Doing Without

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I’m a creature of habit.  Although I’m no internet junkie (I still read books made of paper), I’ve come to rely on it for how I start my day.  I get up early and do my writing and reading before work.  I generally check my email first thing, and that’s where something went wrong.  No internet.  We’ve been going through one of those popular heat waves, and a band of thunderstorms (tried to check on their progress so I could see if it’s okay to open the windows, but wait—I need the internet to do that) had rolled through three hours ago, at about midnight.  Maybe they’d knocked out power?  The phone was out too so I had to call our provider on my cell.  The robovoice cheerily told me there was a service outage and that for updates I could check their website.  Hmmm.

I can read and write without the internet.  I’m on Facebook for, literally, less than two minutes a day.  I stop long enough to post my blog entry and check my notices.  I hit what used to be Twitter a few times a day, but since people tend to communicate (if they do) via email, that’s how the day begins.  This morning I had no internet and I wondered how tech giants would live without it.  I’m no fan of AI.  I use technology and I believe it has many good points, but mistaking it for human—or thinking that human brains are biological computers—flies in the face of all the evidence.  Our brains evolved to help our biological bodies survive.  And more.  The older I get the more I’m certain that there’s a soul tucked in there somewhere too.  Call it a mind, a psyche, a spirit, a personality, or consciousness itself, it’s there.  And it’s not a computer.

Our brains rely on emotion as well as rationality.  How we feel affects our reality.  Our perspective can change a bad situation into a good one.  So I’m sitting here in my study, sweating since, well, heat wave.  It was storming just a few hours ago and I can’t check the radar to see if the system has cleared out or not.  What to do?  Open the windows.  I’ll feel better at any rate.  And in case the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet, “open the windows” is a metaphor as well as a literal act on my part.  And I don’t think AI gets metaphors.  At least not without being told directly.  And they call it “intelligence.”

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

Web Dark

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I know, I know.  My hours are odd, but I’m not the only one awake at this time.  So home alone one weekend—hands slapping sides of face, mouth gaping open—I decided to go grocery shopping at six, when the store opens.  It was a frosty morning and I hadn’t yet shaken the chill from getting out from the covers and throwing on clothes before the thermostat fully awoke.  I checked the store website.  Hours: six to eleven.  Off I drove.  Not trusting any kind of authority, really, I was glad to see several cars in the parking lot.  I gathered my reusable bags and approached.  The sliding doors weren’t welcoming that morning.  I tried the other side since sometimes they lock the south doors until later.  Same results.  Then I saw the hours: seven to eleven.  Trust no one.

I had an hour to wait and the car was still cold.  I drove back home, pondering the unreliability of the web.  At least with a phone book you could take a big, thick tome in and point to the ad—“it says six a.m.!”  Websites are, of course, not always updated.  Maybe the six a.m. opening was a pandemic thing.  (I’m still waiting for the web to tell me the pandemic is over.)  Somebody, however, didn’t bother to update the website.  And I was shivering.  Steam coming out of my ears would’ve been welcome to warm my fingers at this point.  Now, I know that neglected things fall apart.  Abandoned houses can have trees growing through them, for goodness sake.  But if you’re a colossal food chain can you not pay to have your website updated?

Broken links lie scattered like glass shards across the internet.  The other day I tried to check out an independent small publisher only to land on the entry page to a porno site.  The publisher had gone under and the domain name sold.  Look, all I want to do is get groceries and get back home so that I can get my weekend activities underway.  I may be on my own for the day but that doesn’t mean I’m planning to waste my time.  Instead I have to go back home, back the car into its slot, unlock the back door (which is friendly), put my hands on the radiator for a few minutes, and then turn around, go out, and try again.  I suppose I could use the time to surf the web, but honestly, I don’t really trust what I might find there.

Obscure Subjects

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The world is so full of things that require further explanation that I can’t believe there aren’t more universities.  No, seriously.  If you look closely, or even casually, there are so many things under-documented that it’s a wonder we get along.  Instead we focus on criminals who want to be president and deny science is real.  Alas.  What brings this on is that I’ve been working on a book that involves researching pop culture.  Naturally, there are books and articles to read, and even videos to view.  Still, some information just doesn’t seem to be out there.  I’ve run across movies that appear with no explanation.  They’re simply there.  Sure, you can find the name of the writer, director, stars, and such, but how did that movie come to be?  Unless someone (normally a journalist) has followed up the story of its origins, there’s really nowhere to go.  Unless there are extras.

