Lets face it folks…civilization would collapse under the weight of its own boredom and restlessness if not for the tiny rectangle of supreme knowledge most of us carry in our pockets. Even the older generations of people before the days of google and gofuckme (or however you spell it) when given the choice of what phone to buy will, more often then not, pick a smartphone over an old school brick or flip-phone. Why do you suppose that is? Well I’m no expert (oh wait…yes I am) but if I had to guess I’d say its the funny thing called the internet.

To some its a form of stress relief…bad day at work? Griping facebook post should do the trick…Unhappy with traffic? Time to twitter about how the dickbag in the chevy is driving 20 over the speed limit. We all need an outlet folks and the internet gives us a perfect place to do that. Partners not in the mood or gotta headache? I hear there are copious amounts of porn out there to help you out.

To some its a form of connection. Wanna see Sarah and Steve’s new baby boy and congratulate them on being new parents? Drop a line and a like on instagram. Miss aunt Carol? Write her an email. Baby sister getting ready for prom? Snapchat bitcheezzzzz.

But to others its the tool to all the power in the universe….since…ya know…knowledge is power and all that? I can’t count the number of times in my personal life and professional career that someone has had this smug look on their face after they google something and search results show them a web page or a wiki page that leads them to the conclusion they were right all along about this or that.

Often I don’t have the heart to tell them that their google search results don’t actually mean shit thanks to the 4chan mentality but I figured maybe it was time I let the cat out of the bag. I wanted to talk about this to a broad audience so that everyone could understand.

In the last paragraph I mentioned something called the 4chan mentality. The combined words together are my own personal pet name for a common general attitude regarding the internet (if I just stole someone elses word please forgive me because I dont really care.) In order to understand what the 4chan mentality is you kinda have to understand where the internet in general came from. So here we go…

Once upon a time in a land far far away (The west coast) there was this new fangled contraption that was invented called the “computer”. It was super complicated and outrageously expensive. So much so, that the only people who could really use these things were major colleges and Uncle Sam (mostly the military). After a while of using these fancy gadgets someone got a light bulb above their head and goes; “Hey! Why don’t we make all these computers talk to each other? That way we can give our complicated information to the military and they can give us their complicated information for our research and education!” And so the world of computers talking to each other began. This hodge podge of talking computers was called ARPANET.

As time went on computers got less complicated and less expensive. After a while you didn’t have to be a smarty pants or a millionaire to use or afford one of these things and they started popping up more and more in places like hospitals, Major business corporations, police stations, firehouses, small time businesses and eventually the every-day-Joes household. Naturally in some form all these computers wanted a piece of the action when it came to ARPANET and as more and more computers got in on the conversation APRANET grew and grew to became the internet we all know and love (or hate) today.

I’m sure at some point somewhere you’ve heard the phrase “They can’t put anything on the internet if it’s not true”(BWAHAHAHAH). Anyone ever get curious where that came from? Well funny thing about ARPANET is that’s actually how things were supposed to work. It was meant as a way to share information that was verifiable or provable. Uncle Sam couldn’t do shit with half ass facts and neither could the colleges at the time. So there wasn’t much of a point in hosting files or content that weren’t based on raw fact.

But the more APRANET became the internet and more and more computers were connecting the less factual the information became. Now why would “Facts” get less and less “Facty” just because there are more computers on the network? Well the simple answer is that while Uncle Sam and colleges couldn’t do much with half ass information the business class and home use people were under no obligation to use their internet connection to tell the truth. Eventually the group of computers that become ARPANET were phased out and replaced leaving the internet to become a whole new beast all its own.

While ARPANET is long since dead the intent to spread pure verifiable fact lived on through things like Wiki, Dictionary sites, and Digital Historical Archives just to name a few.

Think about this for a second: lets say you end up in some fucked up situation where for some odd reason you need to know the chemical composition for salt (Its NaCl btw and I have no idea what situation anyone could possibly be in where this would be a super important thing to know, but this my hypothetical so hate all you want). What are you most likely to do? Get in your car and drive to the local library and grab a chemistry book? Dig through your pantry and try to find it on your cooking salt? Or pull out your smartphone and google it?

Okay so hopefully after all that you get the idea is that the internet in general is a super fast way to get facts. Now lets get back to the keyword…the 4chan mentality.

Once upon a time (not long after APRANET became the INTERNET) there was a website called 4chan (pretty sure its still alive and kicking actually). I can’t speak for every computer nerd out there but I myself definitely see 4chan as the Plymouth rock of internet trends. Like funny cat videos? 4chan did it first…yup…beat youtube by almost a decade. Are you a memelord? 4chan was captioning pictures and posting them publicly long before imgflip or facebook was a thing. Want to look at pictures that look suspiciously like various sexual organs and laugh at how poorly they were drawn? 4chan… Trolling?…yup you guessed it…started on 4chan. It was also a common hangout spot for the forefathers of the worlds largest and most powerful hacker syndicate. (That would be Anonymous for those of you who don’t know)

4chan users of the golden days hardly compare to the average internet surfer of today. While every user was unique and visited the site for their own interest most if not all of the users shared some common beliefs and practices about the internet itself:

1. I pay for this connection I will post what I want when I want no matter how “unfactual” it is.
2. This is not a place for your opinions, politics, or facts. We’re here to entertain ourselves and have fun if your not here for that then your wasting your time and quite frankly your money.
3. If I can fool 2000 grown adults into thinking the moon is actually made of cheese just by presenting total bullshit…Imma do it cause it’ll make me laugh.

