Intro: This session of the 2013 Adelaide festival of ideas was recorded by
radio Adelaide through the support of the vast mid library,
university of Adelaide,
the university of south Australia library and Flinders university library.
Stephen Yarwood: Well, good evening. My name is Stephen Yarwood.
I'm the Lord mayor of the city of Adelaide,
and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here for this wonderful debate
tonight.
It is also my job to acknowledge that we're on the traditional land of the
Kaurna people.
And I always talk about how we need to all think about how we can respect their
cultural and spiritual connection to the land. Well,
Adelaide city council has always supported the festival of
ideas from its inception and very pleased that we continues to
support it today and particularly pleased to have this wonderful debate here in
this beautiful Adelaide town hall of hours. It's wonderful to see you all here.
I'm really keen to let the ideas flow at the town hall.
And this is a wonderful opportunity.
I think most of you know exactly where I stand when it comes to the internet,
but I'm certainly looking forward to the debate in suing tonight.
So without further ado, I'd like to encourage you all have a wonderful time,
make some noise and please welcome Sophie black.
Audience background: [Inaudible]
[inaudible].
Sophie Black: Thank you, Lord mayor.
And thank you to Adelaide city council for supporting this event.
I'm Sophie black, the director of the Adelaide festival of ideas,
and you're in for an intellectual intellectual treat slash smack down
tonight as both teams face off in tonight's battle of the ideas.
But first a few notes, please switch your phones to silent,
but make sure you tweet and Instagram using at ADL F
O I and the hashtag hashtag ADL FOI
and the hashtag the internet is evil.
You don't need to agree with that, but just,
we will go with the one hashtag I think also be sure to vote for your
favorite team, but not until the end of the debate.
Don't make your mind up too early and wait until your host prompts you and he'll
take you through it, but I'll just explain it. It's very, very simple.
You can either text or tweet. So you text the relevant key word,
2 0 4 2 9 double 8 3 4 8 1.
And this number will come up again and a standard call charges apply,
or you can tweet the key word and
include at poll. So there are two key words. Yes.
The internet is evil. Your keyword is vote. Yes and no.
The internet is not evil. Your keyword is vote. No, all one word,
all one.
Now please join me in welcoming to the stage, your host,
Julian Morrow,
plus warring team members. Katherine Viner,
Andrew Marlton, AK first dog on the moon.
David Marr versus Jonathan Kneebone,
Rick Smolan and Annabel Crabb.
Julian Morrow: Thanks very much Sophie, where else Baker's give him a big round of applause,
ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard
[inaudible]. Yes.
My name is Julian Morrow and I'm from the ABC.
It's a great pleasure to be here, but because I am from the ABC,
it's important that I am imbalanced.
So I also have to say it's also not a great pleasure to be here.
For those of you who haven't heard of anything I've ever done,
which is probably most of you.
I looked it up on a single Wikipedia earlier on and it's an
open source encyclopedia
and that's actually one of the few accurate things I've read on Wikipedia.
So it hasn't been vandalized at all our topic tonight,
the internet is evil discuss from Lolcats to
Google and everything in between from activism to activism,
the NSA to the Arab spring, Gonzo porn,
to the death of the media and the music industry who writes this stuff in the
promos for these events. That's what you came here to see.
And something like it will occur over the next hour.
My role is not to take one side or the other.
I'm here as a moderator,
given that the am known for moderation across the country.
My approach to tonight's debate will be essentially what I'm going to call the
ISP approach. I will be hosting this event,
but I will not be taking any responsibility for content.
You don't worry though, because the,
the event itself will be strictly policed by Acme,
the Australian communications and media authority.
So we can say whatever we like, and no one will be punished. It's fine.
Just a bit of a warning because tonight is about the internet.
Some of the content may be a little bit explicit.
If there's anyone in the room who is under 18,
it's very important that you start a fake email accounts and say that you're
over 18 should take a couple of minutes,
but you'll be fine to see everything that's on tonight.
The debate of course we'll follow the traditions of,
of debate that the internet has established.
One person will come up and say something,
a very strident opinion about something they don't truly understand.
They will then be a stupid response from the other side,
an intense heated argument. Somebody will be called guy,
and then everyone will be banned. So it's going to be a fun evening.
Of course the form of debate involves an affirmative and a negative.
For those of you who haven't seen the debate before I thought I'd give you a
little bit of an orientation the affirmative for example, that they kind of,
they might say, oh, you know, there's a diversity of news opinions on the web,
things like that. The negative team might say, yeah, but that's just, you know,
I we'll just print all those things.
Although it's actually the other way round on this one, anyway,
it doesn't matter. Yeah, people might say, well,
you know the internet is good because it allows star Trek pans to socialize.
And the negative is also say, yeah,
but that increases the likelihood that they'll reproduce formative might say,
you know, look, it's the biggest repository of information in human history.
Negative, we'll say here, but most of that's about Paris Hilton.
The affirmative will say it allows distant relatives to stay in touch.
That's what the Internet's all about. And the negative will say, yeah,
but the internet allows distant relatives to stay in touch. Sure.
Your family might say you know,
the internet allows democratization of information.
Negative we'll point out that means idiots get a voice.
That's the sort of structure that we're having this evening.
It'll go affirmative, negative, affirmative negative. You've only got about,
I think it's six or seven minutes for each person to speak. Now,
normally the debate you'd ring a bell. When you get to the time limit,
I thought we'd changed that a bit to try and make it appropriate for the
internet. If you go over your allotted time during tonight's debate,
this will happen. No, it won't happen.
Nothing will happen.
Speaker: The man being upstaged by his own powerpoint, I love it. Oh, I see.
None of that's work, oh there you go that's what's going to happen.
Audience background: [Inaudible].
Julian Morrow: Can I just pause there to say let's give a big round of applause to the Auslan
interpreter. [inaudible]
I thought I'd give you a quick, well, actually, by the way,
every speaker tonight has been asked to nominate their favorite bit of the
internet.
And the reason I played that was cause that's actually Andrew Marlton first dog
on the moon likes and yarn cats who knew.
So we'll hear a little bit about that throughout the evening.
I'm confused as to which side I'm on now. Oh, it doesn't matter.
Don't worry about it. I thought I'd give you a quick history.
All. Yes. That's the non-Cat site.
The reason I love the internet because there's on YouTube.
There's a 10 hour rendition of the neon cat.
That's what, that's the sort, you know, human ingenuity.
That's being unleashed by the internet. All right, look, I'll give you a quick,
quick history of the internet.
I didn't actually know what the internet was until this morning.
I had to Google it.
So my history is going to be poorly researched full of conspiracy theories
and involve a large amount of material about star Trek. But broadly speaking,
the internet was developed back in the 1970s by the U S department of
defense,
who at the height of the cold war realized that the American military needed a
technology that would allow fast, easy, and secure access to pornography
In 1971,
Ray Tomlinson at BBN made history when he created the world's first email
program.
That was actually the only thing Ray invented because he spent the rest of his
life deleting spam from his inbox in 1974.
Bob can use the term internet for the first time. In 1991,
Tim Berners Lee launched the worldwide web projects.
He was an idealistic and great man who believed that the web should be made
available to everyone for free the decision that the industry has been trying to
reverse ever since. Let's get on with the debate. Ladies and gentlemen.
Jonathan Kneebone: We begin just tomorrow, just quickly. Look,
we we all got together and we got you with a fish dog on the
moon tea towel
with love to Julian from cath David and
you know.
Julian Morrow: So please vote on the winner of the debate. Now, if you can
I dunno, it's an open question, but they're available in the shop they're.
