So far, the Internet is different from previous means of communication.
Let’s back up a bit: Humanity is fallen. We should never be surprised at the depths of human depravity. It makes for nice words to say that, but until you’ve seen the details up close and personal, your mind naturally downplays the full meaning of such broad statements. Why do you suppose the real spies and intel spooks are so wacko? It requires a magnificent talent to see all that moral filth and not be driven insane, without at the same time being totally without moral scruples yourself. So the man of God who truly sees the depth of moral depravity is highly unlikely to survive the bowels of military intel and security agencies without an exceptional reserve of inward strength. I’ve know one such man, but rubbed shoulders with hundreds who were imbalanced by the exposure — all believers who exhibited traits of deeply troubled souls.
God still uses broken people. Never forget that. Each of those troubled Christians managed to bless people and manifest the glory of God, but they seldom knew His peace for themselves. This is part of why I emphasize the spiritual discipline of finding peace with God through quantum moral intelligence. It’s not as if these people didn’t understand their calling, or didn’t understand it correctly, but they were caught in a trap so mind-numbingly pervasive in their world that it’s a miracle they survived at all. It’s a testimony to the power of God for them to remain functional, and not at all surprising when one of them goes down in some shocking fashion.
It’s not as if they died and went to Hell. Satan’s real work is consuming you on this plane of existence. Right now he has some serious mastery over vast stretches of humanity via our social structures and assumptions about reality.
You only thought you knew things before the Internet came along. That Hippy stuff — the music, lifestyles, drugs and so forth? It was all carefully managed through gatekeepers. The people who built and developed the music and the image were nothing like that themselves. All of them were children of US military intelligence agents, or something very closely related. The people who actually ran the shows despised the whole thing, but were doing their jobs and enjoying the perquisites and wealth. That so many of them caved into drugs, ruined personal lives and other madness is simply part and parcel of the broader mission. You can read about it these days because the folks investigating and exposing all that stuff haven’t quite reached the credibility it takes to threaten the on-going efforts. The writers still come across as kooks. Then again, you study that stuff and it might make you kooky, too.
Right now it’s still pretty easy to find that stuff online, but you’ll have to exercise your own discernment. There is no doubt some have their facts wrong, and their interpretations even more wrong.
With all the crazy and unplanned accidents of secrecy and public manipulation from the deepest pits of dark human evil in government, the Internet is the one that got away. In order for it to work at all, it had to be radically different, totally uncontrollable. What makes it possible for the NSA to vacuum up vast piles of our private traffic is the same thing that makes it nearly impossible for them to control. Sure, places like China are watching and trying to firewall what their citizens see on the Net, but there is plenty of room for stuff to slip by the censors. IT management remains a technology race.
Our biggest single threat isn’t really the monitoring. If you use the Net, you have to accept that. Act accordingly. If you want privacy, stay off the Internet.
Our biggest threat is the gatekeepers. They have had a very tough time with the Net. Sooner or later they will find ways, but they have to convince us to accept those ways. The keystone to that control is compliance with lies. If there is anything that will destroy the free exchange we now enjoy, it will be buying into some false image, an acquiescence in someone telling us what we want. These gatekeepers will play both sides of any argument to keep us distracted from what really matters. So it’s not really the gatekeepers so much as our willingness to be fooled about the nature of gatekeeping.
I can’t tell you exactly where to draw the lines; that’s between you and God. However, I can warn you of the necessity of drawing those lines. I can warn you that ignoring the threat of something coming through the hedge means you need to inspect the hedgerow, both in its condition as well as placement. God requires you to make those moral choices, choices you work out directly with Him. The gatekeepers don’t sleep. They struggle to replace your hedgerows with their own fencing. If you accept their boundary drawings, you’ll run the risk of exposing yourself to things that can rob you of peace with God. They’ve been at it all along, and it will only escalate.
The nature of the Internet is having virtually no boundaries. Once the machines are connected by whatever means, it tends to be all or nothing. There are fundamental protocols, but those aren’t very restrictive in real practice. You’ll get a mixture of truth and lies without restraint, so the restrictions are imposed by humans artificially on either end. You need first a moral awareness of your own limits, what you can and cannot tolerate. Then you have to study a bit to make sure your means and methods promote that moral purpose by which you live. Don’t expect the target to stop moving; you can’t get nail it down for more than a brief moment of time. Today’s secure operating system is tomorrow’s collector of malware. You can’t afford to fall in love, as it were, with anything on the Net. None of it has any loyalty to your needs; the computer knows no gods.
Restrictions are coming, or rather attempts at them. Things could change overnight and suddenly you’ll be locked out of something that matters. Well, if it matters, you’ll either need a savvy friend or have your own savvy. Otherwise, it’s just a tool to abandon when it breaks.
Maybe you’ll notice.
