Don’t Blame the Internet for Global Village Idiocy

Writing in The New York Times, Thomas Friedman argues that in some parts of the world the Internet is spreading and promoting intolerance. Friedman quotes an Indonesian working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta who had just visited an Islamic extremist area of Indonesia,

“For the first time I saw signs on the streets there saying things like, ‘The only solution to the Arab-Israel conflict is jihad — if you are true Muslim, register yourself to be a volunteer.’ I heard people saying, ‘We have to do something, otherwise the Christians or Jews will kill us.’ When we talked to people to find out where [they got these ideas], they said from the Internet. They took for granted that anything they learned from the Internet is true. They believed in a Jewish conspiracy and that 4,000 Jews were warned not to come to work at the World Trade Center [on Sept. 11]. It was on the Internet.”

From this Friedman concludes that,

At its worst, it [the Internet] can make people dumber faster than any media tool we’re ever had. The lie that 4,000 Jews were warned not to go into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 was spread entirely over the Internet and is now thoroughly believed in the Muslim world. Because the Internet has an aura of “technology” surrounding it, the uneducated believe information from it even more. They don’t realize that the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information.

About the only thing that Friedman is right about is that the Internet makes it possible to spread ideas — whether good or bad, true or false — more quickly than at any other time in history. But other than that is it really that different from media of old? Of course not.

Yes, the myth about Jews being warned off the World Trade Center certainly spread faster, but its widespread acceptance was due to the same mix of credulity and bigotry that made the Protocols of the Elders of Zion such a hit among anti-Semites. In fact this 19th century forgery is still regularly reprinted in Arab newspapers who are also not above reporting variations on centuries-old blood libel myths.

Similarly, entirely without the benefit of the Internet, not a small number of people in Latin America believed that rich American tourists occasionally visited their countries in order to receive organ transplants from babies kidnapped for just this purpose. This paranoia fear and mistrust of other human beings long predates the Internet.

Moreover, Friedman is being condescending when referring to the popularity of such bizarre ideas with the uneducated masses in Muslim countries. Has Friedman really missed the popularity of conspiracy theories in American popular culture? Not a few educated Americans believe that Jews were warned away from the World Trade Center. Hell, one of the members of the U.S. House all but said that she believes President George W. Bush had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attack and may have profited from it.

Idiocy does indeed seem to be a global phenomenon, as Friedman describes it, but the blame should lie with the prejudices and lazy reasoning of people that has been a millenia-long problem rather than finding an easy scapegoat in the form of the relatively recent Internet (where such pernicious ideas are frequently debunked for people willing to look at them rationally).

Source:

Global village idiocy. Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times, May 12, 2002.

Immerge BioTherapeutics Identify Swine That Do Not Produce PERV

In February 2002 biotech company Immerge BioTherapetucis announced that
it had identified miniature swine that do not produce porcine endogenous
retrovirus (PERV). In laboratory tests, PERV has been shown capable of
infecting human cells, raising concerns over the safety of potential
xenotransplantation of pig tissues and organs to human beings.

PERV is difficult to eradicate in pigs, however, because the virus is
actually coded into the genome of pigs.

Immerge’s Dr. Clive Patience was able to identify strains of miniature
swine that did not produce of three sub-classes of PERV.

Immerge has already shown that it can knock out a gene in this species of
swine that would cause transplants to be rejected by human
beings.

Julian Greenstein, CEO and President of Immerge, said in a press
release,

These two studies show that animals within this herd of miniature
swine have the potential to be an ideal source for xenotransplantation.
While there is still much work to be done, we are very excited that we
have moved the science of xenotransplantation forward several steps
toward clinical application.

Source:

Immerge
biotherapeutics identifies miniature swine that do not transmit pig
retrovirus to humans.
Immerge BioTherapeutics, Press Release, February 25, 2002.

Chimpanzee Collaboratory Wants Chimpanzees to Have Standing in U.S. Courts

Steven Wise garnered a fair bit of attention in April when his new group,
The Chimpanzee Collaboratory, launched its campaign to grant chimpanzees
standing in U.S. courts. If successful, this would allow animal rights
activists to sue medical researchers, animal entertainers, zoos and other
entities for violating the rights of chimpanzees in their care.

Wise summed up his view in Nature writing,

I say that a minimum level of autonomy — the abilities to desire, to
act intentionally and to have some sense of self, whatever the species —
is sufficient to justify the basic legal right to bodily integrity.

. . .

Such immunity rights as bodily integrity and freedom from slavery can
belong to human children, infants, the very retarded, the profoundly
senile and the insane.

And, of course, if a retarded child has a right not to be
experimented on, why not a chimpanzee?

This is old hat for Wise, but it was odd seeing Harvard Law professor
Laurence Tribe offering his support, however odd, to the Chimpanzee
Collaboratory. Unlike Wise, it wasn’t clear that Tribe had really thought
through his claims.

ABC News, for example, paraphrased Tribe as arguing that if a corporation
— which is certainly not a sentient entity — can have rights, can’t
animals? But this is an entirely specious argument since he only reason
that corporations have rights is that they are the results of the
collective action of rights holders.

The corporation known as The New York Times deserves to be protected by
the First Amendment, for example, because it is composed of individuals
each of whom also possess such rights.

