Here are a few things I love, and hate, about Digg.com.
Love: Investigative Journalism.
Always interesting to hear about corruption in high places. As a resident of the UK, the slow drip, drip of acid from the Bush administration onto the democratic institutions of the US is frightening.
Something similar is happening here. The excuse is this witless ‘war on terror’. I don’t take a daily newpaper any more. Over here, if you read ‘Private Eye’, ‘The Business’, ‘The Week’, ‘The Economist’ (occasionally), and Digg, you’re informed.
As a result, looking at the nightly news here has become a case of ‘seen that, heard about that, _that’s_ a load of bull’. News can be seen as the jazzed-up opinion it is, and newsreaders for the nodding dogs they truly are.
Love: Funny Videos.
I admit I’m a sucker for a cute cat, or a Japanese doing something dangerously silly.
Love: Beautiful pictures.
Every other day there’s a link to a picture that reminds you how beautiful the world can be. And that’s no small thing.
Neutral: Ubuntu
There are so many posts about this Linux variant I’m tempted to try it on my next laptop. It’ll be a grand day when 67 year-old Mrs. Grollicks from No. 26a. Acacia Avenue can stick a Unbuntu CD into her bargain Dell laptop, and connect to the internet. _That_ will be the Windows killer.
Neutral: Techno-twitchers.
I work on an old Dell Latitude. I play Counter Strike on it. I’m about 7 years out of date. I’m not that interested in techno-p0rn. I have learned one thing about technology: planned obsolescence, and the effect it has on yer wallet.
Get it second-hand off eBay when all the bugs have been worked out. Run the oldest, most secure, stable OS that’ll do the job you want. Understand: no material thing can give lasting contentment. The _latest_ material thing can burn you up with greed and annoyance.
Hate: Pot promoters.
The effects of smokin’ dope have been long known. It doesn’t make you any smarter or funnier; you just _think_ you are. The deluded animal in the wild can be quickly gobbled up. Sober people find the intoxicated annoying, dull, and sometimes dangerous. Prosletyising for pot on Digg is preaching to the converted. Next!
Hate: Knee-jerk religion-bashing.
Lets just say that:
– If you’ve percieved angels, or devils,
– Had prayers answered when there seemed to be no hope,
– Been visited by the dead or
– Just had an indefinable sense of something holier than your little self …
… Religion bashing just looks like adolescent behaviour. A bit like kicking in the glass panes on a telephone box; it degrades an amenity other people find useful.
I suppose a great many people who are anti-religion have been exposed to strict Protestant Christianity. This is oddly like Islam: a ban on religious images, puritanical, inhibited, Old-Testament focussed, with ritual frowned upon.
Folks, consider Catholicism or the Orthrodox churches; their adherents tend to be a lot more cheerful!
Anyway, to those who say religions cause wars, I’d retort that they’re rather more used as an excuse to start them.
People want the other guy’s power, land, money and women-folk, and use religion as an excuse to pick a fight. People think Muslims hate the West for religious reasons. They don’t: they just envy our power, land, money and women-folk!
Also: where would the modern welfare state and the human rights movement be without Christianity, and its specific injunctions to ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”?
And finally, let us end on …
Love: There’s something interesting on Digg every day.
How many other media can you say _that_ about?
Religion bashing does seem to be readily done on Digg. I used the word “God” in one of my comments and it was up and with the number of Diggs it got. I think it has had nearly a 100 diggs at this point in time.