Is the Internet any good? [rant-ish]
 

I love talking to all of you, but..

How has it changed everyone's perception of where they live and relationship to the person on the street?

The person on the street is the thing, for me anyway. The internet makes every cunt who wants to blow something up suddenly live on the same street.

Are we fated for a drawn-curtain future where daring out is life-threatening?

Well... i havent left my house in 6 months because of the fear from terror.
(ok.. not really) :)

You got to live your life to the fullest,Whether its doing extreme sports or going out for a bear.

The Internet is a great resource; it is a tool to me, that's it.

I think people in general have become less social over the past few decades, probably in part because they are so goddman busy.

I agree with you Matt, I'm all about community. I have good relations with all my neighbors because I take a few minutes here and there to talk with them when I am mowing my lawn, taking out the garbage, or just if we both end up on our driveways at the same time.

For instance, last night my neighbor Cathy asked me and my other neighbor, Greg, to help her move a 60 inch TV into her house. Greg and I went over after dinner and got the job done in 10 minutes. Then this morning I needed maple syrup for our special Saturday, blueberry+banana pancakes/bacon/sausage/omelet breakfast; so I went over to Cathy's and borrowed some of hers.

Neighbors are a great resource, so is the Internet.

My neighborhood is a great community, so are some places on the Internet...like here!

But as far as people being locked away using 5 different IM programs at one time, downloading from multiple torrent sites, and never seeing the light of day...that's not me.

I have not had time to watch television for over 15 years. I have never watched an entire football or soccer game from start to finish in my entire life. I cannot bear to sit still on my ass for any extended period of time. The same is true for me and the Internet. I sit down at my PC, read my favorite spots, check my email, fire off some responses, and then get back to the 15 things that I'm doing at any one time.

Yes I like having the library of congress at my fingertips, yes I love digital music streams, yes I love forums and my Gmail account...but if I had to choose between that and a good game of poker with my friends or some time alone with my wife or an hour with my kids at the playground, the Internet loses EVERY time.

:)

The Internet has porn.

Internet forums, like this one, have created a completely new level of communication even on psychological aspect. The forums have created internet personalities. This means that we all play a role behind our more or less anonymous and "faceless" nicks and this role in some cases doesn't correlate even slighlty the real and natural personality, the one that you face on the "real life" face-to-face communication.

The reasons a internet role is formed are:
1. It's easy to be excentric and open on a forum board. This effectively eliminates the cons of shyness. It's easier for people to join a discussions and say things one otherwise wouldn't dare on a face-to-face situation.
2. The method of communication is simple text. In face-to-face communication you'll usually speak and in addition to the speech the information is transmitted by bodylanguage, tone of voice, etc. On forums everyone are on the same line.

We have brilliant forum here. We have bizarre personalities here and the regular visitors have become friends over the time. This is all thanks to the anonymous communication internet offers. It believe that some of us wouldn't have become firends if we would have met in "real life". Our internet personalities have become friends and I hope that someday I meet at least some of my buddies in real life too. At the moment I have only met Matsa briefly when he got thrown out from a gig we were supposed to meet. Hoho.

Juho, you are correct with the exception of those of us who have used our real names as our forum logons. In my case it is intentional. I am very consitent, whether in the flesh or via the WWW. If you love or hate me in one medium, you'll love me or hate me in all others. ;)

Yep, but I think that most of us who get along here on the UAVF would do so in real life just the same, we just would most likely not have the benefit of each other's proximity, and hence never have a chance to become comrades. For some reason your comment above reminded me of the movie "The Breakfast Club" whereas here I always feel more like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

:)

Cheers!

-Alex

But the name is still a name. It's not more or less real than Digital Screams or 3o3. The internet forum anonymity isn't depended on revealing your real name. You still don't interact with others as yourself, but you use a machine instead. Name is only a name. Only flesh gives the meaning for the name. For example how you could know if I'm a highly developed AI computer?

I have used my real name almost right from the beginning of my forum adventures, but it still doesn't exclude the existence of my internet personality. It's really hard to dinguish the internet personalities from the natural personality as they're almost identical, but there are some differences. It's so hard to explain. Maybe I'll just cut out this crap. Hoho.

I get the gist of what you are explaining, Juho, but I maintain that the differences between my persona in viv vs. via TCP/IP are miniscule enough to consider the two one in the same. The only real difference is that I can't clobber you on the web, I can only spew vile words at you.

;)

I've met Juho, as he mentioned, rather briefly, erm, and I've spoken to Alex loads of times. I think. Or was it all just a dream? It's usually about 4.30 am on a weekday when he calls.
;)