The odd thing is that Tribe seems to have something entirely different in
mind than Wise. Tribe, for example, seems to think that granting legal
standing to chimpanzees would simply be a way to more vigorously enforce
existing animal cruelty laws rather than create legal rights for them.
Tribe claims, for example, chimpanzees that have legal standing could
nonetheless still be used for medical research.

And where is the Chimpanzee Collaboratory getting the money to pursue
this campaign? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes that Rob Glaser,
chief executive of RealNetworks Inc., has given $1 million in funding to
the group over the past two years.

Sources:

Should we let chimpanzees sue? ABCNews, May 2002.

U.S. activists demand lawyers for chimps. The BBC, April 26,
2002.

Will chimps make chumps of us in court? The Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
April 30, 2002.

Animal Advocate Was on Van der Graaf's Hit List

Animal rights activist Volkert Van der Graaf is the prime suspect in the assassination of Netherlands politicians Pim Fortuyn last week, but what was Van der Graaf’s motive? Was he angered at Fortuyn’s views of fur farming and the environment? So far Van der Graaf is not talking, but details from the police investigation are coming to light that suggest possible motives.

Netherlands newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported today that the hit list that police recovered from a search of Van der Graaf’s car and home included 19-year-old Joost Eerdmans. Eerdmans was the closest thing that the Fortuyn’s List Party had to a point man on animal protection issues.

Eerdmans is a member of the Dutch Animal Protection Association and e-mails from an environmental/animal rights group called Wakker Dier had been forwarded to Eerdmans. The e-mails inquired about the party’s environmental and animal policies.

Eerdmans replied to the e-mails that since the party had just formed it did not have explicit positions on these issues yet, but as an animal lover Eerdmans promised to fight for animal-friendly positions.

Wakker Dier worked closely with Van der Graaf’s organization, Environment Offensive. Police are investigating whether or not Van der Graaf learned of Eerdmans’ involvement with animal and environmental policy within the Fortuyn List Party from the e-mails exchanged with Wakker Dier.

So far, two of the four people on van der Graaf’s hit list were people within the Fortuyn’s List Party who were likely to have had significant influence over animal and environmental policy in the Netherlands after the May 15 elections and who did not share Van der Graaf’s extreme position on either topic.

Source:

Justitie onderzoekt e-mails van milieuclub. Olof van Joolen, Algemeen Dagblad, May 14, 2002.

Jordanian Woman Granted Divorce

The BBC reports that a Jordanian woman recently became the first to receive a divorce under a new law that allows women as well as men to seek divorce.

Jordan used to allow only men to seek divorces — a fairly common legal restriction in most Muslim countries.

The law was changed earlier this year, however, to allow women to file for divorce provided the women first forfeit any right to any sort of financial compensation (the woman who won her divorce had to forego a dowry she had received from her husband when they were married).

Source:

Jordan woman ‘wins right to divorce’. The BBC, May 13, 2002.

More Details Emerge about Animal Rights Activist Who Allegedly Murdered Pim Fortuyn

Details emerging in the ongoing investigation of the murder of Netherlands politicians Pim Fortuyn are making the extent of his killer’s animal rights fanaticism more clear as well as suggesting possible links to other crimes.

The Sunday Times (London) reports that while in his teens, accused killer Volkert van der Graaf, 32, founded the Zeeland Animal Liberation Front which committed acts of vandalism that primarily targeted restaurants.

Van der Graaf was involved with anti-medical research and environmental groups until 1992 when he founded Environment Offensive which was opposed to all animal agriculture. Van der Graaf and others in Environment Offensive earned the enmity of farmers by relentlessly challenging applications to expand animal farms.

How Environment Offensive was funded is raising a lot of questions. It received 100,000 Pounds from the state lottery, but farmers claim that it also acted as a sort of shakedown scheme whereby farmers willing to pay enough money via a third party broker could buy off the group and avoid the legal hassles.

One such farmer, Pieter Van der Camp, claimed that he paid 20,000 pounds to just such a broker and had no more problems with Environment Offensive. The Sunday Times reported that the environmental group refused to comment on the allegations.

Van der Graaf is now a suspect in an earlier 1996 murder, and there is also evidence linking him to other animal rights-related crimes.

On December 22, 1996, somebody shot environmental officer Chris Van de Werken while he was out for a jog near his home. Van de Werken and van der Graaf had clashed before, with Van der Graaf believing that the environmental officer was far too accommodating to farmers in the area.

Moreover, the killing of Van de Werken closely resembles that of Fortuyn’s. Van de Werken was shot multiple times at very close range. The bullets police recovered from Van de Werken’s body were 9mm silver-tip hollow-point bullets — a type of ammunition that is rare in the Netherlands and just happens to be the same type of ammunition used in the Fortuyn killing.

Van der Graaf was apparently questioned about the murder at the time, but the case was closed as unsolved in 1997. It has now been reopened.

The Sunday Times also reported that documents and computer records seized from van der Graaf’s home also provide a possible link between van der Graaf and a 1999 arson attack on a plant that produced feed for mink and a series of 1995 incidents at a poultry farm.

Source:

Fortuyn killer linked to earlier death. Peter Conradi, Sunday Times (London), May 12, 2002.