We can’t live without technology. That’s no secret.
What is interesting is how technology has become something to hide behind.
People have online identities that are virtually untraceable. It is not very hard to have an anonymous email account. There are people who don’t even have the courage to have that anonymous account.
People also say things online that they would never say in person. It is easy to write a note if you know no one can touch you. It is a whole different story if you are in an office and have to make the comment in person.
If talk is cheap, email is cheaper, and anonymous comments are the cheapest commodity in the land.
I have a number of blogs, one very popular one called Applepeels. I have to moderate the comments there, because it often touches a raw nerve with some Apple people. Once in a while they write things in response to my posts that aren’t in the spirit of reasonable discourse to put it mildly.
As employees of a Fortune 500 company, you would expect that the Apple folks could provide some real arguments if I am off base. Those real debates never happen with Apple people.
Unfortunately Apple is the North Korea of technology companies. The one thing these people fear more than anything is losing their jobs if they speak in public forums.
They afraid to use their real identities. I even had one Apple person make a comment, and send me a note asking for it to be removed because he thought he might have given away his identity.
Of course I removed it. More troubling are the Apple people who have a hard time handling the truth. Today I got a comment from one of them. He has sent comments before and usually has the same thing to say.
All he can do is launch into personal attacks. It is course the sign of a very tiny mind.
His anonymous rants also highlight his cowardice since he never uses his real name or email. I guess he doesn’t have the intelligence to set up an anonymous email account.
He hides behind the anonymity I allow. Still technology keeps me one up and allows me to monitor the comments and not publish the ones that I don’t like. I don’t force authentication because a few Apple folks will make intelligent comments, and I don’t want them to get fired.
In another time, I might have been writing opinion pieces and my cowardly antagonist would have sending anonymous poison pen letters.
While technology makes it easier to hide, it also makes it as simple as the click of the mouse to remove comments from the small minded folks who cannot stand the light of day.
Technology has just given us different tools with which to work. On the one hand it is easier to control the idiots and on the other hand they can still be pests.
The new tools will probably always keep those of us who use them ahead of those who try to abuse them.
Our technological infirmity 
I wanted to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your blogs. I picked up Ocracoke Waves first. I’m in vacation rentals, and own Ocracoke Island Realty, so I was curious on your title. It so happens that I have a home in the Blue Ridge, near Wintergreen, so i’ve enjoyed your view from mountain.
It just clicked that you work for Bluewater GMAC (the white shirt on the beach post). We share a web provider in 1BC.biz.
Thanks for your efforts, and please keep posting.
Bob Oakes
Thanks for the kind comments. Those help to keep me writing.
Ocracoke is one of my favorite places on earth, but I did my isolation stint when I lived St. Croix Cove in Nova Scotia on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in the 70s
During my college years I spent a lot of time camping on Ocracoke. I was there for the first footstep on the moon, I had to check into the only motel in town to get television.
I don’t think there are any beaches in the world prettier than Ocracoke’s.
I had some great times at Wintergreen also. We were there one time when it was so foggy that someone had to get out of the car and walk in front of it.
Does 1BC.biz also do your email? I used to work for Webmail.us which is the email that they have provided to us. I was a little surprised to find it when I arrived at Bluewater.