Only a world leader would ban the Internet
November 12th, 2008 at 08:03am
Today: The Great Firewall of China comes to Australia
Tomorrow: Australia follows China’s lead and declares Internet Addiction a disorder
The next day: Kevin Rudd translates those “The Internets can be of harmful to healths” stickers from Mandarin to English…unfortunately needing to use the Google Translator because he doesn’t actually speak Mandarin.
Sometime next week: Internet access is outlawed simultaneously in Australia and China due to the “potential harmful effects of greenhouse gases emitted by routers and data centres”.
The next day: Cigarettes and alcohol are banned as well, the double standard was just too big too ignore.
It’s not entirely inconceivable is it? And surely both bans would work just as well as each other. We know that prohibition is always a wonderful success. I wonder what happened to the Internet being a crucial part of our economy? Wasn’t that one of Kevin Rudd’s pre-election mantras?
Samuel
Entry Filed under: IT News,Samuel's Editorials
4 Comments
1. padders | November 13th, 2008 at 8:23 am
I hope it IS inconceivable! Banning the internet is one thing, but cigarettes and alcohol?? That would be the end of civilisation as we know it! It is too early to be scaring me like this Samuel! I must go now and drink a warm beverage containing a pleasure-inducing chemical (maybe that will be next on Krudd’s list?) Gaaaa!!!
2. Samuel | November 13th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Maybe I need to work harder on conveying sarcasm in text form. Either that, or I’m not picking on your sarcasm padders.
Anyway, my point was that prohibition is a proven failure, and there is already a fairly large backlash against the “mere” censorship of the Internet, so I think the government should just stop being silly about it, and accept that the Howard government’s “we can give you software to this end if you want it” program was a much better option.
3. padders | November 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
The sarcasm in your post was duly noted; it’s just that I decided in my reply to leave most of it out !
4. Samuel | November 13th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Ah, all makes sense now.
I can never quite be sure when it comes to textual sarcasm. Some people get it and some people don’t. I find myself somewhere in the hazy middle.