Some of us feel that the Internet has been permitted the level of freedom which is beyond commonsense. When one can obtain details of how to make a bomb, how to form a suicide pact, how to obtain pornography of every sort, and that the hits on these types of programmes are probably of a very high-level, it is time to call a halt, In my own experience I have found that certain title phrases in common use, which as a whole have a simple meaning may, individually, have a sexual connotation, and so cause the hits to rocket. I believe that the Internet now needs some sort of policing. I am not a believer in regimentation, and I believe also that I am fairly broad-minded; what people do in their own homes or together, which affects no one else, is their business. However, if people are encouraging unusual behaviour in any form, either sexual, political, or even self-destructive, I think they should be stamped upon because children today, and I have repeated this many times, are not in many cases as supervised either as they used to be, or as they should be and are lonely.. The resultant effect is that they turn to the computer and the Internet for company. When you see the background, the educational standards and the ages of some young people involved in political martyrdom – suicide bombers, it demonstrates how they are vulnerable and can be led astray and indoctrinated way beyond what they have been accustomed to.
The current state of affairs should be a warning to those responsible for maintaining the Internet, that they have spawned a divisive tool which is too easily manipulated by the unscrupulous, the criminal and the degraded. It is time for those in authority to put an end to the sort of abuse I mention here. This must be taken on board throughout the world; one country on its own can’t do it, with satellite communication,. It has to be an assault of nations united to bring reason back into the Internet.
Suicide. Many people, including myself, have experienced a period of stress so excessive that they have thought in terms of suicide. This is not a cry for help as it is sometimes referred to, it is a point of desperation, when the future looks so barren as to be totally pointless. I do not believe that these suicide pacts are in that category and I have neither the knowledge nor the experience to comment further.
Devaluation. The current price of wine brought back memories of the 50s. We played bridge for a penny a hundred, with the money being contributed to a general fund by the losers. Some of us played golf for stakes of a shilling for the first nine, a shilling for the second nine and a shilling for the round. The reason the wine brought all this to mind was because the bridge kitty was spent on bottles of wine to drink when we had a night out. In those days, only a few years after demob, we were still fairly lowly paid yet now we see what we used to buy fetching £25 to £40 a bottle.
But that is nothing compared with the devaluation that has taken place over the last four years, when the value of houses has risen by at least 100%. The problem is that this is not an overall devaluation, there are articles coming from China at half the price they used to be, but other essentials are also rising in cost. So in effect it is a selective devaluation brought about by the change in the way-of-life of some of us, more than others. It is having a knock-on effect. With young people it seems that it costs a year’s salary to get married, and another year’s salary to keep up with the weddings of one’s contemporaries. Our salaries may have risen, but our demands are outstripping them to the extent the family now works longer hours as an aggregate.
The long-term effect of this change causes people to no longer respect the value of money, or to save for the future, aggravated by all that has happened to pension funding – the whole pension structure has broken down. People are making extreme purchases as investments, and this is exacerbating the situation. With the breadth of taxation in all its forms, coupled with the throwaway society and the spend today worry tomorrow philosophy, I believe we’re heading for financial meltdown.