I’m remembering how CDs came with liner notes.  (Does anyone remember CDs?)  Good notes gave you further information on the music.  It was documented.  There was an explanation.  DVDs often lack that.  If there aren’t “extras” on the disc, the liner notes don’t help you much if they don’t exist.  Now that we stream everything a search on IMDb is about the best you can do.  Sometimes Wikipedia helps, but only if the article cites its sources.  We need more information.  I read a lot about movies and I’m always glad when an author has found a source that explains a bit more about why this particular film exists.  Are we that non-curious?

Believe me, I know the world is too full of things already.  On some subjects too much information is already available.  Things like movies, and music—things that really move us—however, are left hanging in the air.  I’m curious about them.  I suppose I could subscribe to trade magazines, but I wonder why those who’re already paid to be professors—professional researchers rather than erstwhile academic hacks like yours truly—aren’t all over this.  Academic respectability can be a real problem sometimes.  I know I didn’t feel like I could explore these things until I’d been ousted from the academy.  You see, I think we need more universities.  Places where the curious can go to learn about even more obscure subjects, but subjects that are really important to people.  It seems a far better use for our ill-gotten gain than spending it on lawsuits just to bring down those that education could take care of as a natural benefit.

Look it up

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Does anybody else find the internet too limiting?  I regularly find that what I’m searching for flummoxes even Google when it comes to trying to find things.  The internet doesn’t encompass all of reality, I guess.  For example, the other day I encountered the word “evemerized.”  Even Google vociferously insisted that I meant to search for “euhemerized,” which is a different thing.  It did, however, reluctantly give me a couple of websites that use, and even define the word.  What is it that the search engines are not showing us?  Oftentimes in my searching I admit to being at fault.  I don’t know the correct string of words to use to get algorithms to understand me.  I guess I’ll be one of those up against the wall when AI takes over.  “Does not compute,” it will say in its sci-fi robot voice.

Some of us still like to unplug and pick up a real book.  Or take a walk in the woods.  I do have to admit, however, I wouldn’t complain if the internet could find a way to mow my lawn.  (I don’t mean giving me a list of those companies that haul around inverted-helicopter mowers that make every summer morning sound like Apocalypse Now.  “I love the smell of cut grass in the morning.”)  I am, and hope I always will be, a seeker.  I’m aware that our brains did not evolve to find “the Truth,” but I’m compelled to keep looking in any case.  There’s so much in this world and we’ve tried to distill it to what you can accomplish with a keyboard and a screen.  And even with those I can’t find what I’m looking for in this virtual collective unconscious that we call the web.  There are others better than me at web searching, I’m certain of it.

Despite our current understanding of the virtue of curiosity, there have been periods of history (and pockets of it still exist now) when religions have presented curiosity as evil.  This is generally the case with revealed religions that invest a great deal in having the truth delivered to them tied up with a bow.  I can’t believe in a deity that created curiosity as a sin.  Early explorers of religion exhibited curiosity—if Moses hadn’t wondered what that burning bush was no Bible would ever have been written.  Of course, the internet didn’t exist in those days and seeking was, perhaps, a little bit simpler.  Even if Moses was evemerized.

Moses gets curious

Ghostly Book

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Recently I’ve been thinking about internet searching—how some information is difficult to find.  This book provides an example.  I saw what we in the biz call a “new book announcement” (NBA for bookish sorts).  Since I’ve been reading about the Hudson Valley the subtitle of Ghosts in Residence (Stories from Haunted Hudson Valley) caught my eye.  I assumed it was a new book and eagerly awaited its release.  When it arrived I discovered that it was a “new in paperback” (NiP) edition of a book published in 1986.  This edition, published this year, didn’t update things, including author information.  Given that H. A. von Behr was born in 1902, I doubt he’s still alive, but the book simply borrows the LCCP (Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication) data from 1986, showing the author’s dates as 1902–  .  Perhaps unintentionally appropriate for a book about ghosts.

