Here’s a cheerful headline.
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Theresa May sums up pretty much everything I hate about the English. Imperious, arrogant, ignorant paternalism.
Go blow a goat, you stupid, evil bitch.
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I think about this a lot.
I honestly think a lot of the worst corners of the internet simply wouldn’t exist… without the internet. Before, it was just that one or two weird loner who lived in their grandma’s basement and you learned quickly not to talk to them because of their weird ideas. Only now… all these single loners have found each other online and they’ve gotten weirder and louder and attracted awkward teens that were only a little weird and could probably have been ok if they hadn’t found each other online…
How long would it take us to get back online if there were a massive solar flare? Would it destroy our network completely or do we have enough redundancy to sustain half the globe going down at once?
THOUGHTS! I HAVE THEM!
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The reverse is true, too, though. Some of the best corners of the Internet are those people who felt awkward, alone, and had to hide themselves and their “abnormalities”. Where could a queer kid in the Bible Belt get accurate information, let alone find a community or even just one bullied because of their love of bugs learn that there are lots of other “weirdos” out there who might spark a future entomologist?
If the Internet brings together bad actors, it also brings together good ones. I don’t want to see that lost especially under the mantle of “good intentions”.
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The Internet has actually facilitated white right wing extremism, and she has benefited from it.
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So it’s OK for me to say that Donald Trump sums up pretty much everything I hate about Americans?
Thought not.
As an Oxford-educated politician in a right wing party, she’s one of a group of well under 1%. Saying “utterly atypical person is typical of the English” is like suggesting Netanyahu is a typical Jew. How does that go down?
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I’ve experienced this first-hand with – wait for it – knitting. In the mid-90s it looked like it was on its way out for good. But first group e-mail lists (remember them?), then blogging, and now its own social network in Ravelry.com mean that it’s on the upswing and thriving.
Back in the early days of the net, I was acquainted on-line with several knitters who had never seen another person knit – they’d learned from books and mail-ordered all the materials. Now Youtube is stuffed with how-to videos, and there are plenty of meetups organised. The whole culture around the craft has been reinvented (drawing from earlier eras) and strengthened.
So yeah, the net is creating community where before there were pockets and fragments. The trick is how to combat the more destructive elements.
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Wow! I didn’t know about that. The Transmission Wars would be a great name for a movie.
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That’s a great idea! You could do some lovely visual imagery with transmission towers/steeples and Tower of Babel references.
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Wow the radio tower contrasted with the tower of babel would make great imagery.
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Or a great name for a website…
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Knitting is a fantastically good example. I don’t have the necessary motor skills to knit (also the one thing I share with Richard Feynman is an inability to tell left from right) but my wife and my father do and are part of communities growing up around it - including, here, people who raise sheep and make their own wool. It really is something that has been facilitated by the Internet.
But every technology has its dark side as well as its light side. I was talking the other day to someone who runs a Facebook page for an uncommon dog breed, and she was telling me how they have constant trouble with outsiders trying to get in and find out about owners, presumably to find where to go to steal the best dogs.
Some of the stuff some of the local knitters produce is worth many hundreds of pounds. I emphasise the need to avoid putting information on line that might make them a target for thieves. People need to be security conscious - and weakening security, as May wants, therefore threatens legitimate users.
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I thought we were supposed to be reducing the number of name candidates? 
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Your local knitting community sounds incredibly cool. That’s great when there’s direct contact with the people who create the fibre.
Even inside of a community there can be issues. The very first example of sock puppetry I ever saw was in an on-line knitting community. Someone claimed to know a lot of designers personally, and when one of them turned out to be lurking on the boards and posted a, “um, sorry, I have no idea who you are” message, the pretender got banned.
She then made an account under a different name to campaign for her own reinstatement. It got pretty weird.
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There are jerks in every pool of folks. We had a yarn shop which was wonderful with a great community, for knitters. I had a woman tell me that “crochet is for people who can’t knit” turned up her nose at me and walked away. Jeez, I just wanted to buy some fancy yarn, and besides I can knit I just prefer to crochet. Crochet makes me happy but knitting just makes fabric out of yarn, fun but not as nice as happiness.
Wait, what’s the topic? I think I’m pushing us further away from it, sorry.
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LOL I’m a knitter who sometimes crochets (crochets very large blankets even), and my best friend is a crocheter who knits.
And we tell each other fibre snobbery stories and laugh and laugh.
But yeah – new thread?
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No, no, no - just choosing the right one. 
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To spin yarns in?
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I have a notion the puns have just begun.
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I see what you did there
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