Julian Morrow: Available in the shop.
Julian Morrow: Reputable retail retailers. I'm sure let's get on with it.
The internet is evil discuss. It's my great pleasure to welcome now,
the editor of the guardian Australia,
Kath Viner and now Kath came from the United Kingdom to Australia without a
criminal conviction. So she should be at home in Adelaide.
I think it's very appropriate that she's here.
Speaker: Very appropriate.
Julian Morrow: That's a good accolade recently gave the AAN Smith
Memorial lecture.
And I'm told that the intellectual substance of her lecture was a great tribute
to Anna Nicole Smith. It was a beautiful,
beautiful aeration I'm told now Kath obviously has
thought deeply about this topic because her nomination for the thing that
she most likes on the internet is a very poignant piece of video.
It's about two minutes long,
but given that we all grew up in the internet generation,
that was a little bit too long for me. I couldn't,
I couldn't actually last at the end of it. So I've had to edit it down,
but let's, before we welcome Kath to the stage,
let's have a look a bit at a bit of cat's favorite bit of the internet.
Audience background: [Inaudible]
[inaudible].
Julian Morrow: Now I know Cath probably couldn't vote in the most recent election,
but I'm assuming she wouldn't have voted for Kevin Rogers.
She's not a fan of selfies plays make her welcome ladies and gentlemen,
Cath Viner.
Katherine Viner: Ladies or gentlemen of beautiful, beautiful Adelaide.
And the rest of my team are funny and lovable, but I'm afraid.
You've got me first ladies and gentlemen,
the internet is evil. The internet is ruining life. As we know it,
it's ruining my life. It's ruining your life.
It's ruling all of our lives and our collective life.
It's destroying who we are at the airport yesterday.
I encountered a familiar yet mournful theme,
a family of three, a man swiping away at an iPad,
mini a small child, blocked to the world with enormous headphones,
plugged into an iPad and a woman looking half-heartedly at her phone.
Suddenly the woman looked up, she smiled at me imploring.
Talk to me, the smile said, talk to them, make them,
talk to me,
make this stop in the words of Rebecca Solnit.
It's hard now to be with someone else wholly uninterruptedly.
And it's hard to be truly alone. Before, about 1995,
we had long languorous phone calls with each other events.
We look forward to the phone was fixed to a wall
children. So we were fixed in the moment getting close to one another.
Now, if we call anyone at all, we're walking or driving or on a train,
shouting at shatter with sharing our chatter with the carriage.
But mostly we don't call we text or tweet or post a message on Facebook or DM,
or I am anything to avoid an actual chat with an
actual human. When you do meet in person, that was the point of that film.
You don't get their undivided attention and you don't give it either
bonds. The kind that we built up over centuries are fracturing before our eyes
intimacy is lost close. No more. Meanwhile,
we happily invade our own privacy,
revealing so much of our lives to everyone else.
Our lives are filtered for the external gaze turn humans into a species of
brackets, showing off boasting about our exceptional achievements,
our specialists, our perfect lives.
And so many of these conversations we have with each other now, or in public,
we discuss something. We make a plan. We meet for coffee. Why in public?
Why has the internet made us require? We have witnesses to our lives?
Are we nothing without big brother
in happily forsaking our privacy we've given a gift to any would be or
authoritarian government of the present or the future.
We now know the U S is spying on our, all our emails and our phone calls.
This is very grave and has led to at least three major surveillance reform bills
with cross party support in the U S but few seem to mind in
comfortable Australia or complacent Britain.
They mind in Germany because Germans know where mass surveillance can lead.
We should be afraid to. And ladies and gentlemen,
what about civility?
Kindness is hard to find on the internet. What is abused as a matter of course,
a British woman, Caroline creative,
pres who did a campaign to get a woman featured on Britain's.
Banknotes not exactly radical,
just a woman on a banknote and she succeeded.
And she got Jane Austin on a bank moat.
She was subjected to a campaign of death and rape threats that were specific and
taken seriously by the police on Twitter.
Many other prominent women enjoy the same fate all for Jane Austin on a bank
note. And what about the truth?
The internet is close to destroying the truth.
Turning us away from the clear contained dependable facts you find in
glorious news sprint.
I was assigned this side of the argument when the Boston marathon was
bombed, the internet name was CircleCI puffy.
And Mike [inaudible] as the perpetrators,
then several of Australia's TV news stations and newspaper websites did the
same, but neither of them did, did it.
Paulson ultra puffy was in fact,
a missing student later found dead in a river in the UK.
When a footballer was found guilty of rape,
his family went on Twitter and named his victim,
writing deeply unpleasant things about her.
One quarter of Americans think Obama was born abroad because they read it on the
internet in such a free for all. No one's reputation is safe.
Ladies and gentlemen, there will be some last tonight. I'll be at non so far,
but make no. This is a new dark ages.
We are steps away from Salem.
As Nicholas car says the computer screen bulldoze is our doubts with its
bounties and conveniences.
It is so much our servant that it would seem churlish to notice that it is
also a master resist ladies and gentlemen,
the internet has ruined our lives while appearing to liberate liberator's
destroyed intimacy, civility, profundity,
and truth. The internet is evil. Thank you.
Audience background: [Inaudible].
Julian Morrow: Thanks very much, Kathy. Sorry. I had to duck out there.
I had to update my Facebook. So I
I assume that you made some really profound points
negative team. Are you,
are you convinced that you actually going to give up now,
does anyone really seriously want to oppose what Kath has said?
Annabelle Crabb: I would just like to ask Kath about what she does in Australia. Exactly.
There's a downside to everything Annabelle. But what's your current position?
Katherine Viner. I'm the editor of God, you know, Australia, which yes,
it's a digital only newspaper publication. Oh an online publication?
No further questions, your honor. I was assigned this side.
I didn't choose it.
Julian Morrow: I'm not sure when being a media proprietor and being
evil were incompatible though. I think that's,
to me that seems to be fairly common place. So you're, you're, you're,
you're going to continue with the negative cases. Is that right?
Jonathan Kneebone: I would say she's argued that people, not the internet in and of itself,
I've just been desperate to say in and of itself.
It sounds so sophisticated rather than the internet or evil.
That's what I think Katherine just said.
Julian Morrow: Doug, are you you exist online as well?
Do you seriously think that it's as bad as that.
Jonathan Kneebone: It's horrible? No, I Just because I work, I mean,
the fact that I work online only makes me an expert and I can,
I can safely say it's it's, it's truly terrible. I mean,
have you been on the internet? Well, that's.
Julian Morrow: Actually a question I wanted to ask David Marr [inaudible].
David Marr: That's the kind of scandalous cheap question that you put all the time.
And I prefer not to answer it until my time comes to speak. Take that as a no.
Okay.
Jonathan Kneebone: The moon doesn't mean you did exactly that. There's no air on the moon.
Julian Morrow: That's very philosophical, but unconvincing. Okay. Let's move on. All right.
The first speaker for the negative man,
Jonathan Kneebone,
Jonathan works for a fantastic advertising organization called the
glue society.
Now he's nominated a bit of his intervenes net, which is his favorite,
which I must say I hadn't come across. Has anyone
heard of pronunciation manual? It's absolutely fantastic.
It's an online YouTube resource that God's people in the pronunciation of
words as an example he is the pronunciation
manual for the word month.
There are thousands of those and I hired you to adopt them and
spread them as far as you can doing that little bit for cultural
misunderstanding around the world. Now Jonathan has, I said,
he's from the glue society, which is an advertising agency,
but it's simultaneously commercially successful,
but also renowned for its creative integrity.
