Bread and circuses (AKA the intarwebz)? Or???
Apparently some ‘wag’ on cable yesterday afternoon said after the internet ‘outage’ yesterday, that the administration needs to take all the money away from roads, bridges, and ACTUAL infrastructure and put it into ‘ensuring that the intarwebz stays up, because THAT is more important than roads and bridges…
Of note, the web was partially impacted for around an hour…
People today don’t seem to understand that shelter, food, and clean water aren’t guaranteed. Or gasoline, for that matter…
We did pretty good without the intarwebz… invented a few things, cars, airplanes, trains, a few life saving drugs here and there, steam power, gasoline engines among others. Created the atomic bomb, went to the moon, you know, little things like that…
What is the benefit of the intarwebz? You can shop in your underwear from your couch. But THAT is more important than the roads, bridges, rails, etc. that bring those things to you?
And those other ‘little niceties’… Food from fields to manufacturers, to stores; oil from the ground to refineries, to those gas stations you use.
I…gah… I just do not understand how short sighted, conceited, and egotistical these people are that believe crap like the above…
Have a good weekend, and go enjoy yourselves! Get outside, away from the computers and phones and enjoy nature!
The WAG is clearly one of the group of people who should not be trusted with sharp objects, heavy loads or difficult thoughts. Rant over.
People is stupid.
“Get outside…enjoy nature” I hope to stay inside this weekend and enjoy air conditioning- nature is trying to kill me. 🙂
There is only now.
There is only the self.
There is only the cause.
There are only comfort, pleasure and power.
Got some good, cooler weather for a break. Heading out soon, after bread is done baking. Not my monkey, not my circus.
These are probably the same people that wonder why ranchers raise cattle when the ranchers could just go to the store and get beef.
Spoiled children with no understanding of how the world works. All they know is what they see.
These are the people that have no idea where food comes from, things like cars or fuel come from….
They can’t fix a light bulb, much less anything else, and have no idea how things work at all.
Yet they “feel” that they should be able to make decisions.
I am reading this on my phone while lying in a hammock in my backyard, enjoying the cool morning and the sound of birds. I need to go in a go to work in a few minutes. Sigh.
There is something to be said for ‘touch grass’ (a remark of recent vintage that means to get up and go outside for a bit).
And I’ve yet to see anyone download a bag of rice or a gallon of water (or fuel) through a fiberoptic connection.
I had a conversation with the ‘rents the other evening. While I don’t think I’d like the rural life, at the same time (a) they are no less worthy of respect and decency than anyone else, and (b) food and fuel and whatnot has to come from somewhere. It doesn’t just magically appear, damn it.
That’s what terrifies me. It’s one thing to say ‘hm, food comes from farms… I don’t know how to farm, so maybe I should make sure the farmers are doing all right’ and another when you think bread comes from the supermarket.
Our civilization has rendered Darwin’s theory obsolete.
Yup, yet another person who thinks tech makes factories, etc obsolete… I see it as another iteration of the “This time it really is different” crowd/
Fortunately, more and more people are waking up to reality… not fast enough for me, but definitely moving in the right direction.
Thanks folks! I ‘communed’ with nature this morning, 1.7 miles behind my lawnmower… sigh…
Posted from my iPhone as I sit in the AC and guzzle tap water.
If only we could get a infrastructure bill that would actually maintain and improve our infrastructure I would have no problem with a backup internet backbone being part of the plan since so much of our economy and military comms depend on it. But our interstates highways, ports, railways, bridges and electric systems cannot be overlooked. For to long in government infrastructure has been a code for pork projects and social programs.
I swear, there are times when I hope for a massive solar flare to get everyone back to reality, then I realize that would mean no more ice cold beer.
20 years ago that would of worked, now everything is run digitally and would go down in a emp/ solar flare event. I could live without internet but lousing all utilities would rapidly prove fatal. Water and septic plants would shut down dooming those in the desert states, those who depend on grocery stores and eating out would starve then turn bandit as the just in time shipping and modern computer controlled trucks break down. EMP hardening is one of the most important things we should do for our infrastructure but there seems to be no interest. A few nukes used for a EMP attack would be far more devastating as our civilization currently stands then actually nuking a few cities would be. A majority of our society literally depends on computers with their lives without knowing it.
I just bought a portable 120vac ice maker. It pulls 240 watts when it dumps the ice, less than that while making ice. A couple of solar panels and 12-volt batteries with a small inverter would keep your beverages chillin’. If you have water, you can make beer. Of course, if the power’s out you might not have water…
Why have government get involved in the internet infrastructure? Let some enterprising geek do it (looking at SpaceX…)
Seriously, woooo, the interwebs is suffering an outage. Guess I’ll sit in my chair during the traffic jam and use my phone to simulate a horn at all the other web-drivers.
Wooo.
a) there is some legitimate use in the internet
b) At the same time, me using the internet to play some game obviously lacks the necessity of not interupting power to industrial processes that, if starved of power, at best result in expensive and time consuming replacement of capital equipment
c) federal legislature seems to be staffed by idiots stupid enough that for anything that they have funded it may be fair to ask how they have worked to ruin it
d) cable imbeciles say moronic things, and correcting them would be a Sisyphean task
Seth- Excellent point!
RC- Sigh, yep…
Beans- Cisco ‘was’ as long as .gov was paying…
Bob- Concur! Dammit…
“Seriously, woooo, the interwebs is suffering an outage.”
Two counties in Illinois lost internet for about six hours yesterday. Gamers lost their minds.
That reminds me, some years back I was fishing from the banks of the lake as hybrid bass were blitzing the shore. Remarkable action and a lot of fun. Above us, on the bluffs, were a group of teens on their phones playing a fishing game. No kidding. Pokemon Fish? Something like that.
Huh.
If I could snap my fingers and send phones and internet back to the 90s, it would be very tempting. Social media is mostly cancer anyway. I’d have not met a lot of you fine folks, but it’s a sacrifice that would be hard to not make.
Besides, the internet killed finding deals at shows. What’s the point of knowing ALL the things and using it to your advantage when Joe Dipshit can just hit gunbroker? I used to run into some awesome finds when the ignorant were to lazy to do research.
The problem with the internet, IMO, is it give damn fools a bigger stage to pontificate foolishness.
LSP- Wow!!!
Heath- Yep, dammit…
WSF- Good point… sigh
‘All the internet you can eat !’ One of those rights that the government should insure, anything less is racist.
Old- sigh…probably…