Internet people

I admit that I have stereotypes. I tend to think that educated people are going to be more interesting than uneducated people. I tend to assume that people who use lots of technology are more educated than others.

But as access to technology and internet infrastructure gets better and cheaper, more and more people are turning to the internet for advice and entertainment. But they aren't educating themselves on it.

Case in point, one of my very favorite blogs is a single parenting advice blog. People write in with issues related to being single parents. Others comment. The folks who run the blog and sit back and watch the page hit counters go and the money roll in. Occasionally they "moderate" which means they delete comments they don't like.

Mine get moderated more often than others I suspect. Of course, I tend to point out certain unpleasant realities to people who really just want someone to tell them that if they think positive everything will work out just fine. That isn't true. Things change because forces act on them. Positive change requires more force than random change. Force requires planning.

So, working in a dead end, low wage job with lousy hours and no benefits will not magically turn into casual affluence. Sleeping with a man who's already cheated on you, had his girlfriends call you in order to humiliate you, left you to raise a child on your own and is then cheating on a new partner with you will not magically turn into a happy family.

And yet her use of the word "wut" instead of "what" really gelled my dislike of the creature. ITs like the inability to write that simple word properly was the last straw.

Some people do not want to help themselves. Some people do not want to change the patterns and habits of their lives in order to make things better in the future than they were in the past.

Some people just want to close their eyes and pretend that things will be ok as long at they tell themselves they will be.

But hey, I'm the bad guy for pointing out that perhaps the lack of apparent education, the unplanned reproduction and the insistence of the girl in sleeping with the cad may all be related.

I am also a bad guy for continuing to insist that women be careful of the men they let around their kids. I am a bad guy for pointing out how many of the abused and murdered children in this country are hurt by the men and women their biological parents choose to date.

Children of poverty are much more likely to be abused than children of middle class or wealth. And it seems that people lacking in income and education are more and more turning to the internet to alleviate the isolation that is parenting.

So maybe the websites that cater to these populations ought to do more to educate and spend a little less time making sure everyone feels good about themselves.

Just a thought.

But what the hell do I know?