Net A Monkey
The great experiment has now started,
to see if a theory is true.
"Monkeys may type something useful,
so let us look in the Human zoo.
Give them paper, printer, a computer
and a net modem with training too;
now that there’s such clever software,
let’s sit back and watch what they do!
Just a minute though (stop and think),
these ‘monkeys’ are sharper than most,
so let’s fool them to buy the equipment,
at shops or direct through the post.
To motivate them play on their greed,
for power, 3D games or high speed;
throw in freebies and leave out fear
and they will all soon be in great need."
People came in via gates and browsed
through windows from their seats.
Controllers tried to exclude hackers but failed
and kept out only babies on teats.
A monkey eventually typed ‘...w.w.w.’
so they called it the Wide World Web.
They analysed all of the output for years
until world wide energy started to ebb.
The only creative work that was new,
was akin to politicians quotes.
In other words it was all worthless hype,
to win for a few people some votes.
One net advantage did come to light,
though it wasn’t worth all these measures.
Communications really gained in speed
at the expense of waits and treasures.
Notes by the author
When the web started to be taken up by the general public I wondered just what it would be used for. In particular , I could not see how it would make people more creative, which is what I suspect the world needs.
I wondered if it could realistically improve communications and information retrieval if everyone had to become typists, and most importantly, what would it cost?