Computers are so middle class – Mark E Smith

I say don't push it on them. They will either realise soon enough that they are being left behind, or they will just get left behind and nothing of value is lost. Society will shape itself to the adaptation to technology regardless of a few stubborn mules. Maybe sometime in the future, dole cheques will need to be claimed online and deposited directly to an online bank account. That will get them learning the internet.

Who in this "story" isn't a fuckwit?

"I can never understand computers. It's a very middle-class thing"

- "I don't get it so it's something I dislike." Idiot, they've been around for 20 years. If you haven't figured them out, close the noise hole regarding matters you admit you know nothing of.

" Smith also berates people for using online banking and for Web2.0rhea: "You always thought people are daft but you give 'em the benefit of the doubt, but they are as f**king daft as you thought." "

- My, that's a well reasoned point. See my first point.

"Has he got a point?"

- No.

"Well, statistically he's correct:"

- No, he isn't, statistics or not.

"17 million Britons are internet refuseniks"

- A third of us. How is that 'statistically" showing that people are daft? It doesn't.

"... is on a personal mission to brighten the lives of people on "horrible council estates" – people who prefer shouting across the street to tweeting and real communities to online communities."

- Ah, there's the real middle class attitude. who am I berating now? The author of this article or the quoted Nobody?

This is why people own Staffordshire bull terriers. It's not a lifestyle choice; it's a necessity.

- See my last point.

SUMMARY

This isn't journalism. This is taking the effluent-like vocal output of someone who doesn't matter and keeping someone in a job somewhere writing a non-story for a news source I respect, albeit a little less.

I love the Reg, I'm a daily reader.

But this kind of "aren't the middle class snobby? Oh, and aren't the working class scummy?" attitude is exactly what neither the media nor the public need.

And sacking band members every few weeks...

Is so bloody upper class....Sorry Mark, you are totally off your rocker.

Mark Who? Mark What?

That's a bold tirade coming from someone with an opening comment like "I can never understand computers. It's a very middle-class thing". If you don't understand computers perhaps you should be more tolerant of those who do, of those who know their capacity and who have at least some idea of what technology has done and can do for us.

Alternatively, take all of that modern studio equipment you used for the last album, bin it and try recording the next one without it and let us mere plebs know you get on? No? You don't want to all of a sudden, thought not! Ultimately you've got to laugh at morons like this; so desperate to prove they're better than everyone else that their behaviour ends up falling far short of "people who prefer shouting across the street to tweeting"

As for Lane-Fox, how many failed initiatives does she have to champion before she realises the people she's calling the dog-on-a-string type think about as much of her opinions as they do of their dog's mess. She abjectly fails to see the advantages of real interaction versus virtual and if you don't know why one is better than the other and one results in the erosion of human interaction and social skills you probably don't have too much of either yourself

Just wanted to add

My best mate's a farm worker.

He has a phone. It makes phone calls. I think it may - apart from his watch - be the only piece of 21st century tech that he finds a daily use for. He doesn't have a PC, or broadband or an iAnything because he's not interested. He has a job that's more of a lifestyle and a wife and two small children and his mates, who he will once a week send one-word SMS to (usually either "pub?" or "busy") and, er, that's it.

However, Martha Lane-Fox, pointless cowbag that she is, does not get to call him thick or suggest he keeps a dog on a string. He did well at school, not only bright but a hard worker. Writing people off because their choice of job makes the internet irrelevant is stupid.

MLF then, is clearly far more stupid than my mate.