This is an odd book, all around.  Although published in 1986, much of it deals with even earlier times—the author’s recollections of the forties—as well as some more recent events.  Hans von Behr cuts the image of a country gentleman while his neighbors in the Valley go on fox hunts and he has what seem like daily cocktail parties on the lawn.  He dashes off an article about his favorite dog and gets a healthy check from Outdoor Life.  This is a different world.  But then there are the ghosts.  But more than that, also strange happenings.  The ghost tales are intriguing, and some of the other strange events head-scratching.  The whole has a quasi-autobiographical aspect to it, but while not revealing too much.  A couple chapters deal with hauntings in Germany.

My web searching for H. A. von Behr revealed very little.  He was a retired scientist and photographer (he had some high profile clients) and the book contains many of his photographs of the locations discussed.  This short book explains how he came to purchase a haunted farmhouse upstate for a second home (again, a different world), how he discovered it was haunted, and how many of his friends and acquaintances revealed, over time, that their houses also had ghosts.  The book is charming in its own way, and a quick read.  Still, it’s a little disorienting when you can’t find more information about someone online.  The options are to do library research (my favorite kind) but am I really that curious about this author?  I wanted to read about the ghosts, and that I did.  And many other incidental things besides.

Eclectic Electric

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It all began with the internet going out.  Less than a month ago the modem was replaced, but the tech this time thought it could be the co-ax cable.  We went outside and he fed the cable through, but when he got to the box he noticed a problem.  “Your electrical drop isn’t attached to the house,” he said.  Sure enough, he was right.  “I can’t replace the rest of the cable until that’s fixed—it’s an electrocution risk.” So I called the electric company.  They said I’d need an electrician to secure the conduit to the house, but they’d send somebody out to look.  The tech must’ve been in the area because he arrived just after I spoke to our electrician.  “Your cable has never been permanently connected to the house,” he observed.  “It should be.  We can do that, but you’ve got to get an electrician to attach that conduit.”

The funny thing about this is actually two-fold.  One is that our home inspector didn’t notice that the electrical cable was not secured to the house (once the tech pointed it out to me it was perfectly obvious).  The second is that the former owner of the house claimed to be an electrician.  In fact, he runs a electrical contracting business.  The electrician we pay has said, on one of his many jobs here, “I don’t think he was an electrician.”  I, for one, believe the guy we pay.  So now we have to have him come out and secure the conduit.  Then call the electric company and have them permanently connect the cable (the house has only been here since 1890, so do a few weeks matter?).  Then we call our internet provider and have them replace the cable that’s been causing our internet issues.

We like our quirky old house.  It does seem, however, that many owners have neglected various aspects of it.  And that our home inspector was a somnambulist.  We’re just trying to get it up to code.  Well, actually, we’re just trying to get a secure internet connection because three livelihoods rely upon it.  Shoddy work has consequences, and caveat emptor reigns.  Few things are more basic to modern life than electricity.  Or even the internet, for that matter.  These things are fragile, it turns out, in ways difficult to imagine.  There’s a lesson hidden here, and it reaches back, I suspect, before the taming of electricity.

Image credit: Mircea Madau, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Reconnecting

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Not using the internet for 48 hours isn’t the same as not being able to use the internet for that length of time.  Even politicians (who are notoriously slow at figuring out what people need) have started to make noises about this being an essential aspect of life.  Some (many) things you just can’t do without connectivity.  And during a pandemic taking an entire family to an enclosed space with free wifi (still a rarity) for over a full day so that they can get things done is an issue.  All of this has convinced me of the need to purchase a wifi hotspot, in addition to relying on what Astound Broadband (formerly RCN) is able to provide.  (You see, I’m in charge of a Sunday morning program at a local faith community.  I couldn’t even email anyone to let them know I wouldn’t be able to show up on Sunday without using costly data.)  Now that service has been restored, a kind of nervous normality has returned.

This has been a learning experience.  Of course we’ve got books to read.  I have papers, stories, and a next book to write.  None of those, ostensibly, uses the internet.  All of them do, however.  I’ve been conditioned to look things up on the web while I’m writing.  This is true of both fiction and non; a fact needs checking, a reference requires look-up, a thought occurs to you that has to be dealt with before you move on.  There’s an email you forgot to answer.  Etc.  Etc.  The web is our source of news (what’s happening with Ukraine?), our phonebook, our map, our encyclopedia.  Let’s face it—it’s an addiction.  But a necessary one.

