Does the good of the Internet out-weigh the bad?

[Tank]

Consider Radium. When this element was isolated in 1898 it was used in many inappropriate ways. It was added to 'cure all' medicines and killed people. The plight of the Radium Girls being an example of vested interests exploiting others for their own benefit.

Is the Internet our generations 'Radium'? Have we learned how damaging the Internet is yet?

Should there be 'Google' and 'Google Cleaned'? Where only adults can access 'Google' while anybody can access  'Google Cleaned'?

Should sites that allow random individuals of any age anywhere on Earth webcam with each other be banned?

I must say I am very much in a quandary on these issues. I am coming to the conclusion that in some respects the Internet has become a very dangerous thing/place.

[fester30]

As religion loses popularity, morality will go to shit quickly.  We'll end up in random piles of flesh in public parks!  Damn atheists!

Maybe it's our generation's dynamite?  Damn Nobel!

I think the benefits do outweight the negatives.  However, I don't have any explanation for that point.

If it all does turn out bad, we can say "damn Al Gore!"  Then again if we don't listen to him, we might have a waterworld by 2040 and then we'll be saying "damn developing world not cooperating with global climate change initiatives!  I'm looking at you, China and India!"

[hismikeness]

I am very much against banning of sites on the internet. I think it is up to the site owners to have age verification systems if they are needed. Sure, with the anonymity of the internet, anyone can claim that they are of an age which they are not, but that shouldn't mean banning the site.

I think throughout history of technology there have been things that children or those ill equipped to handle it get involved in that the initial knee jerk reaction is to ban or censor it. Telephone, cell phones, video games, driving, guns etc, etc. The internet is just one of those things, in my opinion.

I have grown up in a time where there was always the internet (essentially). I was about 8 when my dad bought the first modem and we connected to AOL for the first time. I remember the early days of chat rooms and e-mailing lists. I remember downloading booby pictures seemingly one line of pixels at a time. Sure, I may have gotten in to something I shouldn't have, but I turned out all right.

As to the title question of the OP- I think the benefits of the internet (instant search, wikipedia, connecting people all over the world) far outweigh the negatives. Also, there is Google safe search, which when enacted does a surprisingly good job of limiting results. It is set as default on my work computer.

[Tank]

I think I should clarify that I would not ban a webcam site that had appropriate age verification processes, what adults show to each other is up to them. But a site that makes no pretence whatsoever of keeping adults and children apart is asking for trouble and the owners would know it. Site owners are not a group of morally superior people, some will be slimy bastards of the first order.

[Whitney]

It is up to parents to know where their children are and what they are doing, not the government.

Parents should install parental control software on their child's (or family) computer which limits usage and blocks access to sites that are not age appropriate and/or that are not safe (though I would caution parents about over-sheltering).  Parents should also teach their children about internet safety and that 'stranger danger' rules apply even with online friends.

I don't think the internet being a tool that makes it easier for a few bad men to find children to prey on in any way outweighs all the good internet has done (making knowledge available to everyone, connecting cultures, helping minorities connect, increasing communication etc) .

[Tank]

It is up to parents to know where their children are and what they are doing, not the government.

True. But what about the kids with bad parents? Shouldn't society accept it has a responsibility to all children, irrespective of the behaviour the child's parents?

Parents should install parental control software on their child's (or family) computer which limits usage and blocks access to sites that are not age appropriate and/or that are not safe (though I would caution parents about over-sheltering). 

Again I agree except that the webcam site in question is not a 'x' rated site. It would not be blocked unless one did it on a manual basis.

Parents should also teach their children about internet safety and that 'stranger danger' rules apply even with online friends.

Agree 100%.

I don't think the internet being a tool that makes it easier for a few bad men to find children to prey on in any way outweighs all the good internet has done (making knowledge available to everyone, connecting cultures, helping minorities connect, increasing communication etc) .

I tend to agree here also. But I still feel that human evolution has not prepared us for the volume of information that the Internet can deliver nor the corrosive nature of some of the content.

It took a while for people to see the damage Radium did, I have a feeling that we have yet to fully comprehend the damage the Internet is capable of inflicting.

[Whitney]

True. But what about the kids with bad parents? Shouldn't society accept it has a responsibility to all children, irrespective of the behaviour the child's parents?

I would rather expand laws related to child neglect if that is the concern.

Perhaps you trust your government more than I do mine but, aside from children being the responsibility of their parents, the US gov can't be trusted to know what sites to block.  Not to mention that any effective blocking method would require a 'big brother' system that would also carry the ability to track the internet usage of all adults.

[Twentythree]

It is definitely a slippery slope. I would like to believe that the internet should remain a neutral open portal to all forms of communications. The more litigation gets involved with our information sharing the less of a benefit the internet will be. With answers to virtually every question on the internet out there I cannot imagine a day where tiered or restricted services are offered for a price. As a matter of fact I fell that eventually wireless internet access should be free just like FM is or UHF was. I feel like it is up to us to educate children about the dangers and the benefits of free information sharing, and educate ourselves along the way. The internet will shape the future and in no way should we hand the reigns over to litigators bureaucracies and  corporations. It will be the trick to ensure that the internet does not go the way of network television, dummied down and filtered to the point of uselessness.