He really is the George Clooney of Australian advertised. Sorry,
I should say he's the Dean.
Jonathan Kneebone: Gorgeous Gord clowning.
Julian Morrow: It's a very tough gig tonight. Big old Clowney of Australian advertising.
Ladies and gentlemen, please make welcome Jonathan Kneebone
[inaudible].
Jonathan Kneebone: Thank you very much, Jim.
It occurs to me as one of the only unknown's on the panel,
but south Samson must've been busy
and we all know that Russell Howcroft is busy because he's desperately trying to
get us off of the ABC to watch channel 10, which is rather extraordinary.
Anyway, what I've realized is that I'm never going to win a logical argument,
not with these esteemed minds, I'm going to have to go straight to the heart.
And basically my
argument that the internet is,
is not evil stems from the fact that it's one huge party
where we all globally share things that are completely mindless.
It connects cultures at the lowest possible denominator level.
And everyone's invited, particularly if they're anonymous,
it's the most participatory experience ever.
And yes, in a few moments time,
we're going prove it just to warn you.
So first, a true story.
In 1985,
a guy called Al B Albert Boyce during
halftime in basketball games in America, he used to do a sort of rhythmic dance.
He used to sort of do this movement as if he was wrapped up like an Egyptian
mummy. And the only thing he could do was shake.
This was in a place called Rucker park in Harlem in
2001,
a rapper called G DEP did a video for let's get it. And it's,
it's sort of featured, brought to life. This,
this particular shaky Harlem thing in
2006, a girl called young B popularized.
It it was an evolution of the Harlem shake and it was called chicken noodle soup
on may the 22nd, 2012,
a DJ called Bauer whose real name was Henry Rodriguez sampled a
song the plastic plastic littles track Miller time,
which included the word Harlem shake on February.
The first 2013,
a guy called filthy Frank of lager whose real name is possibly George Miller
posted this
[inaudible] On February, the second five teenagers in Belle Vista, Queensland,
Matt Stanion, Corey Walsh, Jimmy Dale, George Warren, Oscar Mitchell.
It was raining in Queensland. It was still me. They posted this
[inaudible] Eight days later,
the know the Danish army posted this.
Audience background: [Inaudible].
Jonathan Kneebone: Say days later, 4,000 videos a day were being uploaded, including by
[inaudible]
February 18. Even the daily
[inaudible]
February 20.
Jonathan Kneebone: Over 40,000, where online,
everyone was working out how to go from
someone in a helmet dog thing while everyone else ignored them to the
point where everyone could participate.
Jonathan Kneebone: March the 31st, we're over a hundred thousand variants now,
and believe it or not on April the 20th,
1.2,
1 billion views is the fastest clip
on YouTube to get to a billion in twice as fast as Gangnam style,
six times first and then called me.
Maybe I've had to rush through that because six months later on
Saturday, October the 19th,
it's the Harlem shake. Adelaide style
pot one. Did anyone bring a motorbike?
So today's one here.
There's a lady here. Could you just stand up one here?
Oh, we've got a helmet. Can I ask a name? Karen. Karen,
are you prepared to do the opening part of this?
Say what that means is you're going to dance in isolation for the first 15
seconds.
While I pretend to give a really boring lecture to the rest of the room,
your motivation is to imagine it's the other side's argument being
so really bored. Everybody really bought. Are you ready? Karen helmet on?
And we got the camera ready. We need a camera on stage to film this because yes.
Thank you very much.
This is going to be live on the internet by the end of the debate. Okay,
so.
Audience background: Ready? Ready board.
[inaudible].
Jonathan Kneebone: Okay, good. We got the first part done Everyone up, everyone up
made some inflatables. Can I get an inflatable?
I've never worked in
I need to release the mass that he would have an inflatable.
Come on. Thank you. Sorry.
We're really getting close to being over time. Can you, oh, sorry. Oh,
thank you. Alright.
Okay. So you're going to get 15 seconds.
You're going to get 15 seconds of music. You don't have to do anything,
but on the drop, you've got to go wild. All right, Here we go.
Karen, you should be
going. [inaudible - video playing]
I think we've proved the internet is not evil because in an hour's time,
we're on it.
Great. Good job. Thank you. Todd
Samson, ladies and gentlemen.
Julian Morrow: Oh, so glad Todd was busy tonight.
And I've got to say, Lord Major,
it's amazing what props you can find backstage at the town hall
that was pure coincidence. One huge party.
That's what debate is always about.
I just wish parliamentary debate was like that.
Don't you think that'd be far better?
I'm not sure that you actually argued the point Though. As far as
I can tell you just wrote 10 dates down. I was so confused about
the thing that really struck me about that was that the people who teed it off
were five teenagers in Queensland. I mean, nothing else. John's speeches,
a plaintive cry for increased education funding
in that state. Hi. I have a question, Julian,
what the hell do you think you're doing?
Katherine Viner: I've always wanted to do the Hobbit shake. Yes.
I'm sorry, team. I'm sorry. Even if it's at the expense of our side.
Sorry guys. Join us. No the internet is still evil, it's just a nice dance.
Julian Morrow: I want to ask you one thing, Jonathan. I mean, you took a big risk.
Were you really that confident that there'd be somebody in the audience who had
a motorcycle helmet? It's amazing. What a hundred bucks can do
you hear that, Andrew? Yeah. Amazing what 100
bucks can do. Do you take visa? Amazing
what 200 bucks can do that? Yeah.
Given them where all of the ABC,
this is just your taxes being circulated around five on stage.
Just out of interest.
Is there anyone actually been involved in a Harlem shake before where you all
Harlem shake virgins before this? Oh, good.
Julian Morrow: David. No, this is a 70 year old man over there. Who said five times
and one in the new door. Well, there you go.
I think that break breaks the form server anyway, still well done.
That was absolutely superb. It's time now to throw back to the party poopers
come with cash though. So it's time now to hear from Andrew Malton,
although you probably don't know him as Andrew Malton,
you probably know him as first dog on the moon.
Now like many things to do with the moon.
I actually believe that Andrew Malton is a conspiracy who was liked by the CIA.
And in fact,
the things that are supposed to have happened at area 51 are far less weird than
first off on the moon cartoon.
First over the moon for some years has been publishing on,
I think called the internet and
on a publication called crock examine, read cracky. It's a quick one.
How many, Hey, how are you for cracking
fast, smaller number? I thought so. Okay. I've got a couple of, I used to,
I used to. Yeah.
Now Andrew is very distinctive cartooning style as with so many things in
history happens in a way by accident it's because the
proprietors of crikey agreed to pay him by the word.
And ever since he's been kind of elaborating the world's longer,
he, I think he said he wanted to walk away before it was the Walkley for longest
cartoon ever. He's the finalist every year.
But he will be breaking the form tonight and speaking to us. Well,
I think there might be the, of some props actually, ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome the first dog on the moon. Andrew Marlton
[inaudible].
Andrew Marlton: Good evening. Thank you so much for,
for having me along tonight. I am first job on the moon.
I am a cartoonist and as has been noted I'm
Australia's first ever. Full-Time only online cartoonist.
Ah, that's true.
My cartoons are never printed only ever on the web and
obviously this makes me an internet expert and
I I'm quite a good one.
I think it's reasonable to say that for someone,
with my credentials,
someone who's an actual internet celebrity that for me to stand up here
in front of you all this evening to say how awful the internet is,
that it must be true because I mean, I'm a professional.
I know what I'm doing.