Like many things, our government has the capacity to make internet access available, just like they could do our taxes for us and stop the madness of setting back clocks each year from Daylight Saving Time.  They could ensure universal health care.  They’re too busy “defending” a crumbling, pre-internet way of life and enriching themselves to actually enact any of these things.  And somebody would have to figure out what accountants would have to do if taxes weren’t an issue.  I strongly suspect people would still be willing to pay for more than basic internet connectivity.  But to have a basic signal out there that we could tap into without tapping out our data plans would be a real boon.  I found myself glancing at our neighbors’ houses all around and thinking, “They have internet.”  We pay a lot to have it too, but the only company in the Valley can’t guarantee access, especially on a weekend.  What have I learned?  The ascetics were onto something.

Photo by Nicolas Häns on Unsplash

Outernet

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Once in a while (ahem), I interject a note of caution regarding technology.  This blog has been part of my daily routine for over a dozen years.  I try to post every day.  When I experience life outside I often think “that would make a good blog post.”  I make notes.  I ruminate.  One of the things I caution about is the fragility of tech.  In order for me to post these thoughts many different components have to work just right.  Not only that, but if I want to pay bills, or, more importantly, work so that I can pay bills, I have to have internet.  Everyone in my family uses it and they do so all day long.  This weekend is the long anticipated Project for Awesome (check it out at projectforawesome.com) sponsored by the Vlogbrothers, John and Hank Green.  If the names are familiar it’s perhaps because I’ve read and commented on their books.  Then the internet went out.

Late on Friday afternoon, of course.  Now we’ve had outages before—most recently after a power outage earlier in the week.  I called what used to be RCN, the only service provider in our area, only to be on the phone for half an hour with a tech.  She talked me through the usual rebooting and system checks.  The router was fine, but the only actual connection to the internet is via wifi mediated by a device called Eero.  There’s no ethernet cable (as if Apple laptops even have ethernet ports any more!), no phone line plug-in (ditto), nothing.  Nothing but Eero.  Apparently Eero had died.  And being a weekend a masked tech can’t be sent until Sunday afternoon.  So Friday night with no Disney Plus and Saturday without the long-anticipated Project for Awesome (you really should check it out).

Then my wife noticed her phone could act as a wifi hotspot.  It felt like we were entering a new world of magic.  (And data bills.)  The laptop could covert the G4 that her iPhone could receive into wifi.  It wasn’t ideal, because we have three people who want to use the internet.  With old tech.  All because one component of RCN’s complex system has x’s for eyes.  We had to play Wordle through her phone.  Watch Project for Awesome (it supports charities!) through her phone.  I don’t know, maybe we are even breathing through her phone.  Once in a while I interject a note of caution regarding technology.  This blog post is brought to you by my wife’s phone, acting as an internet hotspot, before anyone else awakes this Saturday morning.

Ancient history!

Routine Interruptions

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Ironically, having just written about routines, we experienced a power outage with a wind storm.  Sitting home of an evening, the lights in every occupied room began to flicker.  We grabbed flashlights, suspecting what would come next.  The power outage led to a temporary loss of the internet, the god of this age.  Routine was interrupted.  This brought to mind just how fragile all this is.  As supply-chain issues have demonstrated, everything has to work just right for our society to operate at expected standards.  And an internet outage leads to an interruption of routines.  Whenever this happens, it reminds me of how complex our lives have become.  And how unfair.  There are people across the world who struggle with daily necessities such as clean water, safe homes, and reliable sources of power.  And a wind storm in eastern Pennsylvania doesn’t mean that the company’s power in another state is out.  Does this mean I take a vacation day?

As this winter winds down I again lament the loss of snow days.  They were local holidays, of course, and based on the unpredictability of nature.  Our power outage, followed by internet outage, was a personal kind of snow day.  Nobody wanted it and we all planned to work today.  Other than the outage, we’re fine.  Just like a snow day.  There’s a feeling of helplessness to it.  To fix the internet we rely on someone who knows how to do such technical wizardry.  Anyone can stuff a rag in a hole in the window, but to replace the glass it takes an expert.  How do you contact them when the internet’s out?  (Of course, everything’s back on in time for work.)

