of nightmares would do it for them if they didn’t comply. Instructions like, go to the kitchen, get your mom’s sharpest knife, and stick it in your neck. Three children are suspected to have died due to this vile and twisted “game.” I can’t even wrap my head around the mind of a person who would do this.
There’s some debate about whether this is real or whether it’s a hoax but if nothing else, it should underscore the need for parents of mall children to make sure that they are watching what their children are watching online.
Pedos are infecting YouTube
Then we have YouTube disabling comments on content that features children. They’ve suspended commenting not because people say horrible things about the children – that they’re ugly, stupid, etc, – but because of pedophiles who make repugnant comments on the videos.
YouTube said Thursday it will turn off comments on nearly all videos featuring kids — potentially affecting millions of posts on the site — after reports last week that pedophiles were leaving inappropriate comments on innocuous videos of children…
…It will take YouTube several months to disable comments on all videos featuring minors, the company said. It already started the process last week when it turned off comments from tens of millions of videos.
Advertisers including Nestle, AT&T and Fortnite-maker Epic Games pulled ads from YouTube last week after the inappropriate comments about children were unearthed by a popular YouTuber and media reports. At least one company, Nestle, was satisfied with YouTube’s response and reinstated ads late last week.
A small number of channels which have videos featuring kids will be allowed to keep comments turned on. But they must be known to YouTube and must actively monitor the comments beyond the standard monitoring tools YouTube provides.
Turning off comments on such a large number of videos seems an “extreme reaction,” said eMarketer analyst Paul Verna. But the issue involves the safety of children, so it makes sense YouTube would want to act quickly, he said. (source)
And this is the tip of the pedophilia iceberg. There are chatrooms, child porn websites, sites that want to repeal laws against the sexual abuse of children, and sick, twisted mainstream sites that try to justify the abuse of and attraction to children by adults.
The internet is a dark and cruel place.
The internet can ruin your life in many different ways.
You can be “doxxed.” That’s when someone hunts down all of your personal information and posts it online. Maybe you use a pseudonym online and they find out your real name, your address, your place of work. Maybe you use your real name and someone finds out the names and locations of your loved ones. Your kids’ school, your parents’ home address, your spouse’s workplace.
You can be the victim of an internet mob determined to ruin your life.
Remember in January of 2019 when the boy from a Catholic high school in Covington, Kentucky was wearing a MAGA hat and a Native American guy got in his face and the internet descended on a 15-year-old in a fit of misplaced rage? Someone posted a 30-second clip on Twitter or somewhere that made the boy, Nick Sandmann, look like he might be smirking. Celebrities asked for him to be “named and shamed” and posted death threats and offered rewards if someone got it on video when the hit a fifteen-year-old boy in the face. They wanted his head.
But then it turned out that when video was shown from other angles the young man had actually shown remarkable courtesy and restraint and the issue was the guy in his face banging on a drum right beside his ear. That was the real story but the damage to Sandmann’s reputation was done.
People “unfriend” you for your opinions.
This article wouldn’t be complete without a dishonorable mention for Facebook, the place where everyone feels justified to insult others and dress them down publicly. The place where someone you’ve been friends with in real life for years “unfriends” you because you voted for a different person than they did in an election. The place where civility went to die.
Here are some crazy stats. Two billion people visit Facebook on a daily basis and a billion of those people are considered “active.” The average active user accesses the site 8 times throughout the day, spending a combined average of 35 minutes per day on there.
Sure, you can catch up with friends and family who are far away, but there’s a dark side. Actually, there are several of them.
Facebook actually experimented without users’ consent to see if they could change their moods. When they got caught, they weren’t really sorry for secretly manipulating users, but they wished they had maybe done things a little differently (or let’s be real, they wished they hadn’t gotten caught.)
People can be cruelly trolled on Facebook and psychologists suggest that the website is a place where psychopaths and narcissists can run amok without any real-life repurcussions.
And then there are the people who moderate the website. An article that recently appeared suggests that the low-paid moderators suffer from PTSD from all the horrific and hateful things that flash across their screens all day long. They smoke weed at work and do all sorts of things to combat the images and videos they watch.
But the internet isn’t ruining the world.
Despite all these examples of debauched internet experiences, it isn’t actually the internet that we need to worry about.
It’s humanity.
It’s easy to blame all the awful things we’re exposed to these days on the internet, but really, we’re just peeking inside the minds of people now because the internet puts that all on display. The problem is that people think and act in these ways. People are pedophiles or animal abusers or racists or psychopaths or narcissists or bullies.
