Amiss in Blunderland

R4 has a series on the Internet and its creation and development….Aleks in Wonderland: The Story of the Internet:

Just how did the Internet become the most powerful communications medium on the planet, and why does it seem to be an uncontrollable medium for good and bad?
With no cross border regulation the internet can act as an incredible force for connecting people and supporting human rights and yet at the same time convey the most offensive material imaginable.

What was striking was the resemblance of actions and consequences in the Internet to what happens in the real, physical world….no coincidence that the programme talks of ‘cross border regulation’ in the internet.

The Internet was pretty much a closed club, a mini society in which the rules could be enforced and membership regulated in an orderly fashion.  Then came along AOL, an early pioneer of Internet services, which destroyed that ‘society’ and its stability and respect for ‘netiquette’, the social order was torn apart as AOL opened the ‘borders’ of the internet to absolutely everyone…an ‘everyone’ which didn’t care about rules and structure and order and so we get the wild west on the web now with uncontrollable downsides along with the good.

This pretty much mirrors what happens to a nation state that opens its borders to uncontrolled mass immigration…society is fractured and the social order destroyed as wave after wave of immigrants force their way in without having the slightest intention of following the ‘rules’ of that society as so many European countries are finding out.

It was an irony that we then learnt on the programme that it was an immigration lawyer who then added to the destructive forces by inventing ‘spam’, internet marketing inflicting upon us a daily torrent of rubbish filling our inboxes not to mention the intrusive and relentless data mining that goes with that in order to target and tailor the adverts to our apparent likes and desires.

Just a shame the BBC fails to recognise the connection with actual immigration just as it reports on ‘touristophobia’ as many mass tourist destinations start to protest and object to the numbers of visitors which crowd out the locals and overload the facilities…no BBC connection to immigration here either.  Note the paradox that it is ‘lefties’ who are objecting the loudest…

‘Tourists go home’: Leftists resist Spain’s influx

Youths in Catalonia and the Basque Country have daubed the slogan “tourists go home” on some buildings – just as foreigners flock to Spain on holiday, spending millions of euros.

A spokesperson for leftist Catalans behind the protests said today’s model of mass tourism was impoverishing working-class people.

Leftist Basques plan to stage an anti-tourism march on 17 August in San Sebastian, during a major festival.

In one dramatic incident, several masked assailants attacked a tourist bus in Barcelona, near the football stadium.

The slogan “tourism is killing neighbourhoods” was daubed on the bus and one of its tyres was punctured. None of the passengers were injured.

The attack was claimed by Arran Jovent, a leftist youth movement linked to Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), an anti-capitalist party campaigning for Catalan independence.

Temporary mayor Gerardo Pisarello dismissed talk of “touristophobia”. “I don’t believe that Barcelona’s residents reject tourism – rather they want it regulated,” he said.

Is there any official sympathy?

Yes, some. But it is tempered by exhortations to keep welcoming tourists, because of their economic value.

All very familiar in relation to actual immigration…and there’s  more from the BBC…

Cruise tourists overwhelm Europe’s ancient resorts

There are places where the surge of global tourism is starting to feel like a tidal wave.

Ancient cities around the shores of the Mediterranean and Adriatic are on the front line, their stone streets squeezed full of summer visitors as budget airlines and giant cruise ships unload ever-growing armies of tourists.

The overall effect is Disneylandish – a sense that you meet no-one but other tourists or ice-cream sellers, tour guides, waiters, reception clerks and buskers who are there to keep the tourist wheels turning.

It will fall to local governments in places like Dubrovnik and Capri and Venice to find a way of reducing those growing pressures.

For now, ideas like installing turnstiles on ancient squares and pedestrian traffic lights on crowded streets may sound rather fanciful.

But if that tourist tide keeps rising they might start to seem a little more tempting.

You won’t find the BBC talking like this about mass immigration…no ‘surge of global immigration’, no ‘tidal wave’, no ‘tide that keeps rising’.  In fact we know that the BBC et al shout very loudly when such language is used about the ‘flood’ of migrants into Europe ‘swamping’ us.  No ‘This is not immigration it’s an invasion’ protest photos.

As always with the BBC it will admit that something, like massive overcrowding, can cause huge problems, but only when discussing non controversial subjects…as soon as we get onto the ‘taboo’ subjects such as immigration or Islam the willingness to admit to problems is suspended and we get news that is censored and shaped to push a message.