No doubt, many aspects of our lives are better.  We can pay our bills without using a stamp.  We can look up basic information online.  Even attend religious services virtually.  (Who doesn’t want to linger in their pajamas on a Sunday morning?)  Yet, for all of this to happen our power must be on and steady.  Our internet connectivity must be strong.  We have to be able to connect to work so that we can be paid so that we can keep the power on.  It seems an odd way to spend our time.  Obviously, if you’re reading this they—that mysterious they—have got things working again.  The power is on so that I can type this, and the internet is connected so that I can post it.  And yet I don’t feel any more secure.  And I know I’m one of those who has it easy.

925

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Sometimes you just know.  One of the things I know is that nine-to-five schedules are killers.  Literally.  I grew my permanent teeth as a teacher.  Before that I had been set on being a minister.  Something they have in common is that neither profession relies on a nine-to-five schedule.  The hours are much longer than a forty-hour work week, but they’re flexible.  If you’re not in class, or in church, or a committee meeting, or your office hours, you can dash out to the store if you need to.  You can shut your eyes for a few minutes if you didn’t sleep well the night before.  As long as you get your work done adequately, nobody really bothers you about your time.  My initiation into the nine-to-five, in my mid-forties, was a shock from which I’ve never quite recovered.

A few years into this unnatural territory, my nine-to-five (925 is quicker to type) evolved into the commuting variety.  I didn’t live terribly near New York City, so that meant catching a very early bus.  I’m a morning person, so that’s not really a concern.  The problem is that my brain’s not a 925 brain.  Like one of my professors, I still awake at 1:30 (having gone to bed about five hours before) with an idea that won’t let me go.  When that happens you have to put on heavy layers of clothes against the night’s low thermostat and make your way downstairs to the computer.  By three a.m. your body’s in the fully awake commute mode.  Thing is, you’ve got a 925 day in front of you.  When I was teaching I’d be able to snooze again before even my eight o’clock class (I was never one to object to the early shift) began.

The idea behind the 925 is an atavistic throwback to pre-internet days.  Pre-pandemic days.  Days when you had to be watched to ensure you were working.  When you had to sit in a cubicle where nobody and everybody can see you.  If you’re not staring at your screen or not in a meeting you’re not working.  So this antiquated thinking goes.  Teachers and ministers don’t hold to regular hours.  They identify with their jobs—the very definition of “professional.”  If it’s what you’re born to do you don’t complain.  And if you happen to awake at 1:30 with an idea that just has to be expressed, those who pay you will understand if you yawn a time or two the next day when, ideally, you won’t be stuck staring at a screen.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Perhaps You’d Like…

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Back in the early days of the internet I recall wondering how it could be used for research.  I was teaching at Nashotah House at the time and knew of no online resources that couldn’t be had in print.  All of that has changed, of course, with the web becoming the collective brain of humanity.  I tend to use it for research for my fictional tales.  Need to remember a detail about some obscure location you once visited in Scotland?  Check—either Ecosia or Google will take you right there.  Memory problem solved.  For some kinds of facts, however, it’s still a struggle.  There’s the infamous paywall, for example.  Your search brings you right to the info, but you have to pay for the privilege of reading it.  Commercial sites require a subscription that, although it has a cancellation policy, you know you’ll end up paying for forever.  University library websites are even more jealous of guarding their secret knowledge.

Fiction research often involves trying to find general information.  What some specific object is called, for example, or whether there was actually a Burger King in the location about which you’re writing, at the time your story is set.  Fiction writing is an exercise of the imagination, but verisimilitude can make all the difference.  Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it can’t be factual.  Here’s where another limitation arises.  If your query can be commodified, it will.  You’ll find yourself wading through pages and pages of vendors trying to sell you stuff, as if knowledge for knowledge’s sake is moribund.  Even WordPress gets into the act.  If your Premium plan fills up, you’re only option is to  “upgrade” to Business or E-Commerce, where you make money on your account.  (This blog remains free.)