So I'm here to tell you this evening to even warn you this evening,
that the internet is clearly evil. Here is a picture of it.
4: [Inaudible].
Andrew Marlton: Any decent, hardworking Australian, or even those on the negative.
Anyone who spends any time you wandering along the sinister highways and byways
of the worldwide web and they,
they call it the web for a reason we'll have encountered some truly
awful things right. Accidentally or otherwise.
So the question is if there's terrible things, it means,
and it does that actually make it evil. Well, yes it does.
And I'll explain that. I have two words for you. Facebook
it's evil. Yes it is.
It's it's stopped working.
It's going backwards. You should.
Okay. Where was I Facebook now?
Doesn't that make you want to kill somebody? All right. I know I do.
How many billions of hours we as a species collectively
lost to say something like Farmville on Facebook. All right.
All that time wasted that could have been spent with our loved ones in the
real world,
or perhaps perhaps curing cancer or thinking
about how nobody about us and our lives are empty and sad.
The negative will try to suggest that being able to carry the sum total of human
knowledge around on your phone is a good thing,
but it's not like you're ever going to read it. Is it
my bedside table?
My bedside table is groaning with unread books because I spent whole,
my time creating the internet.
And the internet is Kneebone only as good as the people who are
in it. And people are awful. In the old days,
you could hide in your house or you could live underground, but not anymore.
The terrible internet people are everywhere. And obviously when I say people,
I don't mean you, of course, or Mr.
I mean, I mean, these people,
all of the terrible little internet friends who,
who people so much draws online now,
they may argue that the incident is more than the people it's filled with.
It's what you do with it.
It's counts like a Harlem shake or audience participation is
a winning strategy.
The incident perhaps they might say is a tool like a hammer or a pair of those
really handy needle, nose pliers. I love those.
Plus they may even argue that blaming the internet for the things that are in it
is the same as hiding weapons of mass destruction in a shed,
and then blaming the shed. But what if the sheds in ours?
And of course, when it Comes to the incident,
You can't trust anything on their websites can be hacked.
People can pretend to be something or someone they're not. For example,
I did some investigative journalism and it's not actually that hard I don't know
what everybody is on about.
And I found this the internet
Really bad.
I have to tell you it is, it don't believe me. I am from the,
I was, I was as shocked as you are, but it gets worse.
Gosh, the internet is evil. Isn't it also how is,
I don't want to go to this stupid ideas festivals and Julian Morrow.
What a dickhead. I dunno what to say.
I don't know what to say.
And of course I had to look at Jonathan Kneebone's
Twitter Account. If that's your real name, Mr. Kneebone,
I work in advertising. So everything I say is true. And I reckon that in and of
Itself, the internet Is like a big evil out of control.
Baby babies are evil. And so is the internet. No, really it is.
Do we even know these people are who they say they are.
If you still think that the internet is not evil,
I'm tell him I'm standing in a room with 300 people.
I'm not sure this is a degrade ID,
but I'm going to sell you something really terrible.
Think of the worst thing that you can think of.
I'm thinking of it. All right.
I bet that not only does someone have a sexual fetish for it,
but there is a website for it. Now
my little pony is a cartoon about magical ponies.
Julian Morrow: Look away, kids look away. If there.
Andrew Marlton: Are children, if there are children, it's intended for little children,
but not according to the internet. All right,
I'm going to show you all, some,
some my little pony porn now. It's okay.
How you can actually look away in there. I took off the soundtrack.
You must understand that if there was no internet,
I wouldn't even know about my little pony,
let alone be able to find any to show you.
Unless of course I drew it myself,
which is a subject for another festival altogether. And anyway,
I don't draw bottoms. It's not nice. So, and when I say, of course,
my little pony point, I don't mean from a high,
well anyway, pay, be prepared to look away in a
3, 2, 1,
tell me that's not evil.
And there's more all right, this and this,
this isn't even the worst tenure actually,
but the people actually make this stuff. And I mean, it takes me, I mean,
not what the pony is doing, but to actually to make that.
And then there's this one, which I think is probably
The most offensive. And, and this one too, which is
I'm so sorry. I have, I have no idea how that happened.
I someone, someone must've hacked my computer, which does happen,
it's probably the NSA.
We we all know that there is a back door in every router and that's not a
euphemism, but If it was, There would be a website for it
before Edward Snowden,
you might've thought this was just a crazy conspiracy theory,
but now we know that they can do it and they actually do so
in conclusion, I would Like to say that
On our side of the room,
we've won a combined total of four Walkleys and we have a nomination for one.
Whereas on this side they only have one.
Also I'm the only person who went to the trouble of wearing a suit,
just saying, I think it's nice to be nice, unlike the internet,
which is evil. And of course,
I forget to visit the festival shop and pick up one of the marvelous details.
So thank you for your time.
Julian Morrow: I don't mean to be critical,
but I think the the credibility of Andrew's presentation was
somewhat undermined. When he said, I have two words for you, Facebook
check the trademarks, my friends, it's only one word,
but still I find presentation and
quite disturbing. Some of the things I learned,
I have to say from you guys Rick Smolan
tweeting a lot, obviously.
All I can say Rick is it's amazing what $500 can do.
Our next speaker is Rick small and now his favorite bit of the
internet is apparently a page called way back
when, the way back machine.org,
at least that's what he told me before the debate. It's,
it's this website that an hour allows you to choose a domain and a date,
and you can look at it.
It's like it's captures it in time in the internet at any point. Unfortunately,
that's what Andrew used to get all the tweets from these guys.
So it's no longer his favorite part of the internet,
but Rick small and I'm sure you know,
because he has done something amazing in the internet era,
he sold 5 million copies of a thing that you kids won't remember.
It's what was called a book. I don't know what it was,
and it was hugely overrated, but he has sold truckloads of them.
He's a former time life, lifetime, lifetime.
He, he was sentenced to life
with no parole and national geographic,
but his work as a photographer he's also involved in a project, apple,
the human face of big data.
And he's involved in a company which has been described as one of the 25
coolest companies in America. I'm going to make him well,
we're gonna introduce him to the stage, just in one second.
Cause I do want to get back to one thing that Andrew said,
I want to ask David when Andrew said,
think of the worst thing that you can think Of,
you willing to tell us what it was.
And what about you, Jonathan? What was it?
Jonathan Kneebone: I was mentally undressing the speaker.
Julian Morrow: Well, he had that much fine clothes on.
I'm sure it took time and you didn't quite get to the end of it.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rick Smolan.
Rick Smolan: So I have a slightly different take at all of this,
which is that the internet is actually kind of old news at this point.
It's about 20 years old.
It's kind of hard to imagine this all started only 20 years ago.
And you think of what would happen.
Now if the internet was unplugged to try to get money out of your bank,
talk to your friends, share pictures.
I've been watching something for the last year.
I've been working on a project called the human face of big data.
And what's interesting to me about it is that it almost looks like we're
watching the planet devolving a nervous system, like the internet this way,
he needed to have microprocessors and you needed to have computers.
Then you need to have the internet,
the Internet's now in place to connect all these devices that are talking to
each other. So let's see if he can get my first slide up here.
What's happening right now is like the first time in human history,
we have the devices are getting so cheap. All of our smartphones,
all of our Google searches all of our ATM passes,
everything we're doing now is generating dead.
Even our bodies and all this information is being generated and collected in
real time.
It seems like so many of the problems that we face as a species have to do
with the fact that something happens.
And then we don't see the cause and effect until six or eight months or three
years later, suddenly for the first time,
things happen on one side of the planet, we're able to see them immediately.
