The inconvenient truth is that Al Gore is one of the greatest polluters ever.

M.E. Against the World

The inconvenient truth is that Al Gore is one of the greatest polluters ever. Clickbait, but I got your attention, didn’t I?

Hey, it may be true. Al Gore supposedly “invented” the Internet, right? And isn’t it ironic that the patron saint of climate change also created one of the greatest centers of pollution in our culture?

What do I mean by that?

Words matter.

And the Internet, because of the disconnect it creates between real and virtual life, becomes a place where the “in-real-time” thoughts of every person are too often collected with no context or perspective. Action on the internet creates a false sense of “no consequences”; like playing Grand Theft Auto. Yes, new literary styles and digital vernacular have been born from the Internet, but the unintended consequence is how that translates in real life, and how that translates into a lot of hard-to-decipher pollution — sarcasm or wit, warmth or indifference.

On the Internet, regretfully nuance is lost.

At age 43, I believe that your mind (I am obsessed with brain science lately) is pretty much exactly like your body. You’re only as healthy as the things that you feed it. Unfortunately, a lot of the Internet is like junk food. It tastes good, but if you eat to the bottom of the bag of fried crispy whatever’s , you’re going to break out, feel sick or eventually become a diabetic. Because it’s so satisfying, the immediacy of the Internet disconnects you from the real world. Addiction can be meditation, for better or worse. Here’s the thing, though: Nothing can make up for what your actual, God-given senses can experience.

See, hear, smell, touch, taste: There is no scenario with technology that replaces those real life feelings . What we get to propagate, amplify, promote, thought-journal, instantaneous “Twitter finger combust”, all those that — could never replace the actual factual feeling of being there with the content or thing that provoked the enlightenment in the first place. Being a parent, you see the stickiness of the Internet, it has power over your kids in ways that maybe my parents saw between my video gaming console and myself. Except the Internet comes with us everywhere.

As much as the words that we see on the Internet matter, they seem more real when they’re spoken to us.

There is a silver lining in all of this. These little things in our pockets — our smartphones — are the ultimate achievers of our free will. They have the power to counter tyranny in a way that was never contemplated when they were designed. They can end disputes about whether something did or did not happen. Democratizing that authority is super powerful. Ultimately, the Internet will act as the crack that lets the truth inside. Like water , the truth— is going to always find its way in. No matter how much you caulk it, or try to patch it, water has a way to find its way in. Today, it’s delusional for any ivory tower institution to think that they can keep that truth restricted or restrained.

But how do you create an Internet that allows for the necessary dialogue and the sort of awakening of the zeitgeist that’s occurred with the Black Lives Matter movement, but at the same time protects my 11-year-old boy from seeing way too much porn? How does he decipher reason from passion, merit from noise? Is there such a way?

What should the Internet look like then?

My answer: We get the Internet that we deserve.

It’s a big reflection of us.

Once you even start to conjure an “ideal Internet,” you realize it’s impossible. The world is as complex as the Internet.

This isn’t the first time in human history that humanity has had a technology that created such a tectonic shift in philosophy, communication, education, faith, and all the ways that we make sense of our curious surroundings. But whether it’s the printing press, radio, broadband — whatever it’s been — it’s important to take those things for what they are — means to ends — and to approach them with caution, curiosity, and a healthy dose of salt.

As much as you — the Complex reader who grew up with the Internet — feel like the web is your inalienable right, it’s also your duty to question it. If an opinion gets retweeted, or shared, or goes viral does that somehow make that opinion more virtuous? More right? Or perhaps, without that sharing, without the Internet, would that broadcast be that of — just another asshole with an opinion? With all that the Internet has done to empower information and voices to have louder megaphones, has it allowed us to decipher the truth any more clearly?

No.

The Internet is glorious but it’s only one medium; and there is never one single message. There is that, this and then the truth.

The internet, for me — is one of the greatest executions of group performance art ever. Which is to say that it’s only an idea. It is not real; it only becomes real when we make it real.

We are the Internet, but the Internet is not us.

One,