I don’t make any money off this blog.  I use it to share the little I’ve figured out by looking deeply at the world—quite often involving observations about religion or books—over half-a-century.  Like many academics I believe knowledge should be free (ah, but they get paid for keeping it within the walls of the university with the occasional free cookie outside.  Or better yet, a paying engagement).  I don’t go to websites to be sold anything.  I maybe want to remember what a Quisp box looked like in 1969 without wanting to special order a box.  For sure, the web is a great place to buy the things you need.  At times, however, all you’re looking for is information.  At that point your price will be the time it takes to scroll through countless pages that assume you’re here to buy, not just to browse.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Vulnerability

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Perhaps the most insidious thing 45 has been doing is undermining expertise.  If you’re like me you’ll be subject to that sudden, clenching fear that we live in a house of cards.  Everything is built on an extremely tenuous situation and we don’t understand the basis on which it’s built.  (That’s one reason I take such an interest in geology.)  So this morning I climbed out of bed around 3:30 a.m., my usual time.  There was no internet.  This has happened before, and I know enough to turn off power to the router and reboot.  This I did several times before finally calling RCN.  I pictured a tech sitting in a lonely basement at the wee hours, perhaps glad for a service call.  He was very nice.  Still, after having me do the basic checks again, he said he’d have to send a technician.  They, lazily, don’t start work until 8 a.m.

Now here’s where the expertise comes in.  Most of us use the internet pretty constantly.  We don’t know how it works, and when it’s broken we can’t fix it.  I can’t even figure out what some of these devices are.  In all likelihood the technician (my shining prince or princess) will not understand the underlying coding that makes the devices work.  They’ll be able (I hope, and if you’re reading this my hope is not misplaced) to figure out what’s wrong with the hardware.  I suspect even they, however, wouldn’t be able to lay the cable to my house, or repair it, if it were damaged.  We all rely on others farther down the line to know how to do their jobs.  Experts.  House of cards.  With a president claiming experts to be obsolete, I wonder how even the mighty could tweet without an internet connection.

All of this makes me feel quite vulnerable.  I work from home and I need a solid, reliable, steady internet connection.  The day we moved in, literally, two techs came.  It was a Sunday morning.  One of them fell asleep in the office chair while the younger one, who spoke no English, did all the work.  Every time I use the internet, I feel like I’m trying to add a new story to this house of cards.  I don’t know what to do if it goes wrong.  Since phone (and television, at least theoretically) is bundled in this, I can’t even call.  Well, I couldn’t if I didn’t have a cell phone.  My life is tied up with tech, and I can’t fix it if it’s broken.  I made it through a master’s degree without using a computer.  My frame of reference is ancient.  If a bird tweets and there’s no signal, does it make a sound?  Then, without explanation, the connection was reborn, just before 7 a.m.  Who says there’s no such thing as resurrection?

Early Light

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There are times when the Internet’s asleep.  Okay, well, so maybe that’s overstated, but if you have my hours you’ll quickly find the things you can’t do online well before 9 a.m.  For example, just the other day I wanted to check out one of my accounts that I only vaguely understand.  It’s with a company my employer contracts with, and it has an innocuous name that tells you nothing about what it really does.  Still, I had to check in.  After looking up the password, and going through the usual 18-step confirmation of my identity (it didn’t recognize my laptop), I landed on a page stating that it was the routine maintenance period for the website, and would I be so kind as to check back in later.  This is not an isolated incident.  In fact, I often awake around 3 a.m. to find that my laptop’s also doing routine maintenance, although I’m using it nearly every day at that time.  Smart tech, indeed.

You see, the ultra-early riser has a different view of time than the rest of the world.  After about 4 p.m. I don’t have the sharpness that was evident twelve hours before.  Oh, I can still function, but it’s on auxiliary power.  No warp drive that late in the day.  I realize I’m the weird one here.  After visiting friends and family and staying up to the obscenely late hour of 10 p.m., I’ll take an entire week to get back on track with days passing in a fuzzy haze of timely confusion.  I’ve been trying to break the habit for over a year now, but I still occasionally have to go into New York City, and those days require ultra-early awakening.  Knowing such a day is coming up, my body doesn’t want to be vulnerable to that shift.  So I wake up naturally when many others are just getting to bed.

This is mid-day for some of us.

