A bit of a diversion
Early this morning, trawling the internet in my daily attempt to both catch up with the world and alight upon something worthwhile to blog about, I found myself resorting to the YouTube website.
This organ is a representative example of one of the strange phenomenons of the modern age that alternatively baffles, puzzles and worries me – the originally more subtle but now quite open practice of organisations, sometimes of great commercial wealth or power, monitoring what the ordinary citizen is doing.
Which – in the case of the newspaper websites I habitually visit – now means that every webpage I visited is festooned with targeted advertising, presumably directed at me because at some point or another in the recent past I have looked at advertisements or merchandise offers relating to [at the moment] items including winter coats, properties in Mallorca and Audi cars.
In the case of YouTube – without doubt taking its cue from things I have (1) looked for and spent time researching and enjoying on the website and/or (2) items vaguely related to items under (1) above, presumably on the basis that ‘you liked this … so you might also like this’ – whenever I visit it I am presented with ‘chapters’ of things in which I seem to have been interested … plus a lot more stuff coming under the general heading of ‘current affairs, sports or rock/pop music’ reflecting items I have sought out in earlier history.
This facility, however, does have its drawbacks.
Take, for example, the computer at the home of my father, who lives on the south coast with a succession of full-time residential carers.
One of these professionals happens to be an excellent Ugandan gentleman possessed of a strong Christian faith. As a result, whenever I go to YouTube on said computer, instead of being presented – as I am at home – with a ‘home page’ setting out my main interests – and suggestions for further viewing related to them – I am presented with a home page majoring on 24/7 live coverage of Ugandan evangelical Christian services, gospel concerts and Bible readings.
Quite what the YouTube’s ‘Big Brother’ – or indeed any other superior Big Brother monitoring organisation examining what information YouTube is gathering about my lifestyle, interests and spending activities – is making of all this is something about which I can only speculate … but which at the same time (I am quite sure) is giving a wholly false impression of how I spend my life.
And I guess, depending upon the attitude you take to this sort of thing, you might take the view that none of this matters. Or even, perhaps, that it is a jolly good thing(!) – not many of us would be content to know that any Big Brother knows what we really get up to.
Anyway, to the subject of my post today.
Christopher Hitchens (1949 – 2011) – brother of the celebrated conservative observer of life Peter Hitchens – was a famous essayist and relentless exposer of religious, Creationist and hypocritical stances generally.
For those who would like to refresh their memory – or learn a little about his life – here’s a link to his entry on – WIKIPEDIA
I have always found his appearances on television – and his filmed lectures, speeches and feisty exchanges with those whose beliefs he found untenable or ridiculous – compellingly entertaining.
This morning, when going to YouTube, I immediately came across a number of videos featuring some of his most famous put-downs or one-to-one arguments, most often on US television. I duly spent a fun half-hour hopping around snatches of some of them.
Here’s a link one that I hadn’t seen before – I don’t know the date of it, but it was an appearance upon an Australian TV panel show addressing issues related to religious belief and humanist moral principles – but this morning I found it an enjoyable 14 minutes of so of watching, hence me presenting it to Rust readers here – HITCHENS HOLDS FORTH