The reality is, we just see it now.
Before the internet, there were still people who were pedophiles or animal abusers or racists or psychopaths or narcissists or bullies but we were less likely to see it or learn about it, especially if they didn’t live in our neighborhood. We weren’t as likely to see someone proudly bully another person for their beliefs or torment someone with a different view, of say, vaccinations for children.
There is a website out there for everyone, telling them that they are acceptable no matter how deviant or downright evil they might be. There is a group for them someplace online where they can find like-minded deviants. Maybe that makes people more likely to act on their sick impulses or announce their twisted views of the world. Maybe it makes them find themselves more acceptable.
But it doesn’t cause them to be deviant or evil. They were already that way.
Don’t be fooled into thinking people are totally different today. The different thing today is that we have a window inside the dark and depraved minds of people. There always have been evil people and there always will be evil people.
If you are a person who believes we might one day live in a world without our current amenities, it would be wise of you to remember this. If the internet was gone forever, the evil that lurks there would still be present. In Selco’s book, The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival, he wrote of the degenerate and sickening behavior of people who lived right in his neighborhood. Those people were just waiting for their moment.
With the internet, we’ve had the dubious benefit of a crash course into the minds of people. We should use that as a lesson if a life-altering disaster were ever to strike. As horrible as it is, it could be our advantage. It could be what makes us willing to accept the fact that yes, there really are people who are this bad.
The problem in the world today is not the darkness of the internet.
It’s the darkness of humanity.
Same with police violence, I don’t think it’s increasing dramatically, just more people are getting their story’s out.
Agreed on your basic premise. The Internet is a tool, and as with any tool, it can be used for good or bad, i.e. a hammer for nails of to the head. However, Progressives use that tool, and others for their evil gain, and to dominate and suppress opposition and people in general for power and control.
While I totally agree with your basic premise, I think you miss one important negative feature of the internet. That is the reality that suddenly folks who used to be considered deviant, and who thus perceived themselves as outside the norm, can now easily find, identify with, and become part cadres of other individuals with similar socially dysfunctional attributes, thus freeing many from the imposed discipline that used to cause most social misfits to try to conform to the norms (not always positive, for sure) of our society.
Actually, UltraSkeptic, I think Daisy does say something along those lines. I would go one step further and say that apart from all these deviants now finding comfortable homes for themselves on the Internet with like-minded types, the left lunatic fringe now ENCOURAGES this behavior, actively calling for people to be murdered because of their (conservative) beliefs, promoting pedophilia and that sort of thing. ‘Tis a scary world we live in!
Versus the right lunatic fringe?
Good point
Humanity? Far too many have become Inhumane. Far too many are Narcissistic. Far too many simply do not Care for their fellow Human Being. Far too many are Addicted to Entertainment and Amused To Death.
Right on Daisy/ Super Post
I’m not saying we should censor him or anything but that sounds like a pretty stupid philosophy to me.
Mankind goes through cycles.
How many times has history told of races, nations or classes of people who have clawed their way up from hundreds of years of bondage into newfound Freedoms, and then, as their duties to war with eternal vigilance against the seldom subdued forces of tyranny were neglected, they slipped slowly at first and then very quickly back into bondage and oppression for another hundred years.
Nonetheless, just as every setback has seen man’s accepted definitions for a working Law of Liberty perverted into new mandates for tyranny, with each new triumph, the scope, breadth and means of mankind’’s freedom have of a necessity been redefined to counter the perversions and corruptions of those doomed old dictatorships.
Even the doctrine that all men are born with certain inalienable rights was, a mere two and a half centuries ago, akin to one of the greatest heresies the world had ever heard, but that was the cry of our forefathers as they orchestrated the revolutions which toppled the despotic old empires of Europe.
Before that, there was a story about when Mohammad was telling his disciples about how bad things will have become before the end of times and one of them asked, “Is it because we will have become so few?”
“No,” replied the prophet. “You will be as numerous as ever but you will have become as carrion and the scum that floats atop the surf.”
That’s what happens when a people neglect their fraternal obligations to war eternally against the seldom subdued forces of tyranny, they become overrun with corruption. That’s why all the so-called wise men and high adepts or political leaders of this unlawful day and age have become as monsters who promote with every one of their lawless teachings and oppressive mandates, rampant tyranny and a society that allows it.