The problem with this is that if you have to get some business done before work hours, many websites are undergoing their maintenance.  They don’t want to be interrupted when I’m actually alert.  There’s a lot of talk about diversity these days, but the person trapped in the early rising net is not a protected category.  It is frustrating to have people say “why don’t you just go back to sleep?” when you can’t.  I’ve gotten used to all that.  The early bird, they say, gets the worm.  That depends, however, whether the worm is on the Internet or not because, believe it or not, the Internet slumbers in the middle of the night.

Internet Epistemology

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Where do we find reliable information?  I’m asking this question on an internet-based medium, which itself is ironic.  While spending time with some younger people, it’s become clear that the web is their source of truth.  You find purveyors of information that you trust, and you accept their YouTube channels as representing correct data.  This can be a disorienting experience for an old doubter like me.  One of the reasons for studying for a Ph.D., apart from the vain hope of finding a career in higher education, is to hone critical thinking skills.  When I went through the process, that involved reading lots and lots of print material, assessing it, and weighing it against alternative views, also in print format.  You learn who really makes sense and you judge which publishers have good information more frequently.  As you navigate, you do so critically, questioning where they get their information.

Now, I’m not one of those people who think the younger generation is wrong (in fact, there are YouTube educational videos about just that).  The situation does, however, leave me wondering about how to fact-check when you don’t know the publisher.  It may be an older person’s problem, but it’s essentially the same dilemma behind self-publishing—the reason you trust a self-published book depends on the author alone.  Is s/he persuasive?  Did s/he document the sources of her/his information?  Are those sources good ones?  The young people I know seem quite adept at filtering out obviously biased information.  Many YouTube personalities footnote their presentations with links to sources (many of them online), and after an hour of watching I’m left questioning what’s really real at all.

You see, many of these internet personalities have sponsors.  Sponsors bring money, and money biases anyone’s angle toward the truth.  In fact, many of these YouTube sources call out the lobbying groups that influence public opinion for political ends.  Only someone completely naive—no matter their generation—would not acknowledge that government runs on money provided by corporations with interests to be protected.  There have been reliable sources, even from the days of print, that prove beyond any reasonable doubt just how corrupt governments tend to be.  But who has time to fact-check the government when the rest of the information we receive is suspect?  Those of us with training in advanced critical thinking aren’t immune from biased information.  It’s just that there’s so much data on the web that my head’s spinning.  I think I need to go read a book.

Devil or Con?

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You can’t believe everything you read.  That’s one of the first tenets of critical thinking.  This whole process is about how to get to the truth, and in a materialistic world that truth can’t involve anything supernatural.  These were my thoughts upon finishing Gerald Brittle’s The Devil in Connecticut.  Controversy accompanied Ed and Lorraine Warren’s investigations and some of the people involved in these cases have later claimed the extraordinary events didn’t happen.  Others claim that the Warrens offered them to make lots of money by selling their stories.  The effect of reading a book like this is a blend of skepticism and wonder.  Among their fans the Warrens are held in the highest regard.  Anyone who begins to look into their work critically ends up frustrated.

So when I put this potboiler down—it is a compelling read—I went to the internet to find out more.  Then I realized what I was doing.  Using the internet?  To find the truth?  It’s a vast storehouse of opinion, to be sure, but what with fake news and alternative facts who knows what to believe anymore?  I found websites debunking the whole case as a hoax.  Others, naturally, claim the events really happened.  Both kinds of web pages have the backing of someone in the family involved.  It’s a pattern that follows the Warrens’ work.  In one of the many books I’ve read about them they claim to have ten books.  If my math is right this was number ten.  Even that remains open to doubt.

The word “hoax” seems a bit overblown.  Dysfunctional, maybe, but hoax?  Reading Brittle’s account it’s clear there were some issues in this family.  Having grown up in a working class setting, I’m aware such scenarios are extremely common.  Accusations were made that this was an attempt to spin gold from straw.  The nearly constant stress of blue collar families makes that seem less far-fetched than a stereotypical devil showing up in a modern house because a satanic rock band placed a curse on the family.  Lawsuits—the most avaricious of means for determining facts—apparently prevented a movie deal and have even made this book a collector’s item.  Somebody, it seems, is making money off the story.  As after reading the other nine books, the truly curious are left wondering.  My skepticism kicked in early on, but then again, I’ve always liked a good story.