Technology in itself is benign – it simply lets us do things we could not before.

The internet is a fantastic place, but also a classic double edged-sword: while it lets people read news/information they would have never had access too, it also lets people spread mis-information and other general douchery.

Text is hard to communicate with. I use emoticons a lot (will post about it later), even though it can come across as unproffesional to some. Conveying tone and language through text is extremely difficult.

This also means a lot of people get offended really easily. I’m not even talking about political correctness (also for a later post), I’m talking about people making mountains out of molehills.

Case in point, on my post about how blogging journalism gets its due. Hassan had this to say:

Should not you be saying Allahu Akbar bro? Man this western influences…

I’ve received hate from all religions – I’ve been called anti-semite for rejecting blogs on Blog Flux where the webmaster was Jewish (how would I know that? Not to mention Arabs are semites heh). Ive been told that I will be going straight to hell for accepting blogs on atheism, and yadda yadda.

It is amazing how we have all evolved into a culture where a single

word of criticism is considered offensive. I personally love criticism (objectively – personal criticism by people who don’t know you or general blanket statements like ‘you suck’ are retarded). Half of my posts on local search are about local-search sites and how they do things wrong. I’m doing them a big favor – pointing out flaws they didn’t notice themselves. Instead, most of them privately gripe about how I have a conflict of interest. Instead of being thankful for free advice that will improve the user experience, they complain. Amazing.

Regardless, back to Hassan. He was somehow offended that I didn’t bring up God, and that I was ‘succumbing’ to western culture. Forget that all the major religious figure heads (including Prophet Muhammad) stressed education and learning. Forget that there was no religious context at all to my post. He still got offended.

With everything so connected now, its hard to take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at something calmly (I’m almost always late to report on ‘news‘). I’ve noticed the longer I sit on my computer/use the internet, the more irate I become. My personal solution is to go out back and throw things around for the dogs. I suggest everyone find their way of cooling off.