tradesmen and their tools

heya


there are sayings which, look you see, are well known. proverb like sayings, used freely to describe a particular situation. here, in something that i trust is not really much of a rant, i will be having a look at the one which goes "a bad tradesman blames his tools". there are variations of this, to be sure, with the tradesman standing accused of being poor or weak instead. indeed, from time to time it is they quarrel with their tools, but blames works.

once again, then, that beautiful city of London has been subjected to what can only be described as a terrorist attack. let me not get into the who is responsible and all of that, instead i would rather say how much of a relief it is that the would be bomber was highly incompetent and caused disruption rather than death. quite the even more cowardly would-be terrorist this time too, since they lacked the required courage in their convictions to be a "suicide bomber"; instead electing to do some sort of timer device thing.

my issue with this incident is the appropriation of blame, or what some corners say would be the very best way possible to stop such attacks. as usual, as standard and sadly as predictable, something of a lack of knowledge and understanding has come right to the fore in finding the easiest, laziest suggestion about what to do.

yes, but of course, "internet" is to blame for all of this. we the people can, to be sure, find information on it. as some of what we find is not good or can be caused to do no good, then of course someone must do something.

even by the usual standards of the Daily Mail this is really extreme stuff. as extreme, some may speculate, as those socially inept types that carry out these terror attacks. directly stating that successful web companies have "blood on their hands" due to the actions of either an individual or a small group is outlandish.

why? because it is blaming the medium which delivered a message. Google, the thing most blamed when someone is of a mind to "blame the internet" for actions or events, do not create any of the information used by this individual. they don't host it, advocate it or promote it. what they do is index just about every web page to exist, ranking and presenting it in terms of what an automated system reckons is the most relevant information someone searching for stuff is after. as and when a request - and it doesn't even have to be a legal one, anyone can contact them - they go so far as to remove areas of the web which society would perhaps be better off not seeing.

no, i do not believe that the internet, as such, should be some unpoliced free for all. but running a front page story demanding that a company that so happens to make its money off of the internet "do something" to make it all stop is, to me, silly. Google, Amazon, etc may all make large piles of cash from the internet. they did not, however, build it, take ownership of it or control it.

if we are going to accuse other who use, or better still have had success, from the medium, then logic surely dictates we can hold Sir Richard Branson responsible for a lack of quality music these days. come on, Sir Richard - admit it is your fault. you have made huge money off of Virgin Records. yes, your records have given us a great deal of pleasure and benefit over the years, but alas not so much any more. is it your fault that no one records and releases music worth anything?

much of the current trend - by the Daily Mail and others - to "blame internet" for anything stems, but of course, from the horrid Theresa May. when this lady, the current or if you will incumbent Prime Minister, is not showing an absolute hatred for the British people (she tried to stop me, a born and raised British citizen, living in my own country) she tends to display a magnificent level of ignorance about absolutely everything she can think to speak of. some of her single most outstanding, indeed magnificent, achievements in respect of this have all been in relation "the internet", and how people might use it, or what they might use it for.

let us not forget that it is Theresa May that wants every single thing every single person does in the UK on the internet recorded, logged, filed and examined. she likes to watch. for some reason she believes it is fair an important, and in the "national interests", to know what each and every one of us might do online. the mind boggles at the voyeuristic nature of this. for 99.99% of the population i would suggest that Theresa May wanting to look at what we look at is far more disturbing than any saucy or mucky images we may glance at on the web.

it's not odd that it is now "internet" that the government of the day wishes to limit and control. over the years we have seen all too often the medium and the message conveyed through it blamed for the actions of an individual. we in Britain were denied any legal means of seeing Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange due to some clever lawyers (and social workers) blaming the film on various sickening acts of thuggery and criminality. that was the 70s. in the 80s that other questionable newspaper, The Sun, managed to get a corner shop owner to say that Michael Ryan, who went on a gun rampage in Hungerford, "used to rent a lot of violent videos like Rambo". the fact that Ryan did not own a VCR didn't prevent Thatcher ordering an immediate clampdown on film and video censorship.

the newspapers would, of course, absolutely love it if the internet could be if not quite banned then seriously controlled and limited. newspapers, or if you like the fourth estate, are still smarting from the fact that their position of power and influence was eroded.

once upon a time, then, the newspapers were the only source of news, information and what have you. as such they were a powerful tool to influence and sway public opinion. many a British politician has found themselves in the pocket of a newspaper proprietor, for they know that their career could be well and truly over, normally in disgrace, if they acted in a way against the editorial line.

by contrast, Theresa May is apparently trying to desperately get in to the pocket of a newspaper proprietor. surely if she could reign in, control or even better stop how the internet allows opinions, ideas, facts and information to be shared pretty much by anyone with pretty much everyone, then the newspapers will think kindly of her, since she has restored their power of influence. i kind of hope so, because as bad, evil and despicable as she is, surely no one as completely stupid to think that the internet and companies doing business on it work the way she thinks could be allowed in any position of power, let alone Prime Minister.

say Theresa May and the likes of the Daily Mail got their way. somehow Google managed to ban, suppress or remove absolutely all information, references and details to how to make bombs and other such things. would that stop the problem? doubtful, i suggest. somehow long before "an internet" came to be the likes of the IRA, ETA, the ANC and many other terrorists / freedom fighters / revolutionaries worked out how to make bombs and so forth.

the fact that information about how may one do harm is easier to find on the internet than by any other means "doesn't help", to be sure. but blaming the internet for the actions of those who use it strikes me, as i dare say you have worked out, as baffling.

newspapers may wish to reconsider calling for restraints, blame and control being placed on mediums that give information to people. they may well find that they feature surprisingly high on the list of such mediums that require this attention.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!