Now all these devices that we've created as a species are starting to talk to
each other and they're starting to change their behavior without us being in the
middle of that conversation. There's something happening right now,
which is it's a new phrase,
which I'm just starting to hear talking to my friends in Silicon valley,
it's called the internet of things. So instead of us doing Google searches,
which we're all doing and looking up things on Facebook,
these devices are now starting to exist and live on the internet.
It sounds like Skynet.
Maybe it sounds like I'm arguing the other side of this argument.
Some of it sounds really scary, but some of it's actually pretty exciting.
I was going to give you a couple of examples, all of us right now.
I don't know how, how, how you all feel about this,
but it feels like we're all a drowning in information.
The average person in Adelaide today, or time square,
any Western city is exposed to as much information.
One day as one of our ancestors experienced in their entire
lifetime. It's like a straight vertical line.
This is also reminisce reminiscent of one of the videos we just saw the during
the first day of a baby's life.
Now the internet is actually because of the devices that we're now using.
The human race is generating 70 times the information in the library of
Congress. And I sort of love this picture,
this idea that basically everything we're doing for better or worse,
there's this data stream coming out behind us.
And the internet is like the layer. It's like the glue. It's the,
it's the wires that conduct electricity.
The internet is what allows all these devices to collect the data and to go back
and forth. So here's, it can be a couple of very interesting examples of that.
You might not think of as being related to internet when the earthquake hit six
years ago in Japan, terrible devastation.
David Marr: One of the things very few people heard about is that 15 seconds before the
earthquake hit,
before it hit every bullet train and every factory in Japan came to a halt.
So the Japanese had spent half a billion dollars over 15 years putting in this
early, very expensive, really earthquake warning system. Well,
a group of entrepreneurs looked at the internet and said,
all of our laptops have accelerometers in them.
And then if your laptop falls off the table,
if your kids are running through the kitchen and they trip over the wire before
your laptop hits the floor,
the laptop knows it's falling and it can actually lift the head off.
The platter would saves your data. Well now,
because all of us have internet all the time,
24 hours a day Charlotte's internet.
These programmers were in a program called quake. Casher the free program.
Rick Smolan: You download it, you fire up your computer. Before you go to bed,
you go to sleep and you leave quake catcher on your, on your desktop.
And it's a free ubiquitous crowdsourced, early earthquake warning system.
So the internet is actually now providing a completely free service that costs
half a billion dollars just a few years ago.
A lot of you have been hearing perhaps about these really cool devices.
This is one of them. This is called the up band. Nike makes one job,
but there's a million of these things. Now, this measure is how I sleep.
How many steps I take during the day.
My wife thinks this is Northern California and hippie self-indulgent self
absorption. I have doctor friends who say, no, no,
this is actually the way that we're going to get our hands finally,
on the healthcare crisis, because Three years before,
One of us is in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Our body has been giving off information and data.
And now these devices connected to our cell phones and then going out to the
internet, allowing us to see the sort of 30,000 foot view of our life,
like looking at patterns and saying, this is what's normal for Rick.
And this is what's normal for someone else.
And when my pattern of what's normal changes,
this device says to me or my doctor, there's something going on here.
You should pay attention to. If we catch these things early on,
we may be able to actually turn around this terrible wave of,
of expense and the healthcare crisis that we're dealing with.
I'll give you one kind of really cool example. My mother's 90 years old,
just turned 90 about two months ago.
And she started falling a few years after my dad passed away.
She was living alone. She wanted to be by herself.
We asked her to move with us and she wouldn't and Intel and general electric are
working on a carpet that you install in the home of your loved one.
That measures how they walk, how fast,
what time of the day they touch the carpet.
If what their balance is like that to say good or bad, this is,
this is Rick's mom's pattern.
All that information is conveyed back to through the internet.
And if suddenly my mother's balance is different.
It can predict two days before she falls.
These are all things that you would never think of being to the internet,
but they're actually affecting how our children are living,
how our parents were living and how our lives are going to be.
I'm I'm convinced that looking back in the future this year
2013 is going to be the year that we start realizing there was a sea change that
the human race for the first time had a real-time feedback system that the
internet enabled.
That's allowing us to actually see these patterns in our lives. Now,
obviously this can be a terribly abused.
And I think what someone said before is this is a new tool and like any tool it
can be used for good or for evil.
I think there's lots of concerns that all of us need to have right now about
who's using this data. That's being collected,
it's being conveyed through the internet.
I'm going to show you a couple of the examples very quickly and then get off the
stage going through this quickly.
Some of you were at here at the Adelaide film festival,
went to the movie about Robin Davidson's camel trip tracks,
which was the opening film here, Robin and I are working on a book right now.
And I want to show you something related to the internet.
It's a book that flips over one side of it is pictures from the original project
that we did.
The other side is this book's not out and trying to sell you the book.
I'm trying to show you a technology. There's a very cool technology,
which is now you can take your smartphone.
You can point it at a picture from Robin's original trip.
So the picture there is Robin and her father, the day she started her trip.
And when you point the camera in your smartphone at this photograph,
it reaches out into the internet and it does this.
Video recording: I'm not teaching the radio You wanna die out there or something.
Rick Smolan: So suddenly it's taking this sort of, you know, 500 year,
a medium of the book and connecting it to video clips,
to content on the internet.
It's like Harry Potter and you touch on somebody in the newspaper and that
person turns around and talks to you.
I'm going to show you the two last website,
the way back machine I mentioned before.
So imagine if you wanted to see what the front page of the Adelaide advertiser
looked like the morning that the planes hit the world trade towers.
So it was a morning normal morning and Adelaide people waking up sports stories,
political stories. If you went to the Adelaide website,
the Adelaide advertiser website that morning,
you could see what things look like.
And then you type in basically www dot Adelaide,
advertiser.com.edu.
And you can see throughout the day how that website changed.
It's like an archeological dig.
I lost my website a couple of years ago because I was stupid enough not to have
a backup of it.
And I was totally freaked out because the company we're using to host our
website, went out of business and suddenly we were completely dead.
And one of my friends said go to the way back machine.
So we typed in the URL of our website, sucked our website back down,
and we were back in business on this immediately.
So this is what you'd see if you went to CNN right now and typed in and looked
at the front page of a nine 11.
And the last thing I'll show you is that also part of this way back machine is
that there's this,
there's a project now for students so that your kids can go to the internet and
say are things that are worth preserving.
What are the websites that are disappearing sort of moment by moment?
So there's a project where you can go out there. So, I mean,
I think the internet,
I think there's lots of scary and dangerous things about it.
I think we've gotten beyond websites. I think what we're looking at with mobile,
all of the things you're doing now on your cell phones, all of these,
all the ability to look for a restaurant or make a plane reservation,
or look up what the word, you know, George Clooney means all of this.
Now it's no longer going to websites.
Everything's moving to mobile and the internet is like the glue underneath it.
So thank you very much.
Audience background: [Inaudible].
Julian Morrow: Gentlemen. thank you for that.
Truly optimistic insight into the amazing technology that's available
today and which got me so terrified.
The way back machine is fantastic.
Although if you wanted to know what was on the front page of the Northern
territory news on the 11th of September, 2001,
you don't need that sort of technology.
My favorite phrase from Rick's presentation was the average
person today in Adelaide or times square,
a great local material. I like it. Hold on.
And you know, that bullet train stuff, that was pretty impressive, but you know,
all the bullet trains came to a halt at the same time that happens in Sydney all
the time. I don't know. That's not that hard.
