The Fractal Cats of Cyberspace

They say the internet is made out of cats and out of lesbians. All young and all vivacious and all subsisting on a strict diet of cheeseburgers.

That’s what they say and so that’s what I’ve heard, and honestly? I have no way to refute it.

The internet, as seen
through an electron microscope.

But if that’s really the case – if the internet is, at bottom, cats and dykes all the way down – I’m willing to stipulate to it for the sake of argument or until such time as some future cyber-physicist proves otherwise, but with a single solitary caveat:

The cats and the lesbians which make up the internet are atheist libertarian cats and atheist libertarian lesbians.

Don’t laugh. This is no laughing matter, compadre. It is deadly and it is serious and the future of the worldwide web may well depend on what I’ve got to say here.

Out there in the flesh-and-blood everyday world where I still venture from time to time, I’ve seen some felines. I have known some lesbians in my day, too. I even met an atheist once, and I’ve heard rumors that this guy down the street – that one with the evil laugh who’s always wearing a cape? – might be one of them there libertarians.

In fact, I have a torch and a pitchfork sitting next to the front door right now, just in case. I mean, you never know when we’re going to find out for sure, and we can’t have a libertarian living in the neighborhood. Everybody knows they drive down property values…

The thing is – just between you and me and me and you – I’m sort of an anarcho-atheist myself. Yes, me! My default position is close to that of the late Robert Anton Wilson, who once said,

“I DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING… Belief is the death of intelligence… A person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically braindead under current medical standards.”

So that’s sort of my default button. But I feel the need to mention here that I am a complete and utter freak. I rarely – in polite company, anyway – actually mention out loud that I am a cat-owning anarcho-atheistic lesbian, no way… And on those rare occasions when I do deign to reveal it, I’m generally stared at as though I just kicked the listener’s grandma in the stomach.

And that’s ridiculous, because I haven’t kicked a grandma in months.

What I’m saying is that there aren’t any atheist libertarians out there in the flesh-and-blood everyday world. In the flesh-and-blood everyday world, 80% of the people believe in God, and another 10% describe themselves as believing in some sort of high power.

In the flesh-and-blood everyday world, people receive Social Security retirement checks. Maybe get a few months’ unemployment benefits. Enjoy walking their dogs in the city park down the street. Write a letter or two to their city councilmember about the pothole out in front of their house.

But you just try mentioning any of those things online and you will be instantly dive-bombed by a loose confederation of Freepers, with their Ron Paul stickers and their Ayn Rand web links and a dazzling array of cyber-contractions that require googling in order to know for sure whether you’re even being insulted.

Where in the bloody hell do all these people come from? Do they really exist? Are they just viruses? Computer programs? Homosexual cats, maybe?

Me, I’ve given this conundrum a good deal of thought, and I’ve arrived at some working hypotheses.  And I’d like to share some of it with you, if you don’t mind…

The internet lends itself to a kind of cold and distant, smug skepticism, where everything is grist for the insult mill and all belief is groundless.

You’re not going to rail against the Astros in public in Houston, Texas, because you’re going to look like an asshole and maybe get your ass kicked if you do. In the flesh-and-blood everyday world, you’re not going to dash into a Roman Catholic Church on Sunday and start screaming about the Inquisition and Crusades, about the 1933 pact with Hitler or the molestation scandal. You just wouldn’t do that.

The flesh-and-blood everyday world is based on alliances and a sense of community and a social contract.

The internet, on the other hand, is based on a whole lot of solitary individuals sitting alone in their rooms, a bottle of rum in one hand and their own genitals in the other.

I guess what I’m saying – and I only want to have to say this once – is this: Cut it out, internet!!!

I became an anarcho-atheist because I was rejecting the values I saw everywhere around me. So if it gets to the point where everyone I see around me holds a cold and cynical outlook on life, laughing at belief and community and blah blah blah… I am going to feel compelled to counter those arguments.

Because frankly, you people are no smarter than the Catholics or the Baptists or the Muslims, just as silly as the Democrats and the Republicans and the New Agers. I mean, there’s a reason I’ve always rejected whatever the people around me are saying.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lesbian and a cat to attend to. They both need me, and you don’t want the internet to come crashing down, do you?