A friend of mine recently told me that the internet is dead, and they were quite sincere. In their opinion, the internet is overrun with criminals, pornographers, people wasting their time, and corporate scammers making money off of it all. It has degenerated into the worst of society and should go down in flames. I disagree. The internet is a tool. To say it's evil would be like saying a hammer is evil because someone used it to hurt another person or tear down a house. It's not the tool that is the issue. It's the person using the tool. A tool in the hands of an educator, an artist, a community-builder can be a tremendously positive experience. And conversely, a person with more dubious goals can use it to that end as well, just like a hammer, a box-cutter, a shoe, etc. Are phones evil because people use them to call sex lines or discuss criminal activity? Are phones dead because they're run by corporations? It is just a reflection of our society, our culture, our mass consciousness. The internet reflects the tastes and trends of the world around us. If there is evil on the internet, it's there because there is evil in the world. If there is good on the internet, same thing, it's there because there is good in the world. It is no more overrun with evil and criminal activity than anything else would be given the same set of tools. Don't look to the internet as the source of the problems. It is and always will be just a reflection. Those problems have always been there around you, they just found a new way to express themselves. The internet is NOT dead. If I were going to write a book, or make a movie, or create an art piece, I wouldn't question whether or not books were dead, or if movies were dead, or if art was dead. My only concern is what I have to say - through books or movies or any form of expression I choose. It's my contribution, I am putting the energy out there, I am keeping it alive. The internet provides me with a worldwide audience that I would never have access to in any other way. It is being woven into the fabric of every day life and is only getting more standard and more common every day. To ignore it or dismiss it is to deny the evolution of communication. It's not going away anytime soon, so I say to my friend "Build a bridge and get over it."