Yep, the internet didn’t create the darkness; but it can amplify both darkness and light.
Always remember….we can’t eliminate all that darkness, but we can control what appears on our screen and enters our mind.
Want to know where to start?? Get out of Facebook if you haven’t done so already.
I closed my FB account on July 4, 2018, and can honestly say…..”quitting FB is even better for your mental health than quitting smoking is for your body!”
I ALSO HAD IT, but closed it back in 2014. My oldest daughter said to me…”If you wanna follow me you have to get on Facebook mom”, so I did and was on maybe a month-6 weeks, got off and never returned…You are right, it was good for my mental health and I am not sorry I got off, and wouldn’t have no need seriously to go back to it. People don’t understand it, so they think it’s harmless and they need it. Ahhhhhh, deceit is everywhere is it not?
@Harbour, I couldn’t agree with you more! I haven’t actually closed my fb account, but decided to take a ‘fb holiday’ for a couple weeks about 4 months ago, and have been a much happier person since then! I call it ‘face suck’, because of how it can suck your time away. I never check my timeline anymore. I only interact with a handful of ppl (family and close friends), and have even limited the interaction with a couple of groups/pages that I helped start and admin. While I cannot completely ‘cut the cord’, severely restricting the time I spend there, strictly choosing what notifications I receive, has given me back a lot of time, as well as peace of mind.
YES VERY TRUE. EVIL PEOPLE = AN EVIL WORLD. BUT SATAN HAS BEEN AROUND FROM THE BEGINNING WITH THE FORCES OF DARK AND EVIL. HE IS HERE NOW AS THE GOD OF THIS “EVIL” WORLD, AND HE WILL CONTINUE TO LURK IN DARK PLACES, AND NOW EVEN IN THE LIGHT HE’S STILL THERE. WE DON’T SEE HIM OF COURSE, BUT NONETHELESS HE’S STILL THERE. SATAN IS A “SPIRIT” BEING THUS INVISIBLE.
SO “LIFE” BOILS DOWN TO JUST ONE THING…WHAT? WHAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE? IT’S A SPIRITUAL BATTLE BETWEEN THE FORCES OF GOOD, AND THE FORCES OF EVIL, THAT’S WHAT IT ALL AMOUNTS TO. THE INTERNET COULDN’T EXIST WITH “HUMANS”, AND HUMANS ARE PEOPLE AND PEOPLE ARE SOULS, REMEMBER THAT SAYING “THERE’S NOT A SOUL IN THE PLACE,” BASICALLY MEANING NOBODY IS HERE. THERE IS NO HUMAN PERSON HERE (IN THIS PLACE). SOULS WERE EVIL FROM THE BEGINNING. LOOK AT EVE AND HOW SHE TEMPTED ADAM. LOOK AT CAIN AND ABEL (ONE BROTHER KILLED THE OTHER). EVIL EXISTED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN WHEN SATAN TEMPTED EVE. EVIL HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE AROUND. THE SPIRITS HOVERING AROUND IN PLACES THAT WE DON’T SEE, BUT THEY ARE STILL THERE. THE INTERNET IS JUST A “TOOL” FOR EVIL, BUT IT COMES FROM THE HEART (THE EVIL ENTITY) OF HUMANITY…YOU’RE SO RIGHT DAISY, IT’S NOT THE INTERENET IT’S THE PEOPLE WHO CREATE IT AND PUT INFOMATION INTO IT, WITHOUT “US HUMANS” WHAT WOULD IT BE BY ITSELF? JUST A MACHINE THAT SOMEONE BUILT THAT MEANT NOTHING, VOID, INCOMPLETE, USELESS!!! WANDAKATE
Religiotard rant. If u knew the truth about religion/god&satan, ud either run screaming or committ suicide. So keep ur bs to urself.
Humanity has always had a ‘dark side’, read the Bible. The internet is a tool, and as such, it has given the ‘dark side’ a way to ‘meet up’ in an easy manner, as suggested in the article, and given them a voice like they’ve never had before.
On the flip side, we have never seen such a bunch of ‘pansies’ as we see today, those who don’t know how to deal with the ‘darkness’, be it bullies, personal demons, whatever. It’s never anyone’s personal fault, everyone gets a participation trophy, a differing opinion is ‘offensive’ enough to send everyone to their ‘safe space’. No one know how to have a conversation anymore. Rational discussion of differing opinions doesn’t exist. It evolves to name calling and worse. Critical thinking no longer exists, nor is it taught in ‘school’.
