I believe I have developed a sure-fire way to not only fix up to 50% of the ridiculous crap on the Internet but to also bring a new sense of balance and order to society in the flesh. I believe that everyone should be forced by law to wear a hat, shirt, or jacket listing the top 10 websites for which they are at least partially responsible. At first I thought it would be a good idea to make people carry around a pamphlet listing their top 10 most visited websites, but that would be unfair for every poor schmuck who received over a dozen fake links to goatse.cx, or the deluge of Rickrolling from the past couple years. If someone had to make it public that they were instrumental in the development and/or maintenance of something that normal society would find intensely embarrassing, they would either think twice about their online affiliations or at least warn the rest of us ahead of time that we're dealing with a degenerate.
Human culture would certainly benefit from forewarning in the case of Burt Goldman of Quantum Jumping. See, there are two kinds of online scams. There are the types that target the gullible and impressionable, and there are those that prey on people so stupid they find combination locks infinitely confounding. Similarly, there are two kinds of people named Burt Goldman. The vast majority occupy boring but respectable professions and a perennial chair at the Temple Beth El board of directors. The other type run unbelievably idiotic self-help businesses based on the unfortunate likelihood that people have no idea that there's a difference between actual science and the plot devices of 80's TV shows.
Burt here uses email lists and a website that looks like it was built in an E-Z Bake Oven to convince his customers that it is possible to "jump" into an infinite number of selves from alternate dimensions in order to attain new skills. See, I'm conflicted here. Burt has taken a concept that would make a decent RPG or possibly a long-running anime series, but he's wasted it on a crappy self-help scheme.
In fact, from now on I'm going to pretend that Quantum Jumping: The Inter-Dimensional Quest for a Better You is an anime series produced by, I dunno, let's a say a guy named Takeshi Uwajimoto and brought to American audiences by a decent, non-scumbag named Burt Goldman. Instead of robbing born-again newagers and imbecilic divorcees, Goldman gave thousands of sweaty fanboys a fleeting moment of happiness via semi-legitimate art.
Amount of Time Likely to be Wasted: Burt is a no-frills kind of con artist. His website is worth only a moment of mockery. It's a one-page jaunt that delivers a one-dimensional joke. Figure on five minutes, maybe ten if you show it to your friends at work.
Likelihood to Result in Arrest in Real Life: Arrest? No. A class action lawsuit from NBC led by Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell? Sure, especially now that Battlestar Galactica is over and Stockwell is back to doing jack squat just like Bakula.
MCDR: Bakula and Stockwell in mind, go find the episode of Quantum Leap called "What Price Gloria?" It was the first time Sam leaped into the body of a woman. It should definitely keep you from pursuing Burt Goldman's method, unless all you guys out there want to attain the alternate reality skill of bleeding from your genitals once a month.
Internet Depth by Preposition: In. I think you readers know the drill by now. Internet scams have an inherent link to the real world, if only by ambition. They've only got one foot in this infinite pile of anti-social crap called the Internet.
