In this age of everything internet, we may, at times, take for granted the unlimited and inexhaustible resource we have in online options. You can do almost anything online. Want to buy groceries? No problem. Pay all of your bills? Easy. Get a doctorate? I swear to god, you don’t even have to talk to someone. So in an age when everything is easy and accessible, I try and imagine the creators of the internet and what they must think of this frankenstienian creature into which they breathed life. I have written a little play…only a few words! Go ahead and give it a read.
Jesus: Hey, Dad?
God: ‘Sup, Little J?
Jesus: I was thinking…you know how people are meant to be good and just and moral and all that?
God: Do I? I practically wrote the book on it!
Jesus: Well, I was thinking about how challenging it can be for people to lead good lives and…
God: (Very paternally) Go on, Son. You know you can tell me anything and I promise I won’t be mad. What’s the worst I could do?
Jesus: (Nervously rubs the palms of his hands) Well, what if we make it really easy to not do that? Like, all it would take is sitting down at a desk, wiggling your fingers, and suddenly you find yourself in a den of inquity hitherto unimagined by the likes of man?
God: That’s an awesome idea. Get me Satan on the line.
This little vignette is based on a true story.
So now that the internet is here (shout out to the Light Bringer!) we find ourselves confronted with issues that we never before considered. Back in the mid-90s, it was a lack of understanding about the internet itself. No one knew what was possible when you combine a computer, an internet connection, a morbidly obese computer expert (by which I mean nerd), and a frightening amount of orange soda and Cheetos. By about 2000, the age of internet piracy had really begun. I knew people who had tens of thousands of songs they got from Napster. (I was certainly not one of these people. Nor did I download, six days before its release, that Metallica album they bragged would never be leaked. I don’t even like Metallica.)
These days, it’s less about internet piracy and more about internet privacy. Thus we come to the real topic at hand: obnoxious and misleading governmental jargon and acronyms. As I write this, a hotly debated topic in Washington is the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. Now don’t be confused. Sure, internet piracy is a huge part of this bill, but there are privacy implications as well. The long and short of the bill is this: The US can’t control websites that are housed on servers outside of the US. A website operating in a country that has looser copyright laws is accessible by anyone in the US with an internet connection. This new law would force internet providers to block their subscribers from seeing any content that infringes on US copyright.
Well, that doesn’t seem so bad, right? It’s a law that enforces an already existing law. But, as with anything like this, there is the potential for long-term effects. What is to stop the government from later deciding that this law should also cover content thought to be in bad taste? So now, that awesome website operated out of Freakypornistan is not accessible to the US. Not a huge deal necessairily, but we’ve just established a precedent that will inexoribly lead us to a limited number of websites like GodSaidManSaid.com. (Seriously…that’s a real site. It is awesome in how completely unawesome it is.)
But what can we do about all this? If you’re just an average joe, you can contact your congressperson or senator (on the internet, ironically enough). If you’re a movie studio, you can laugh manically as you throw kittens on burning piles of hundred dollar bills. If you’re an incredibly popular (and free!) website, you can blackout your US site for 24 hours. (Although, this is probably a dumb idea considering the people who use your website more than anyone else are the aforementioned obese Cheetos consumer and likely don’t need to be convinced that SOPA is a bad idea.)
In a show of internet solidarity, BlueMilePodcast.com will go black from 2:47 am to 2:48 am EST. That oughta show those bastards in Washington a thing or two. (If anyone wants to send a link to BlueMilePodcast.com to their senator or congressperson…please don’t. We’d rather stay under the radar. Jess has fears that could only be described as Orwellian.)
Rest assured, no matter what happens, someone will be hugely pissed off and declare that the end of freedom is upon us. Regardless, the BlueMilePodcast will still be here leading the charge for the tens of people who visit the site each month. Well, we probably need to exclude the bots that hit our site, so we’ll be here for the ten of you.
TL:DR
