BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / How democratic is the internet really?

**Posted by saturnR** June 28, 2014 12:40 am

I mean when the top searches or the top results that show up on the Internet are Miley Cyrus & Justin Beiber.

You would think if you were an alien intelligent society on another planet & you intercepted Google feeds from planet Earth as being representative of the super conscious of human beings that the entire planet spends most of its time watching teen pop stars & a family called the Kardashians. You'd think that that was all that humans did with their time.

I'm sure that if you run a search in North Korea the top results would be how to kiss your president's ass.

But at least the Koreans are honest about it.

Last edited by saturnR (June 28, 2014 12:41 am)

**Posted by Whisky** January 26, 2015 8:35 pm

It's a question of who has access to the internet, and who has the power to influence and set the trends.

Also I get the feeling, that however manipulated the google results are, loads of human beings *DO* spend their time watching teen pop stars and some other not-so-important stuff on telly.

So maybe the aliens wouldn't get such a wrong notion of us little earthlings. And do you know they would use google? Maye the first thing they hear of us is classical epic music, and they would think we're all genius craving for beauty and salvation.

The internet isn't democratic really, but it's still not as manipulated that you could say there is nothing to learn from it.

(With this post I celebrate the fact that after being in this forum for over a year, I accidently discovered there is a place for political discussion and such. Funny how dismissive my brain is, I spent the time "up there" in the Benedict and entertainment section. So, another proof that the aliens wouldn't get it that much wrong. But then again, I'm not confident to take myself as example for a general human being...^^)

**Posted by tykobrian** March 16, 2015 3:52 pm

saturnR wrote:
I mean when the top searches or the top results that show up on the Internet are Miley Cyrus & Justin Beiber.

You would think if you were an alien intelligent society on another planet & you intercepted Google feeds from planet Earth as being representative of the super conscious of human beings that the entire planet spends most of its time watching teen pop stars & a family called the Kardashians. You'd think that that was all that humans did with their time.

I'm sure that if you run a search in North Korea the top results would be how to kiss your president's ass.

But at least the Koreans are honest about it.

Maybe that's why they don't visit Earth!