But I I've got to say Rick's presentation did make me think that the only thing
better than getting everyone in this audience to do the Harlem shake together
would have been, if they'd all had Fitbit's on at the same time,
counted the loss of calories as we shook away.
Is anyone on the affirmative side wearing a Fitbit at the moment? No,
I pick a pub. Have you got one on Andrew?
If we were to track the data on your Fitbit, what would it have?
Tell us that told us about what you've done today.
Andrew Marlton: Oh, well, I've walked all over bloody Adelaide today. So this week,
this weekend has been, I've been I've had, I have a Fitbit.
Yes. Normally, no.
Julian Morrow: David, you're not app enabled in any way at the moment.
David Marr: Not yet, time may do it's terrible toll, but for the moment, no,
it's all natural.
Andrew Marlton: I've only got 6,156 steps so far today.
So I really go and have a walk after David's very interested in that
carpet thing then. Yeah.
Julian Morrow: Yeah. Oh, that's terrifying. Is that, is that, that exists now?
It's not out yet. God. Imagine if I can put that in pubs.
That would be incredible. All right.
It's time to move on ladies and gentlemen.
Our next speaker is part of the amazing
world, famous comedy duo, David Mara, and Jared Henderson.
They've been working
for a number of years and really should take that show on the road. David,
of course is a a national treasure of journalism and writing.
He's an award winning author as well. I don't need to tell you that.
Andrew's already told you about all the awards that everyone on the affirmative
is one. But he's the author of four quarterly essays,
which together makes one essay
well done. That was them quarter by quarter. I like it.
He's worked for many publications the age the monthly,
the Sydney morning Herald.
He was editor of the national times reporter for four quarters presented for
media watch. But now he writes for the guardian Australia.
So he's here because his boss calf instructed him to attend
ladies and gentlemen, please welcome David.
David Marr: Thank you sometimes at these debates and I do well to the most weeks,
there is a sense I have that.
It's almost cruel to come to the microphone when the other team has
made such a hash of their own case,
but it would seem to be kinder and more entertaining simply to wave across the
stage and say, look just the bill.
See what you can do to rescue the situation so far,
it's been pretty dire. I have never seen a team present.
So graphically the case for the other side,
when I sat there watching you all, jitterbugging in your seats.
I thought to myself,
what more graphic evidence is required of the inane stupidity of the internet,
but you are dignified.
An intelligent crowd should so demeanor yourselves to do that just for the
opportunity of one day, seeing yourself on some stupid little screen,
she's a bugging around in,
in response to this plant here with her convenient
convenience. I'm sorry. I'm,
I'm a little overheated and I must've in my day we did the
twist. We did it privately.
We did it privately. There's no record of me twisting, and I'm glad of that,
but all of you now stand condemned for all Time.
I haven't done the Harlem Shake in this glorious town hall.
How foolish, how very, very foolish. Then Rick came,
stood here where I'm standing. Now.
It is tragic over informed slides up on the screen here
because he is so contemptuous of you, ladies and gentlemen,
that he thinks you won't remember a thing, unless you've read it too.
And fancy language, the fancy language,
real time feedback system, Rick,
we call it memory still works
the way back machine Rick, we call it a library and it's
[inaudible] And those fancy devices. You're Talking about, let me tell you some
[inaudible] In my day, we hired magicians at kiddies parties.
We didn't come out to listen to them and we didn't buy apps,
but you know, the most stunning reputation of their arguments.
And I think it's going to hold good for Paul Atlanta. Bill's attempt.
I looked around the hall. I looked at all of you and yet,
despite how tedious they were,
despite how completely unconvincing they were.
I saw none of you checking your emails.
None of you going out on the net to find something good to read.
You were actually paying attention to them because you knew that the alternative
even stupider, you were trapped, listening to them,
but you knew the alternative was even stupid.
In 1983, I took a stand
that was a year Fairfax introduced things called computers.
They were in a sense typewriters attached to television screens.
I looked at these being installed around the offices of the national times,
which was a weekly newspaper that published in those days as an attempt to soak
up the excess revenue of the Fairfax empire and successfully,
I might say, and I looked at these machines and I said,
I won't be needing one of them. I was greeted with, you know,
I was just told, I was told, I was instructed.
I was instructed to use what I said, look,
I'm not hostile to the new, I'll give it a try.
And I was bullied into using a computer what's anticipated because
after Fortnite, I still thought to myself,
I'm never going to use my typewriter again.
And I gave my typewriter to a prisoner in a new south Wales jail who had
ambitions to be a playwright.
He broke out of jail about a week later and I was saddened that he left the
typewriter behind. But anyway,
I did the Turner.
I did to tell him that I was not going to be bullied into accepting
further change that my way,
but I would resist where possible.
And I have resisted to some extent, of course I email,
but I resisted even email. I was checking before I came on stage tonight,
I have 1,153 unread emails
in my little phone here. And I'll never read them. That's my way of resisting.
I have not joined Facebook. I don't want free. I know
want to know what my family is up to. They'll tell me if they must,
but I really don't want to know. I don't want to be sucked into Facebook.
I don't want to be a member of LinkedIn.
I don't want people to be able to find me. I live a quiet,
sheltered life getting on with my work and I don't need to be known.
And of course I will have nothing to do with Twitter, Twitter.
The dangers of Twitter, Jared Henderson's name has been mentioned it.
I don't go in for personal abuse in my work
I don't. And anyway, at the Sydney writers' festival earlier this year,
I was sitting having a cup of tea, cup of tea with my friend, Mike Carlton.
And we of course have a mutual fascination with this strange form of life called
Jared Henderson. And I said, I said to Mike,
I've worked out the word for him at last. I know what he is. He's just a crank.
And Mike thought that that was terrific word. And then he tweeted it.
He tweeted David ma thinks Jared Henderson is a crank.
It took. And I'm glad to say,
and I think it speaks well for Jerry that he's so unconnected to Twitter that
took him two and a half months to discover this.
And I was left in having to email him to say, well,
I think it was very rude of Mike to tweet a private conversation,
but Jared [inaudible]
okay. You see, for me, it's all about time,
Rick, Jonathan, and even you Anabel,
there's all sorts of things you think the internet can do,
but it cannot buy you any more time.
Even with that fancy thing around your wrist,
which is supposed to tell the world the precise dosage of whatever needs and
patients get knocked over on an Adelaide street, though,
the chances of that are pretty slim. Okay.
I'm glad to see that Adelaide is still Adelaide.
And I'll tell you what Adelaide is. This is Adelaide, the streets,
the roads are deserted.
They extend in straight lines to the edges of the universe.
And there are no cars on them,
but still the people of Adelaide will not cross those streets
until a little green light says they can.
And I say that speaks well for the civic virtues of a town
where people have not much to do.
The point is the point is I don't want to live in a world with no book
shops and they're going, I don't want to live in a world with no newspapers,
Kath Viner over there runs the finest newspaper website in this
country. And I say that, not just because I have to,
but frequently I'm persuaded of the truth of that proposition.
But I know in her heart what she'd like to be doing,
she would like a set of printing presses in this country.
She would like an elegant Berlin Gotti and rolling off those presses if
only she could, but the world has moved on because of this foul thing,
the internet do, you know, even drug dealers are having a hard time. These days,
hardworking drug dealers in towns and cities across Australia
out of work,
because you can just dial up your drugs these days and the nice
posty brings them to your door parently.
It's also sadly a world in which labor party fundraisers
are collapsing.
How can you have a trivia night fundraiser if everybody is just under the
table, the Third prime minister of Australia?
