Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breath slowly. You tame.

- - Frank Herbert, Dune series

This doesn't come as a surprise. I knew this was coming the first time I logged onto the network in 1995 and was blown away by the fact that there where no enforced rules to contend with.

Halcyon days to be sure. Pre-spam, largely pre-ecommerce and you'd have to hunt to find an ad. Even when you did, it was kinda cool. Novel, like.

16 entirely too short years later the many too many (as Nietzsche would say) are fully entrenched on the network, bringing with them all of the social ills that are the hallmarks of their culture, a world I willfully turned my back on 16 years ago in favor of a dwelling place of the mind, inhabited by kindred spirits, which is not to say the likeminded.

No, this comes as no surprise, I just miss the network I grew up with.