WHY MICA NEEDS A NEW RAY GUN TO WIN THE INTERNET WAR – THE PERILS OF USING OLD SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE A NEW PROBLEM – PART II

Let’s dive in from where we last left off. Where were we….where were we….Oh Yes…. My point is, things have changed so dramatically these days with the advent of the internet; its conceivable, the old methods of influencing kids may not even work reliably any longer; as I said, it makes far more sense these days to treat kids like adults and consider empowering them with the ability to find out for themselves what’s actually good or bad by teaching them how to think critically and if possible even laterally.

 

You see, a large part of that logic requires one to treat kids like adults and that simply means; one should never ever tell them what they should or should not do. Never!

 

That’s one of the reasons why I will be very interested to see the specific details of how our government actually goes about the whole business of reengineering the idea of forwarding the truth and killing the lie in the internet; how are they going to rethink, to redefine, to redesign, to radically highlight the good currency from the bad in our internet without coming across as sanctimoniously righteous?

 

As we all know that’s really a giant bore and turn off these days.

 

What I do know is; if policymakers really want to get on top of this internet problem. Then it pays dividends to actually get into the minds of young people and even try to see the world through their eyes. It’s conceivable, there’s a progression going on here and one way of driving out the bad may actually require policymakers to remain neutral on what they consider – the bad. I know that sounds a bit screwy, so let me give you an illustration of what I mean.

 

How do you root the reading habit in the youth? Take away their torch lights. That guarantees, they will buy another one and read beneath the sheets well beyond bed time. What we may be dealing here is the economy of desires; one that even taps into the whole idea of the forbidden fruit. And this is where you need to consider: what happens when you get a moral committee going around with a big gong telling everyone the internet is a place where lies, disinformation and degenerates regularly congregate?

 

What are they actually doing?

 

You see when something mundane, trite and ordinary is suddenly labeled as the big bad wolf –all too often, it likely to solicit the reverse reaction. That’s to say; what we may even see is the perverse effect where everything that is bad about the internet may even be inadvertently elevated to the ignominious status of the die die must experience illicit thrill –like the chocolate seat in the Moulin Rouge; or the thrill of puffing on weed; or taking a trip on LSD, that’s what happens, when you something acquires the patina of the undesirable – it becomes irresistible.

 

That’s my real fear – that the people who are actually driving this moral bullocart, may not even have the imagination to even understand what I am talking about here. Let alone even understand how such a backlash may even come about.

 

You see deep down inside every kid; there’s an adult – there’s always an insatiable appetite for identity and authenticity –Yes, I know children may role play fictitious anime characters; they may even collect spaceships and ray guns and collect anything to do with sci-fi, but don’t let that fascination fool you for one moment that’s it’s a love affair with some homily sugary tooth fairy escape from reality. It’s not.

 

My point is deep down inside; it also goes some way to explaining this may even be a backlash for something real; that’s to say; when they actually dump a kilogram of gel on their head and style their hair to look like cloud in the Advent Children; they’re not running away from reality as they are trying to search for authenticity in these anime characters.

 

Kids these days demand for something very real even in the unreal. It doesn’t take you very long to figure that out that there’s much more to their make belief world that meets the eye when one of them hits you with an elephant gun statement like,

 

“The reason why you think it’s a rubbish Darkness is because you don’t know the philosophy of what it means to be a jedi! You dumb fuck and that explains why you only seem to write toe curling love stories.”  

 

Neither does it take one very long to register this pull for the authentic, when you suddenly have to fend off a slew of mind boggling questions in a sci-fi forum (you have no idea how relieved I am that avatars still have some way to go before you can actually spot someone lying from their body language); how come whenever  you people make the jump to light speed, you never ever seem to slam into a planet or end up in the middle of some asteroid field? What about black holes darkness, why don’t your spaceships come with a quasar detector? How come brotherhood  chairs in the virtual break exactly the same way all the time, no matter how you throw them? Why is it when I get shot in either my head, foot or toenail by one of your crumpy brotherhood produced ray guns, I somersault three time, why not five or six huh huh?

 

You get my drift. Trust me after one hour of getting cross examined by the kiddies brigade – I rather take my chances with ISD home team any day stark naked with even electrodes connected to my guli’s.

 

My point in this essay this afternoon is to illustrate; kids these days, like adults will always demand for something real in the form that very closely resembles the known truth. Its not enough these days to just rattle off the perfunctory look before you jump messages, that’s simply not going to cut it, not by half – you could even say with the advent of the digital age; kids even have limitless ways to ferret out the truth as never before.

 

Deep down when one discounts the obvious differences in age, maturity and life experience between adults and kids. I am reminded, it pay little these days to treat kids like kids; it makes far more sense to appeal to the adult somewhere inside them; that may simply be the first lesson Cheong Yip Seng’s soviet era committee may have to buy into when they next decide to step into the brave new world called the internet.

 

Darkness 2009

 

(The Brotherhood Press 2009)