Yeah. Watson Watson. It's just, you know,
another part of our way of life is just disappearing
kitties in the backs of cars playing that stupid cat
game on their phones are throwing up more often on long
country journeys than kiddies have ever before.
It is a terrible situation. Ladies and gentlemen, there was a time,
a happy time a year or so.
There were that great politician in our country, deaf,
intelligent, full of full of human feeling.
Stephen Conroy
was going to clean up the net and I fought that here was a chance, you know,
the labor party, the labor government coming to the fore,
going to scrub that neck clean of dirt and filth.
So that here in Australia, we'd get a clean fee.
Don't you love that expression, a clean feed,
and yet the forces of evil plus some internal problems in his
party organization meant that the internet is
filthier than ever spewing up fifth.
Why does somebody like me,
somebody with all my future steal before me,
so resist change in this way, ladies and gentlemen,
it doesn't come without cost. I know the fun I'm missing.
I know that, but I have to keep my time for you.
I need every minute I can get to
squeeze out those sentences, which I know will delight you,
your highs, dancing over a page,
but has taken me probably three weeks to write.
I was a little disappointed last week when
that Canadian, nobody, Alice Munro got the Nobel prize, but
I think,
I think a rigorous program of continuing to turn
my back on the internet, Mike,
yet still you have the kind of results for literature in this
country that once could once again,
bring glory on Australia. I don't put it any higher than that.
I don't put it any higher than that.
Ladies and gentlemen, earlier tonight,
you will given hashtags and complex directions in order
to give you in order to, to, to vote on who should be,
who should win this debate. May I, as I leave this
lecture now urge you to do the old fashioned and simple thing,
which is to simply put up your hands now in affirmation that
we have even before Annabel Crabb does
to the argument of the negative resoundingly one,
this debate
gentlemen. Good luck.
Good luck.
Julian Morrow: The good news David is that Jonathan Kneebone actually videoed everyone,
putting their hands up there and it will be posted on the internet by the end of
tonight under the heading world's worst Harlem shake,
or perhaps we'll put it up under the heading Harlem jitterbug, just for you.
Just to remind you that at the end of the debate everyone will be called upon to
vote. Although if you did take down the hashtags or the numbers,
you can actually vote.
Now I know that the Lord mayor I'm voting quite furiously during David's
comments on Adelaide traffic.
So I think you're going to need to come back from behind just quietly guys.
And David, I've got to say,
I do think it was a little bit rough to blame the internet for a drop in
donations to the ALP. There are certainly other causes for that,
but what an amazing,
what an amazing revelation we had that David Maher has a son,
ladies and gentlemen, it's such a beautiful thing to have you here. Rick,
did you meet your father tonight for the first time?
Did you realize that he was an Australian man? I had no idea,
no, any and sisters that David hasn't told us about break this to my mom.
She be very surprised.
And what a touching story David about your donation to a prisoner
in the India justice Seinfeld was very grateful
and he falsified some affidavits using your implements.
So looking at a fantastic presentation don't get too worried. David,
about the number of unread emails. What did you say? 1,153 unread emails.
That's a far smaller number than the number of unread copies of your quarterly
essay. I don't think you need to worry.
It's time to, oh no, the jitterbug I,
then you said the twist was done discreetly.
Th the twist was actually illegal in Queensland until 1997.
That is a true fact.
It's time now to move on to our final speaker for the negative ladies and
gentlemen,
a woman whose daily media schedule is longer than the entire festival of
ideas in Adelaide. You might know her from the drum,
ABC radio Lateline election night the website,
her column in Fairfax, you may know her from everything,
but whatever you have seen him from, you will love her.
Annabel Crabb has complied with the directive to all speakers to
indicate what her favorite part of the internet is.
And she gave us this Australian
politics.com. Does anyone visit that site? Absolutely fantastic site.
And the great example of you know,
I suppose citizen archiving her favorite part of that is the
transcript of the Jeff Kennett,
Andrew peacock phone call which I think was recorded in the
days, even before the internet. But thanks to the advances in modern technology.
We do have an excerpt of it, which I can play for you.
Now it's a little bit a little bit crinkly, hard to understand.
So I've got a transcript for you as well, but do enjoy
tomorrow. I'm going to back up the hall,
hold you float the expression for shut up ladies, gentlemen,
if you've learned nothing else tonight, hold your flow.
Now Annabel on the off chance that there were some of you who didn't know and
love that clip also nominated one of my favorite parts of the internet as well.
Does anyone know drunk history?
Drunk history is an awesome website where they get people who specialize in
various areas of history to drink a huge amount of alcohols and then
explain the area of space. Okay.
And I thought just on the off chance that we hadn't had any videos, boy,
was I wrong? I'd again, edit down some of it.
For those of you haven't seen drunk history, here's just a taste of it.
[video audio]
Today we're going to talk about Ben Franklin, Ben Franklin.
Video audio: The most Frank, the most
discussed Franklin adventure was the kite in the lightens.
I believe
Franklin had his son William
prove this point. Not himself.
I believe Franklin was sitting down at dinner with Franklin's nuts.
At this point, he says, holy, Williams.
There is a lightning storm happening right outside.
Come with me. Williams says,
I believe that thing in the sky is the same thing that happens when you touch
metal after I'm in your feet on the carpet. William's like,
I will come with you only because you're my dad. I don't think you're right.
I don't think that electricity comes from nature. I'm going to have to throw up,
You can film me throwing up if you want.
Julian Morrow: Now
that's history, ladies and gentlemen, please. Welcome Annabel Crabb.
Annabelle Crabb: Thank you, Julian. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,
thank you for having me here tonight. You know,
I feel so grateful for the career that I've had the privilege of.
I wasn't mad. That's unkind.
I've seen some great things. I've I've I,
I watched Barack Obama be elected.
I saw Cathy Freeman win gold for Australia.
I've seen some hilariously funny things.
I've watched Tony Abbott be required to take his shirt off before entering
a ballot booth book, ballot box. True. Because he had a Tony Abbott shirt on,
this is in 2004. So he went in there just bare chested,
as you like.
I've seen that I've seen some very funny things and
nothing I think compares to the hilarity of watching
David Marr, trying to use a computer.
And I've been exposed to that over the years. And for drama,
hilarity and pathos, there is nothing like it in 2008,
shortly after I joined the Sydney morning,
Herald Fairfax in a brilliant innovation decided that we should be all
forced to use a device called the jazz jam,
the jazz jam.
It was kind of like a cross between a Palm pilot and
the ghost of the twinkle in the eye of the iPhone
with none of the convenience.
Needless to say, after everybody had been trained on this stubborn,
ridiculous device,
it disappeared entirely from Fairfax and was never seen again.
But the training sessions were advised to us
by means of increasingly urgent emails,
which most journalists in the company responded to and trotted it along to their
computer training on the jazz jam,
except for the ones that ignored those messages. And that's how is that?
I came to be sitting in a room in 2008 with
me, Paul Sheehan and David Maher,
the last three journalists at Fairfax to be fought into a
room and forced to use the judge jam ladies and gentlemen,
it was a two day course for the first day.
David Marr fretted sweated soaked
use the thing as a paperweight threatened to throw it out of a window
side and huffed. And on day two, ladies and gentlemen,
he did not turn
never in the history of organized thought.
Ladies and gentlemen has a debater taken the
lectern and demonstrated. So for a long thirdly,
so talented Lilly. So Melissa flawlessly,
his utter lack of qualification to comment. Yeah,
I was on tenterhooks,
ladies and gentlemen to see whether indeed he would move on to a
discussion of which was better, be a bit VHS or BETA.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we are nearing the end of this debate.
