Site find from Boing Boing.
It's very difficult to tell whether this is some kind of spoof site or not. It seems to be the world through the prism of a psychotic Christian.
To me, it is difficult to believe that anyone with a world view THIS out of kilter with normality is able to maintain it. The person seems to be getting information from reputable news sources. It can't believe they are this ignorant.
The concerning thing about the growth of user generated content is that some people are going to end up relying on sources like this for news, culture and information. The ways in which people can distort fact in an environment where fact is difficult to prove are worrying.
Alarmists would start moaning that Osama bin Laden is going to start recruiting through his blog. This would be a standard overblown overreaction. We should have faith in the vast majority of people who are still going to seek trusted sources of information.
Brands are key to trust. Information without a source is useless. Sources which are not linked to a reputable brand are worthless.
The current 'social search' as exemplified by Digg and Delicious can help direct people to information but we still need landmarks to rely on for veracity and consistency.
I'm amazed you think Signs of Witness is a serious site. You didn't notice the links to skeptical sites? You didn't notice the church of the subgenius material (Church of the subgenius is a satirical 'art' church)? YOu didn't notice the absurd choices in some of the signs? You didn't follow the link to The Other End to see how it relates to the forthcoming novel and how the novel is challenging rightwing superstitious end-of-the-world Christian-evangelical silliness? You didn't notice the link to Dark Christianity? Sheesh! John Shirley (for Signs of WItness)
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, my investigation of the site was pretty short. Judged the majority of the content against my own knee jerk response to too much religous content!
ReplyDelete