The Horror of Online Road Rage - Are We Star Trek or Bladerunner?

Note: I wrote this when I was angry and upset because it seemed like the entire world was turning into an awful place and while things have improved a little since and I've seen a glimmer of hope again, I still feel what I wrote below applies. And I still feel that social media is bad for the human race and the internet was a nicer place without it....

The Horror of Online Road Rage - Are We Star Trek or Bladerunner?

I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m repeating myself as I’ve said the same thing in various ways and various forms in my blogs over the last year or so. But I am feeling so helpless and despairing of the world right now, that I all I can do is vent that feeling and hope my tiny cry in the dark void that is the internet will shine a very small light against the bleak darkness.

Because the internet, social media in particular, has turned into one big morass of Road Rage. People are venting their spleens and developing a hatred of other people that bears as much resemblance to the truth of matters as a car looks like their driver. They are using what should have been a tool to bring people around the world together into a means to drive us all apart. They are creating rage and division out of lies and misinformation and ruining lives both of those they target and, bluntly, those foolish enough to take their word for it.

It needs to stop.

Of course, my just saying that will do nothing. I’m not arrogant enough to assume more than a dozen people will ever see this. But I genuinely feel like the future of the human race is at stake here. If hate and division continues to multiply at the speed it seems to be doing, it can’t be much longer before the human race destroys all hope for itself. When powerful figures use their power to stoke that division for their own selfish ends and drown out the voices of moderation, kindness and tolerance because the media and those online don’t find it as interesting, what chance to we have? We are getting further and further from the idealised future human race of Star Trek and closer and closer to Bladerunner. Or indeed Terminator because if AI is learning from the human race online on the moment, wiping us out because that’s what we want to do to ourselves anyway can’t be far away.

The voices of hatred are so widely heard because they are so loud. The peaceful keep their voices lower. But we need to create a hum between us that is too much to ignore. We need to take back the internet from the voices of hate because I have to believe there are more of us than them. We need to call out the media when they seek to create division amongst us for the sake of making sales and not allow them to decide what we should think. We need to think twice before mindlessly believing what some random person on the internet says. We need to learn the truth for ourselves and not let the actions of a few rogue individuals of any race, colour or group to pass judgement on them all. We need to stop being full of anger and start finding our kindness and tolerance again. We need to find the Star Trek dream again.

And we need to do it gently but firmly. Because the world contains quite enough rage already without us adding more. We need to be more tolerant, more compassionate and more kind.

Otherwise, what’s the point of being human?