We are very close now to the rubber end of the plunger.
We have heard much, we have seen much thank you ponies.
And of course,
I understand that some of you may feel swayed by the affirmative team,
which consists. I'll remind you of a website editor who hates the internet,
an animated dog,
and a man who writes long hand on papyruses
isn't gentlemen, predictably enough.
They have paraded endless material before you that is nasty or inconvenient,
unspeakable children's toys, doing unrepeatable things to each other.
People who text in restaurants,
many things that true enough,
have all the obvious appurtenances of evil,
but they don't it ladies and gentlemen.
And here's why all the evil that is abroad on the
internet could just as easily be found in a hand mirror,
the size of humanity itself, the internet isn't evil folks.
It's us with all that,
that entails you don't need to convince me that the internet makes the carriage
of nasties easier without social media.
I would every day be in danger of forgetting what a stupid
biased, smart and overpromoted idiot. I really am.
And that my hair is a disgrace. Luckily,
hundreds of helpful advisors working for free.
Remind me every week.
Here's an email I received just two days ago in reference to my current stint
hosting seven 30. I read it in its entirety.
Oh dear. Whoever did your makeup last night,
obviously doesn't like you,
did you sleep with her husband?
You looked like a two bit
ready for a bit of business on Handley street.
And I thought you were such a nice girl.
Don't you dare come into my house. Looking like that. Again.
Regards Derek Mitchell,
Derek. Wow. I can't believe you're single.
You are single aren't you and you sound adorable. Ladies.
I'm sensing.
Derek is an Adelaide man run don't walk would be my advice.
Now, 20 years ago,
7:30 PM might have found Derek at home in
his preferred sexual position,
man on couch woman in magazine.
Yeah. Where upon catching a glimpse of a TV presenter,
he thought excessively made up.
He might've muttered a critique to himself and there,
the matter might have ended these days,
Derek can pop online and let that present a knows what he,
nobody thinks in seconds.
Flat internet allows people to be awful to each other
in real time.
It is like an air trumpet to the world.
Does that make it evil?
Does that make the internet evil ladies and gentlemen,
that evil has always been abroad.
It just changes its interface.
And we should not let that confuse us this evening.
We used to have crusades,
the KU Klux Klan and witch burnings.
Now we have the Kardashians
cyberstalking and in app purchases,
six of one,
half a dozen of tother now fabulously human way.
We moan about the crappy things. The internet inflicts on us,
forgetting again in our fabulously human way. A couple of things,
one that it's always an option to walk away from the desk
and to that for every troll attack or YouTube loop
of Kevin Rudd, eating his own ear wax.
There is a 75 year old woman in Perth who finds the girls.
She went to school within Glasgow. Thanks to Facebook.
There is a gay kid in a rural town. He, 30 years ago,
might've considered suicide, but now knows he's not alone.
There is a silent injustice that isn't silent anymore.
There is a ridiculous booty wiggle that starts with a couple of kids in Harlem
and rolls like a goofy snowball across the globe until it reaches Belle
Vista Queensland signifying nothing,
nothing at all beyond the glorious exuberant,
pointlessness of being alive. And so ladies and gentlemen,
we have the negative say to you tonight, choose life
humanity in all its ragged imperfection,
choose life,
knowing it to be full of pain and petty viciousness
and petty or authority figures.
And humanity's brute in humanity to itself and things
that make you sit in traffic, wanting to punch someone,
choose life because you only have one chance to find out whether all of that
crappy depressing stuff is going to be outweighed by love,
surprise,
and the innocent delight of finding out that there are other people in the
world who are interested in harpsichords
choose life for the joy of listening to Andrew
peacock and Jeffrey Kennet cussing at each other at Beulah,
currently on a car phone back when it was possible to eavesdrop
on mobile phones, chose life, ladies and gentlemen,
the internet is vast beyond imagination,
full of toxic swamps and islands of pure joy.
Horrible, fabulous, laugh out loud. Funny.
And then it's now called an intricate cartography.
We find for all of its elaborate confections,
something approaching a truth about ourselves evil.
Oh my goodness. No ladies and gentlemen, it's us.
And we have the negative say to you. Welcome
gentlemen.
Julian Morrow: Concludes the debate.
It is now time for you to vote ladies and gentlemen I'll hopefully be able to
bring up the technical information. Oh,
this is fantastic. You know?
Can you give him a hug for the affirmative?
David ma has ballot boxes up the front should only take a couple of
hours and we're using the Senate system.
So please think carefully before you go onto the line or you can use your
smartphone using the information on your screen now to vote.
Yes. the internet is evil. You, you, what do you do?
[inaudible] You text the keyword, Vote Yes to 0429883481.
Or you text vote no to the same number or you can tweak the key word.
Oh, this is an advance.
It'll work. Trust me. That's better than your argument. Yeah,
that's amazing. I'm forced to turn my phone off before this.
And then you asked to switch it to silent. Not at all.
I'm not sure how long it takes. We'll give you a couple of minutes.
Flight Annabel. I do understand these guys voting for themselves.
Amazing.
I do understand what you're saying about the sort of vile that you can get back
over the internet. Stu stupid bias, self promoting idiot.
I get that all the time. Not so much the stuff about the hair I've got to say,
but still and I have so many
wonderful moments. My favorite was actually a few words,
which I want to repeat only so that we get to see them again from our wonderful
Oz land interpreters. Let's have a round of applause for them again.
Let's go back.
[inaudible] It was that amazing.
You mean Jovana bell and Paul Shane and David Marr all in the same room and
David,
the little bit upset at what he was being asked to learn.
And if I quote correctly, I believe that he fretted,
he sweated he salt and he sighed and he
huffed like the gentleman Australia's leading David Marr impersonator.
David Marr: Just point out for the record that about three days later,
Fairfax abandoned that technology is completely useless.
I was at the cutting edge of good sense,
whereas the junkies who went into that room and anyway, sorry.
Julian Morrow: I thought it was amazing when Annabel mentioned the jazz jam,
that there was actually something that was more redundant than Fairfax itself.
That was truly amazing.
And I noted that calf while David was speaking clearly he's not
going to make you attend any formal training from any editing point.
David's like, you'll be all right from here on ed.
Multiple speakers: We have something called [inaudible]. It was a nickname.
Somebody persuaded Fairfax to pay a huge sum of money.
Just been a fortune was spent training everybody. And then it was abandoned.
That's the story of Fairfax. I think there's a vast pile of them.
That's now an artificial reef.
Multiple speakers: That's right. Yes. Yeah. The Harlem jazz jam.
It's going crazy on the way ladies and gentlemen, I hope.
If we've been able to tabulate the results, they'll be flicked up on the screen.
I'm not sure if we bought them. Are we able to do it
is the no team. Let's have a big round of applause,
ladies and gentlemen for the negative
partner with a challenge, correct me if I'm.
Speaker: Wrong, but that's the gist. There are 91 people in this room.
Can we have a show of hands please? Thanks the team one.
Come on. Show of hands. Oh, who thinks we lost?
Yay. Oh.
Julian Morrow: And based on the number of people who voted twice,
I'd say half the audience is from the labor party this evening.
Thank you very much.
Let's have a big round of applause for all our speakers at the debate tonight.
Thank you very much was fun.
Altro: This session of the 2013 Adelaide festival of ideas was recorded by
radio Adelaide through the support of the vast myth library,
university of Adelaide, the university of south Australia, library,
Flinders university library.