[The Magic Pudding]

It took a while for people to see the damage Radium did, I have a feeling that we have yet to fully comprehend the damage the Internet is capable of inflicting.

I'd agree with that, we don't know, I don't anyway.

I don't think the violence from gaming affecting real life thing is settled.

There's the assertion the attitudes of males to females are being distorted by unsavoury porn.
Whether filters or parents should be supervising doesn't change the answer to is the Internet on balance bad.

There is the suggestion/fact/ whatever that use of computers is changing the way we think, brains rewire for lost senses so perhaps sitting in front of a screen does a similar thing.  Change isn't necessarily bad though.

The argument that too much cyber relating is deleterious to real life relationship formation.

[Asmodean]

Internet is not as much full of shit as the people participating in it are. Just like out on the street, you have scientists, stock brokers, plumbers, sexually frustrated pedofiles, criminals, frauds and every other form and shape of human, more or less. And just like on the street, you can't always tell who is who just by looking.

Thus, as far as webcams go, if you do not show your tits to strangers on the street, you shouldn't do it on the Internet either. If you do show your tits to strangers... Then shu'up and stop victimizing yourself. If you don't victimize yourself and are somewhere between 17 and 25... Gimme your url   (Note: Tits and webcams are an example to illustrate a wider point.)

Even if you are like ten, "don't do what you wouldn't do at school, in the library or while shopping" should be an easy rule to follow, yes?

[fester30]

Internet is not as much full of shit as the people participating in it are. Just like out on the street, you have scientists, stock brokers, plumbers, sexually frustrated pedofiles, criminals, frauds and every other form and shape of human, more or less. And just like on the street, you can't always tell who is who just by looking.

Thus, as far as webcams go, if you do not show your tits to strangers on the street, you shouldn't do it on the Internet either. If you do show your tits to strangers... Then shu'up and stop victimizing yourself. If you don't victimize yourself and are somewhere between 17 and 25... Gimme your url   (Note: Tits and webcams are an example to illustrate a wider point.)

Even if you are like ten, "don't do what you wouldn't do at school, in the library or while shopping" should be an easy rule to follow, yes?

Problem with that idea is there are pedophiles who would otherwise be in a van near a school with a bowl of candy, and now they can do it without having to buy candy.  In this case, we don't want them doing at home what they would do on the street.

[Asmodean]

Problem with that idea is there are pedophiles who would otherwise be in a van near a school with a bowl of candy, and now they can do it without having to buy candy.  In this case, we don't want them doing at home what they would do on the street.

The internet is an urban jungle. And every self-respecting jungle has some poisonous snakes in it. Recognising that fact can keep you relatively safe on WWW.

[Twentythree]

Problem with that idea is there are pedophiles who would otherwise be in a van near a school with a bowl of candy, and now they can do it without having to buy candy.  In this case, we don't want them doing at home what they would do on the street.

Problem with that idea is there are pedophiles who would otherwise be in a van near a school with a bowl of candy, and now they can do it without having to buy candy.  In this case, we don't want them doing at home what they would do on the street.

It  doesn't matter what you do with a crazy person they are still crazy. Problems like pedophilia and predation don't happen because of the internet. The internet is not a cause it's a symptom of  a much larger mental illness or behavioral problem. There is an ongoing debate as to whether pedophilia itself is a "Clinical" mental illness. And while I can't say that it is or isn't either way I think that there are behavioral issues that can be managed if these types of mental states are discovered and treated early. This would require society to stop leaning on law makers and encourage open dialogue about all types of mental illness and where treatment can be found. Parents need to take responsibility to educate themselves and not be afraid to have children evaluated if they show early signs of a certain behavioral type.

I think we all came here to discuss these types of issues from the perspective of our world view. Most of which is steeped deeply in evolutionary theory. We can gain considerable insight into these types of mental states by asking ourselves how the development for the propensity for various sexual preferences evolved in early hominid species. If you are familiar with the hawks and doves game theory then clearly you can see how early sexual predation could have been evolved as a way of subverting the societal norms of waiting for a woman to be of "marrying age". If this behavior or mental proclivity were evolved then it may beyond the fault of the individual and of their parenting it may simply be an evolutionary tool honed by natural selection. If you are able to whittle down the social aspects of a behavior you can sometimes see a remote purpose for its existence and I think that these cases should be treated as such. I feel that a lot of what society calls deviant behavior or antisocial behavior could all be evolutionary spandrels hardwired into some individuals brains. Finding the genetic root for the expression of these behaviors could be the key to treating them and allowing these individuals to exist comfortably in modern society. To some degree we all still have caveman brains.

All I'm saying is that internet restriction, or restrictions of any sort aren't solving the problem. These types of personality and behavior problems need to be solved at the very least at the psychiatric level but I think ultimately we will find the genetic key for almost all personality types.

[Recusant]

The South African Association of Evangelical Christians has the answer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E07oLgW3Rw8

[xSilverPhinx]

The good definitely outweighs the bad. With the internet, almost anything is possible.