The list actually goes on and on but you can honestly sum it up to a simple point…the internet is not here to give you facts its here for peoples amusement and there is nothing you can do to change that; nothing you find on the internet should ever be taken seriously (aka the 4chan mentality).

There are a couple of key things to note here…first of all we each own whatever device we connect with so no matter how you slice it no one single entity or group “owns” the internet itself. We all connect to it and we all pay in some form or another to do that. Our connection may have been given to us by an Internet Service Provider and we might “have to” put our names some piece of paper or check a box that says: ‘I promise not do this and I swear I won’t do that’, but it is still our own connection for all intents and purposes. We can post whatever we want and we can make it look as factual as we want because lets face it…convincing someone that total bullshit is true fact is often hilarious in its own right. (I once convinced the neighborhood rich kid it was illegal to listen to rap music if you were white…funniest shit ever).

So now that we know what the 4chan mentality is, lets get to the meat of this article…why should I give a shit?

Its actually pretty simple…at some point in your life you’ve looked something up or googled something because you needed to know something about it…you need the facts right? Well chances are good you found some news article or some website that’s dedicated to giving you information about what you are looking for. Congradulations! You’ve found your answer!!!…or have you?

See….there is no actual information on the internet that is fully provable or verifiable no matter where on the internet it comes from. How can I say that with such confidence? Its pretty simple folks…the internet is not here to give you facts its for peoples amusement and no one can change or stop that (aka…the 4chan mentality).

I’ve often had people try to argue with me about how you can verify the trustworthiness of a website or data source by where the information your looking at is kept…Most often I hear something like “Well its a .gov website so the information on this has to be accurate” or “This site has been certified trustworthy by the fcc” or something like that.

I feel bad for them and often think back to the times that I too was that naive. Truth is…that is not how computers work. That is not how any computer on the planet works. When your visiting a website or using an application like facebook from your phone what your really doing is talking to another computer on the internet (its usually a server but it still doesn’t really matter for the point I’m trying to make). That computer can tell you its from the government…doesn’t mean it is. It can show a certification and seal of approval from the fcc or some other big brother organization…doesn’t mean it is. In reality you have absolutely no way to prove the computer your talking to is the one you think your talking too no matter what it says or how it looks.

So without trying to be too technical I’ve also had people attempt to argue with me about this by making the point of how IP addressing and MAC addressing work (for those of you who don’t know what those are…don’t worry I’m not gonna explain it). But here’s the long and the short of it: Even the most well versed and experienced I.T. consultant couldn’t prove in a court of law that Computer A located in Miami Florida was connected to the facebook server B in California at any given point in time. There are plenty of things they could prove about a conversation between two computers or computers and servers such as what was said in the conversation, how many “hops” each part of the conversation had to take in order to get where it was going, and how fast the conversation happened, but there is no trick, no special software, no logic, and no skill, that could prove definitely beyond doubt of physics, logic, or general science that Computer A was in fact talking to Server B.

Here’s a little challenge to further my point: The next time you deal with an I.T. person of any caliber pull up a website…any website (not responsible for loss of wages or damages if your too stupid to stay away from things that are nsfw). Once you have the website pulled up ask the IT consultant if they can PROVE to you where the server you are connected to is physically located and who is in charge of managing it. They are either going to say something to the effect of “I don’t have a way to do that” (which is the truth) or they are going to come up with some mumbo jumbo that doesn’t actually prove anything. Saying something like “Well I know Server B is managed by facebook and that’s HQ’ed in California and this sure looks like server B” doesn’t actually count as proof. If you get really lucky…you might just trick them into googling the physical location of ServerB …which…once again…doesn’t prove shit.

But hang on…why would someone go through the trouble of faking what computer I’m trying to talk to when I’m on facebook or why would someone go through the effort of making a “fake” news article? (For the answer to that question see the title of this blog post)

Bottom line: The next time you go to fact check someone using google or the next time you save a link to a webpage someone posted on instagram so you can show your liberal friend who’s got the bigger internet balls…flip a coin…because that information either came from a computer (or server) that is managed by a respectable trust worthy source of information…or it didn’t…and no matter what you do or how “tech savy” you think you are…you’ll never be able to prove which is which.

Bottom Bottom line: Never take a “Fact” you find on the internet so seriously…there is literally a 50/50 chance its 4chan…not fact.