h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The question that haunts me is, what is the internet really good for? (Only slightly less haunting is, why is the internet so self-referential?) I mean, besides text messaging... I know people like Douglas Adams are prone to opine that it's like asking "what are telephones good for..." But hey, I guess I think that's a fairly reasonable question as well. I'm torn between wishing I could have a special internet that got rid of all the porn and all the moronic crap, leaving only the million and a half pages really worth accessing, and the bedrock conviction that nobody should be censoring the internet in anyway - that it's in the end the censors that turn art into mere media. I guess I'll log a few entries and see what the rest of you think... And I put forth the open question: Over a decade ago, Hunter S. Thompson decalared that in the context of AIDS and acid rain, there wasn't much left except "television and relentless masturbation." I posit that in the context of the general ignorance, laziness, and small-spiritedness of the human family, the internet is rapidly moving towards being little more than the perfect way to combine the tow into a single slack-jawed, one-handed activity.