The Internet Is Evil! WAKE UP!

[NewBattery]

Anyone worth spending time following on Facebook left after their mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousins, neighbours, teachers and co-workers joined.

EDIT: From my entire experience anyway. I do not mean to offend anyone who loves facebook.

[drillkicker]

Anyone worth spending time following on Facebook left after their mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousins, neighbours, teachers and co-workers joined.

EDIT: From my entire experience anyway. I do not mean to offend anyone who loves facebook.

The easy solution to that problem is to have a pseudonym on Facebook and only add people with whom you want to communicate on there. Also, posting things is dumb, I only use it for PMs because for some reason people prefer it to telephone messages. I guess it's convenient that it can be accessed from either the computer or the telephone, instead of just the latter.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

i get a lot of good info from facebook, i follow a lot of musicians, film makers, movie companies, game developers, certain trusted media sources, health strategy ppls, and some cool local ppl i like 2 keep some connection with. also with family members etc, u can actualy help those ppl to discover good info they wouldnt otherwise by reposting things 2 em and doin chats.
its nice 2 hav a custom stream of content that is comin from all kinds of dif sources and keepin u up 2 date on the wats up.
4 me the benefits of communication outweigh the paranoia /tomorrows harvest style worry about the possibl future doom related 2 personal data collection / manipulation.

[Cupz]

Dissapointing, imo.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

a worse evil than the internet is the attitude 'hopelessness/despair'

[ParticleGhost]

a worse evil than the internet is the attitude 'hopelessness/despair'

Exactly, having that kind of attitude for everything wont get anything done.

[Cupz]

A worse evil then hopelessness/despair is compliance/mindless obedience.

[Valotonin]

A worse evil then hopelessness/despair is compliance/mindless obedience.

I side with Cupz again. I would write me another essay but it would be no use.
What has the internet actually got us? We could communicate before, we could share pictures before, we could share music before. This illusion that it is creating opportunities that never existed before is bullshit. It is just homogenising and digitalising things that already existed. As much as I adore wikipedia I can't help but feel I would be in the vaults of an archive room right now, in a real environment, looking at handwriting and observing the decay on older studies, speaking to other people there for similar reasons. Now research is just sitting alone in front of the little glowing bits of electric current. As is or will be everything else. This seems to be the agenda whether intentional or not.

Spoiler: show

The machine giving you the illusion of being in company, but you really are alone.

[Valotonin]

People are real though, I promise you. Anything alive is really real. Never question that.

[drillkicker]

A worse evil then hopelessness/despair is compliance/mindless obedience.

I side with Cupz again. I would write me another essay but it would be no use.
What has the internet actually got us? We could communicate before, we could share pictures before, we could share music before. This illusion that it is creating opportunities that never existed before is bullshit. It is just homogenising and digitalising things that already existed. As much as I adore wikipedia I can't help but feel I would be in the vaults of an archive room right now, in a real environment, looking at handwriting and observing the decay on older studies, speaking to other people there for similar reasons. Now research is just sitting alone in front of the little glowing bits of electric current. As is or will be everything else. This seems to be the agenda whether intentional or not.

Spoiler: show

The machine giving you the illusion of being in company, but you really are alone.

The internet hasn't changed as much as you make it seem, though. Sure it separates people a bit, but anyone who is lonely due to the internet likely would have been lonely for other reasons a century ago. If you'd rather be searching documents in an archive, there's nothing keeping you from doing so that wouldn't have been a hindrance before the internet existed.

Also, in response to your spoiled line of text: this is a highly objective statement. "Company" is something that is only real when it is perceived. Whether you are alone depends only on whether you feel alone. I'm often more alone when I'm in a large and crowded city than when I'm in my house with no other humans present. Company is an emotion and can come from anywhere.

[Valotonin]

The internet hasn't changed as much as you make it seem, though. Sure it separates people a bit, but anyone who is lonely due to the internet likely would have been lonely for other reasons a century ago. If you'd rather be searching documents in an archive, there's nothing keeping you from doing so that wouldn't have been a hindrance before the internet existed.

Also, in response to your spoiled line of text: this is a highly objective statement. "Company" is something that is only real when it is perceived. Whether you are alone depends only on whether you feel alone. I'm often more alone when I'm in a large and crowded city than when I'm in my house with no other humans present. Company is an emotion and can come from anywhere.