I agree with the premise of the article. What it doesn’t address is how people react to that darkness, and how so many today are too ‘skeered’ to face and deal with that darkness, whether it is on a personal or community or state or nation wide level.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
Amen, Grammy! Far too many Christians are in mortal fear of confronting evil to the point where they contract hysterical blindness. They refuse to see what their cowardly souls refuse to confront. They’re like a herd of fainting goats! Normalcy bias doesn’t even begin to explain it. It’s moral cowardice plain and simple. They simply lack the convictions of their “faith”.
Ephesians 6, 12-13:
12: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Like it or not, we were all born into a war we can not escape. As for me and my house, we shall serve The Lord.
Bless you for your vision and courage, Grammy!
13: Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
* WHY * o why, if those A**holes are stupid enough
to post their sick s*** online,
why are the cops not hunting and arresting them
by the dozens ?????
a posting on the internet is evidence in a court of law.
*anywhere* on the net –
including *these* and *your* comments
RIGHT HERE
“The problem in the world today is not the darkness of the internet. It’s the darkness of humanity.”
Truer words were never spoken. I had a similar conversation just yesterday. I get so SICK of supposed adult Christians asking me,”What is wrong with ‘those people’?
The answer is “EVIL”. Plain and simple. People are, by nature, evil. They are born into sin. Globally, the vast majority of them choose to wallow in it their entire lives. Just look around with eyes that want to see. You can’t miss it. Many of them end up in positions of power and “authority”.
I use “authority” loosely, because for me there is no King but Christ Jesus. In God’s eyes, there is not ONE legitimate government on the planet. The ONLY reason that we have government by men is because Man REJECTED Government by God. But I digress.
We are now coming to that momentous period of time when all things come to fruition, both the wheat and the chaff. Those who refuse to see evil right in front of them, those who call evil good, and those who actively choose evil over good knowing the difference are all going in the chaff pile according to Scripture.
The Age of Grace is drawing to a close. The very second it ends, all Hell is literally going to break loose! To my brothers and sisters in Christ I say this: “Fear not. Look up, for thy redemption draweth nigh!”
To the rest, I’ll just quote a line from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy…
“GOODBYE, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH!”
People have become to believe everything they read on the internet is the truth. “But the internet isn’t ruining the world” is total correct, it is the people and how they use it. As one person once said: “Believe half what you heard and nothing what you read”.
good to remember that evil is everywhere and well disguised. lived in florida when part of hollywood was burned in the 70’s. police reported privately that the cruelty was unbelievable. terrible rapery and other torture by the evil doers who took the opportunity to let their evil loose unbridled. set people on fire, cut off body parts. horrible. and those people are everywhere , they will take the chance if there is unrest to perpetrate every evil you have heard of and many you have never imagined.
It’s always showed itself but few paid attention.
What Nietzsche Said
“There are still peoples and herds somewhere, but not with us, my brothers: here there are states.
The state? What is that? Well then! Now open your ears, for now I shall speak to you of the death of peoples.
The state is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies, too; and this lie creeps from its mouth; ‘I, the state, am the people.’
It is a lie! It was creators who created peoples and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
It is destroyers who set snares for many and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred desires over them.
Where a people still exists, there the people do not understand the state and hate it as the evil eye and sin against custom and law.
I offer you this sign: every people speaks its own language of good and evil: its neighbor does not understand this language. It invented this language for itself in custom and law.
But the state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies – and whatever it has, it has stolen.
Everything about it is false; it bites with stolen teeth. Even its belly is false.
Confusion of the language of good and evil; I offer you this sign of the state. Truly, this sign indicates the will to death! Truly, it beckons to the preachers of death!
Many too many are born: the state was invented for the superfluous!
Just see how it lures them, the many-too-many! How it devours them, and chews them, and re-chews them!
…It would like to range heroes and honorable men about it, this new idol! It likes to sun itself in the sunshine of good consciences – this cold monster!
It will give you everything if you worship it, this new idol: thus it buys for itself the luster of your virtues and the glance of your proud eyes.
It wants to use you to lure the many-too-many. Yes, a cunning device of Hell has here been devised, a horse of death jingling with the trappings of divine honors!
Yes, a death for many has here been devised that glorifies itself as life: truly a heart-felt service to all preachers of death!
I call it the state where everyone, good and bad, is a poison-drinker: the state where everyone, good and bad, loses himself: the state where universal slow suicide is called – life.”