The last person I expected to see on Techmeme today was Elton John! And with the absolutely riducolous request to “shut down the Internet for five years”. He claims it is destroying people’s ability to interact with one another and it’s also destroying the quality of music that society is creating.
What a load of pants! It’s true that technology changes patterns in people’s lives, but if anything it provides them with more options and a greater choice of what to do. Sitting at home and blogging is a choice that someone makes, running around in the street waving placards is another choice. The two aren’t mutually exclusive but Sir Elton thinks they are. He concludes his rant with:
“I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.”
“There’s too much technology available.”
If you’re interested in reading more, here’s the article in The Sun (’nuff said)
And what ‘art’ has Elt come up with in the last 10years?
Tool.
Shut down the internet….wow…Sir Elton is just frustrated because he uses Internet Explorer. The last time I used IE I got the feeling, that the internet was shut down already!
Shut down the whole internet? That’s a bit extreme don’t you think, but imagine what the world would be with about 3 million more (rough estimate of those who sit online all day) people on the streets with nothing else to do.
This is whack. Does anyone preview what he is thinking before he speaks, we know his brain isn’t!
Chris… you mean what Art has Elton come up with ever?
No Internet. Argh! Shock! Horror!
What would I do with my husband?
Will he be banning TV and Radio too?
What about CD players, tape recorders and other music playing devices?
Somehow I thought not!