Each to their own. However, archives of the present will appear only digitally in future. If you feel isolated in a crowd it is a sign of being incompatible with your friends. Is the illusion of company really preferable to company? Also humans are supposed to be in tribes of around the size of a large school class. Being alone is a side effect of society, not of technology. So yes, they probably would have been alone but only within society. My problem is mostly that.

[Valotonin]

Imagine I am stoned and saying that in a soft tone of voice (because I am).
I have a fear that people think differences of opinion will inevitably turn in to arguments when really they are just chilled, interesting conversations to me.

[Cupz]

Don't worry valotonin. Even though I don't agree with you word for word, I always hear the most laidback voice when I read your posts, even when there is a tone of urgency/cynicism to it.

There are still real hall of records where you can study pretty much anything, and there is a whole lot more information then on wikipedia. Wikipedia is a very biased form of information Some subject can not be explained in a single perspective like many articles on wiki or the entire internet for that matter, all is mostly written by biased individuals (because all people are just that, myself included). Its a handy tool for quick lookups, not for intense studies. I'd suggest finding real archives if that is what you want to do.

Besides for twoism, I see no reason for the internet to exist. I've been thinking, now that I've found out it is impossible to be offline completely (government issues are internet only now), about fighting for a "right to be offline" or something similair. It seems the only way to do that now is finding scripture forbidding it, joining a church and saying it goes against your religion. This is especially hard because, of course, the internet is not mentioned in the bible. Maybe the tower of babel. Point is, it shouldn't be that hard. Everybody deserves the right to be offline if they wanted to.

[Valotonin]

Everybody deserves the right to be offline if they wanted to.

[drillkicker]

Each to their own. However, archives of the present will appear only digitally in future. If you feel isolated in a crowd it is a sign of being incompatible with your friends. Is the illusion of company really preferable to company? Also humans are supposed to be in tribes of around the size of a large school class. Being alone is a side effect of society, not of technology. So yes, they probably would have been alone but only within society. My problem is mostly that.

I'm not incompatible with my friends, I love being in a crowd when I know everyone present. I feel the most alone when I'm in a crowd of antisocial strangers, which is exactly what cities are. I'd much rather have illusory company than that. Anyway, I side with Genesis P-Orridge who said that the future is going to shift the opposite direction at some not-so-distant point at which people will begin to value the ephemeral and intimate aspects of real life again. It may take a somewhat different form, but it certainly will not die.

[Valotonin]

[I'm not incompatible with my friends, I love being in a crowd when I know everyone present. I feel the most alone when I'm in a crowd of antisocial strangers, which is exactly what cities are. I'd much rather have illusory company than that. Anyway, I side with Genesis P-Orridge who said that the future is going to shift the opposite direction at some not-so-distant point at which people will begin to value the ephemeral and intimate aspects of real life again. It may take a somewhat different form, but it certainly will not die.

Apologies for misunderstanding your definition of crowd. That aside, we want the same thing, we just want it to happen in different ways. The coldness of the state of western society leads people to become more antisocial and to retreat in to their devices and thus distance themselves even more from strangers. Its a self feeding circle.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

yikes i dont even kno what 2 say at this point any more.. the idea that using facebook = mindless compliance /obedience is just a lack of imagination mixed with negative fear dominated thinking/disillusionment.

these blanket general statements 'the machine giving u the feleing of not being alone' is ridiculous. guys, is watching a movie on a big screen a bad thing to do? because those arent REAL people . those are just waht a MACHINE is telling u are real people. in fact at this rate i think we need 2 just get rid of all screens.
the internet is a medium 4 next level artistic communication. im sorry but u really are just not thinking creative if u arent excited about the next level possibilities it brings.

ja bless

[Valotonin]

Double post. Read below.

[Valotonin]

Think of what you would be doing if computers didn't exist right now. It just replaces the real. I have been sucked in to it but at least I am aware of what it is doing and am trying to ween myself off by being in nature and not having any device or electrical technology with me once a week.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

4 sure it is time to 'check what is real' . if you think the ability to communicate globally and make friends all over the world and share art of all kinds/make collaborations in virtual environments is not real then i am sorry but this is very simple thinking
its just like ppl who say there is no more good music coming out. they arent looking in the right places. mental limitations preventing people from seeing the 'pros' and so the cons outweigh.

and yes you would have been someone who protested the existence of SCREENS when they were being used as propaganda tools.

ja bless