Taxi Driver Online

I'm guessing I was as clued up as any 24 yr old Skull.

The youth of today only knows one thing. They are being fu*ked over by a system that doesn't care. So what do they have to lose?

Yeah, but the problem was you wanted to believe in something. What you didn't realise is that you were being manipulated and controlled by politicians who didn't give a fu*k. To them, it was just a game but to you, a reality.

What was important to me when I was 24 is different now. I'm sure that applies to everyone. I dinnae' need someone like you Skull to tell me this.

What separated you and I, at twenty-four years of age, was luck, not knowledge or experience. It's a different world now, and we are only visitors. The youth, of today are going to write their own futures and rightly so, for better or for worse. No one is going to accept being fu*ked over with the knowledge being made available over the internet. Ignorance is only bliss if you don't ask and never learn.

May you live in interesting times.

Skull, I remember a Teacher saying to me that, “Youth is wasted on the young,”. It applied then and it still does now. So, the fact that you and I didnae’ have access to the Internet, in my opinion, made no difference. We still had a vast arena of knowledge that was there for us to tap into, and lots of us did. All the Internet does is make it easier to gain information. But, what’s important to teenagers nowadays is, Facebook,Twitter, I pads, blah blah blah...
The information might be there, but do they really care ?

More likely that in twenty years time they'll be buying taxi plates. Or whatever.

A well thought out, witty,and awfully funny contribution from, “Dusty Brain”.

You couldn't be more wrong John. The internet has changed everything. Think about the Arab Spring, the London riots, Wikileaks and even a Ned refusing to get off a train.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKKADFIE ... ture=share

What once could take days, weeks, and even months to travel around the world can go viral to all parts of the globe in minutes. This isn't just about information technology and knowledge, it's a connection of consciousness on an unprecedented scale.

There's no doubt the internet is a marvellous communications tool and has hugely facilitated the discourse of 'alternative' politics.

But more to the point it's unlikely to overturn the established order, in mature Western democracies at least.

More likely that the 'revolutionaries' will end up doing an Ali T - they'll start off intending to break the system, but end up milking it

But t'was ever thus - if any established order is overturned then you'll just end up with a different group of people doing the shafting

The internet is being used as a system of checks and balances to stop governments from exerting too much power over its people.

See it as, bottom up accountability to top down power structures.


“established order, in mature Western democracies”

You're having a laugh are you not?

Yes, it's helping do that to an extent, but I think its influence is overdone. It won't revolutionise society, and even if it did it would just mean a different elite and Establishment - that's generally how human societies are ordered, to a greater or lesser extent.

I mean, before the 2010 general election all the bloggers and the like were bragging about how the net would revolutionise how the campaign would be conducted, but it all came down to door knocking, leafletting, the usual stuff in the 'dead tree press' and those now infamous TV debates, and the internet was virtually invisible to all but the anoraks.

And even most of the bloggers and anoraks aren't making grandiose claims for the 'new media' anymore. Indeed their idea of success is to get a mention in the 'dead tree press' or get on to the TV - a certain irony there.

I mean, what happened to the likes of the 'Blogfather' Iain Dale - yes, he shut his blog down and went on to host a radio chat show. And he first came to prominence with a bookshop (Politicos), and then went on to start his own successful book publisher (Biteback) and politics magazine (Total Politics) - see what I'm getting at? And most of the other top bloggers think it's great if they get onto Newsnight or get to pen an opinion piece in a newspaper.

Good luck to them, but they ain't changing the world order, they're joining it.




Not sure what you're getting at Skull, but I think you've quoted me slightly selectively, and what I said in full was:

But more to the point it's unlikely to overturn the established order, in mature Western democracies at least.

Love it, definitely a candidate for quote of the week

Reporter: What do you think of western civilization? Mahatma Gandhi: I think it would be a good idea.

Fair point, but I think you've misconstrued what I said. In particular your truncation of my quote made it sound like I was using the words 'established order' as an endorsement rather than a statement of fact.

Likewise, 'mature democracies' is just a objective way of differentiating our own kind of parliamentary/participative democracies with absolutist and dictatorial societies. Our Western democracies are far from perfect, but they're certainly a tad better than the likes of North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, don't you think?

There's no bigger critic of our own democracy than myself - well, justabout - but in the unlikely event that it's overturned you'll just get a different group of people at the top.

I mean, how will the Arab Spring countries develop? Probably a bit like India - still a billion plus in grinding poverty, with just a different elite replacing the old British colonial masters like Clive of India.

Thus just another group living in the mansions and driving round in the Mercs, while hundreds of millions can't even rely on clean water and basic sanitation.

Never mind though, they can all plan another revolution on their iPads or on Twitter