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
any way - 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 two into
a single slack-jawed, one-handed
activity.