watch my toast.

here’s the thing.  i really, really, really love the internet, and no, i don’t think that the government should be able to censor it, and i don’t think that the legislation as it’s written right now will become law.  

i think it’s great the response it’s gotten.  a group of people with a vested interest in protecting the freedom of speech on the internet (namely: late-20s, early-30s white males) got really bent out of shape that someone might shut down their websites.  that are accessed by other, fairly affluent people in the united states.  so, by all means, let’s laugh at the teenagers who don’t understand why wikipedia is shut down, let’s talk about how we’re protecting freedom of speech of everyone, everywhere, by protecting the internet and websites like tumblr, reddit, and a free encyclopedia.

you need to understand that 99% of the research I do has to do with things on the internet.

but.

hold up one second and let’s think about this.

yes. the internet is important. yes, protecting freedom of speech and collaboration and the world is very important to a world that continues to grow, prosper, and develop.

but.

why this particular issue?  there are so many other things that are so much more important to so many more people than the affluent middle class that is able to sit around at their jobs or at home or at school looking at websites.  sorry, but there are.  i’m really glad that we want to protect our freedom of speech.  but think about all the things that we could accomplish if all the effort to protect lolcats was used for it instead. here, i’ll give you a list of things i think are important:

1. education. and why it is that students aren’t able to get access to a more reliable resource than wikipedia, and why so many of them aren’t getting a good one, and why there isn’t a better supported community and technical college system for all those people for whom college actually isn’t the best choice.

2. poverty. oh wait, what about all those people who aren’t on the internet because they don’t actually have a computer because actually they don’t have enough money for food and their rent let alone to have a computer to look at lolcats on.  fun fact: this year, all taxes are online.  what happens to all those people who need to file who don’t have computers?  they go to the library.  what don’t libraries necessarily always have?  the resources to help people do their taxes on their computers.

3. human rights—including, but not limited to: capital punishment, children’s rights, women’s rights, gay rights, immigrant rights, etcetcetc.

i won’t go on.  other things include: the issues the occupy wall street movement is addressing, the upcoming presidential campaign, continuing violence in egypt and libya, violence over petrol in nigeria, etc.

it isn’t that i don’t think calling your congressman about SOPA/PIPA isn’t important.  It’s that if this is the only call you’re ever going to make to your congressperson, why this thing?  Are the only rights you care about your own ability to post to tumblr and steal music and be able to link to copyrighted material?  Because the world is a whole helluva lot bigger than lolcats and quick information.  those students that everyone was getting such amusement out of b/c they didn’t even know what SOPA was yesterday?  I think that your bigger issue is everyone’s unawareness of this and other issues, maybe not this one in particular.  Because right there, in your own powerful free speech market, we missed an entire segment of the population.