JAMES LILEKS: The lefty architects of the Web “thought everyone would be hippies and hippies would be mellow. You got a hundred million Abbie Hoffmans. Great job!”

This article asked many internet pioneers about how they think it’s all turned out. They’re not happy.

No one asked me, he said with a petulant sniff. I think it’s turned out well for those who regard it as a personal publishing platform, and don’t regard social media as an equivalent or replacement for the real world. It is a shadow realm full of tricksters and devils and angels and blokes and sheilas. It’s Second Life except it seems real because it contains Kardashians, who are the most important and fascinating people on earth.

Read the whole thing.