Doug Miller
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Feb 26, 1999
- Messages
- 712
- Real Name
- Doug Miller
It seems like each day, I get a little less interested in surfing the net. I'm sure a lot of it is that over the last 15 years or so the novelty has been wearing off, but the more I think about it, I'm not so sure.
I was listening to Charlie Steiner on MLBs XM Radio channel, and Charlie was digressing over how true journalists are having to apologize for bloggers and rumors created by "guys in a basement with zero connections to baseball". I thought about it for awhile and realized that the one thing I hate more than anything about the internet, is anonymity.
What would my ideal internet be?
- Every internet user would be given one user name, their own name. They would log on using their social security number so that poor John Smith would be individual to John Smith 1-1million. Each user name would be matched with a photo to identify each individual user. You can have as many email accounts, web addresses, etc., as you want, but ultimately, you would only have one user name for all of these accounts -- mine, obviously, would be Doug Miller. You would know it was me, because my photo would be right next to it.
What would my ideal internet accomplish?
- Think about how much less bullshit, and garbage there would be online if this was better regulated. I'm not talking about censorship -- to the contrary, I'm talking about accountability for actions. We see if everyday, rumors about "celebrities" or politicians. "News" that's only rumor and hearsay, but reported like it was the gospel? I would be curious what an internet "bullshit meter" would look like today.
- Wouldn't it be nice to have conversations with each other online, knowing that you're not going to have flame wars start up by Or!g!N@L or Frodoluv (totally made those up, btw), because assholes will have their security blanket of anonymity taken away?
I think about where the internet has gone over just the last 15 years, it's gone from an innovation to MTV. MTV, great channel when it started, full of videos. Now? Is there even an hour of videos now? It's all "reality" and "celebrity" TV.
The internet has provided us with countless tools -- wouldn't it be nice to be able to use those tools, and to filter out something that's turned something so positive into something so pointless?
I wanted to start a discussion, try to keep it nice. I don't necessarily think my suggestion is something even doable, but like I said, it's my ideal internet.
Doug
I was listening to Charlie Steiner on MLBs XM Radio channel, and Charlie was digressing over how true journalists are having to apologize for bloggers and rumors created by "guys in a basement with zero connections to baseball". I thought about it for awhile and realized that the one thing I hate more than anything about the internet, is anonymity.
What would my ideal internet be?
- Every internet user would be given one user name, their own name. They would log on using their social security number so that poor John Smith would be individual to John Smith 1-1million. Each user name would be matched with a photo to identify each individual user. You can have as many email accounts, web addresses, etc., as you want, but ultimately, you would only have one user name for all of these accounts -- mine, obviously, would be Doug Miller. You would know it was me, because my photo would be right next to it.
What would my ideal internet accomplish?
- Think about how much less bullshit, and garbage there would be online if this was better regulated. I'm not talking about censorship -- to the contrary, I'm talking about accountability for actions. We see if everyday, rumors about "celebrities" or politicians. "News" that's only rumor and hearsay, but reported like it was the gospel? I would be curious what an internet "bullshit meter" would look like today.
- Wouldn't it be nice to have conversations with each other online, knowing that you're not going to have flame wars start up by Or!g!N@L or Frodoluv (totally made those up, btw), because assholes will have their security blanket of anonymity taken away?
I think about where the internet has gone over just the last 15 years, it's gone from an innovation to MTV. MTV, great channel when it started, full of videos. Now? Is there even an hour of videos now? It's all "reality" and "celebrity" TV.
The internet has provided us with countless tools -- wouldn't it be nice to be able to use those tools, and to filter out something that's turned something so positive into something so pointless?
I wanted to start a discussion, try to keep it nice. I don't necessarily think my suggestion is something even doable, but like I said, it's my ideal internet.
Doug
