The internet is really a pretty amazing thing. Back in the late 80s when most of my contemporaries were asking their older brothers and sisters for the leftovers from their underage pissups – drinking VB and listening to Cold Chisel – I was the 13 year old at home with a 2400 baud modem, and Apple Macintosh SE/HD and an AKAI CD player filled with the newest Hip-Hop from around the world.
Even now, listening to albums like Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow The Leader”¬ù, Ice-T’s “O.G.”¬ù or Pubic Enemy’s “Fear of a Black Planet”¬ù (Hip-Hop’s “Sergeant Pepper’s…”) reminds me of a late Saturday night, logging onto any one of Melbourne’s many nascent BBSs and internet portals and chatting to all sorts of early net nerds from around the world on IRC or any other communications services.
But when I hear of things like online hunting services, where people can remotely and from the comfort of their own home hunt and shoot animals via an internet remote control, robotically aimed rifle, then I can only praise the imagination of mankind and the beauty of entrepreneurship, creativity and capitalism. The internet truly has advanced civilisation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no hunting buff/enthusiast. ¬†I can only surmise that people who would willingly track down and hunt innocent animals are themselves mostly insane or at the very least sexually deprived. ¬†And I’m as against guns as anyone can be.
Well, let me clarify that: I do get a small, evil thrill when I go to the Army stand at the Grand Prix or the Royal Melbourne Show, pick up an unloaded Steyr rifle, cock it and click.
ANYWAY, I digress. Someone is selling a service which means that even hunters and gun nuts, can have a comfy and remote way of killing wild beasts with the simple click of a mouse. I can only say that this sort of thing is a prime example of the genius of mankind. I’m not joking. ¬†I am totally against it, but it I am in admiration of the imaginative forces and the huge number of people that the founder had to convince to say “yes” to bring it to life.
Would I ever do it? Never in a million years. But if I were an incapacitated loser with a penchant for killing innocent animals, sitting at home surfing the net, I could think of not a single thing better to do with my pension than to get online and shoot some animals with the use of my trusty, cocked and fully loaded iMac. Capitalism, the profit motive and the mighty USA has brought us that option, that unique service. Some know-it-all pinko scumbag wants to ban it. No way. Let people do what they want. No matter how weird and repulsive. Or cool.
Don’t do it – but at least have a look at it¬†HERE.