In Search Of …, Intelligent Life On The Internet Options

[Jonny Cache]

I have to say, it's not looking so good …

There's this «Big Bung Hole» called the «English Ediocracy» that sucks all the wits out of anyone who ventures too nigh its pale.

Even Google, whose «Dim Satanic Engines» did more than any other force against nature to shove our collective heads up the aforesaid E-Hole, has said that it's now wised up and promised to start firing its retros.

But will it be in time ???

Not even «The Shadow» knows …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Mon 7th January 2008, 2:42pm

[Amarkov]

The attraction of the Internet is that every idiot can use it. So, of course, every idiot does.

[Yehudi]

And on the Internet, nobody knows if you're a dog.

[AB]

The attraction of the Internet is that every idiot can use it. So, of course, every idiot does.

You forgot the lower classes of the world who do not have
internet access or computers. Or electricity, for that matter,
in many cases.

[Jonny Cache]

Another thing I've been wondering about lately is this —

When exactly, and how exactly, did people go from being the kinds of footloose and fancy free, wild and wooly web surfers that I used know in the old days to locking themselves up in rotten stinking stifling rat cages like Wikipedia?

What is that about?

Jonny

[Milton Roe]

Another thing I've been wondering about lately is this —

When exactly, and how exactly, did people go from being the kinds of footloose and fancy free, wild and wooly web surfers that I used know in the old days to locking themselves up in rotten stinking stifling rat cages like Wikipedia?

What is that about?

Jonny

Internet Explorer. You can't go anywhere on the net these days with it, without your computer getting herpes.

Weren't you talking about Fromm's The Fear of Freedom? Maybe that was somebody else.

If you dump a cat off in a strange room in a strange house, will it sit in the middle of the floor and give you the evil eye? (I have a cat that will, but it's got attitude, and I think it's possessed). Most won't. Metaphorically, nor will most people.

Where do you get your gas? Do you find yourself using the same two stations, over and over? And the same PUMP in that station, even? Be honest. Exploration and investigation is hard work and takes wetware processor power better used for thinking about your income tax return.

[Jonny Cache]

Another thing I've been wondering about lately is this —

When exactly, and how exactly, did people go from being the kinds of footloose and fancy free, wild and wooly web surfers that I used know in the old days to locking themselves up in rotten stinking stifling rat cages like Wikipedia?

What is that about?

Jonny

Internet Explorer. You can't go anywhere on the net these days with it, without your computer getting herpes.

Weren't you talking about Fromm's The Fear of Freedom? Maybe that was somebody else.

If you dump a cat off in a strange room in a strange house, will it sit in the middle of the floor and give you the evil eye? (I have a cat that will, but it's got attitude, and I think it's possessed). Most won't. Metaphorically, nor will most people.

Where do you get your gas? Do you find yourself using the same two stations, over and over? And the same PUMP in that station, even? Be honest. Exploration and investigation is hard work and takes wetware processor power better used for thinking about your income tax return.

Fromm comes up from time to time. I keep being reminded of Alan Watts's's's' Wisdom of Insecurity. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

I remember that story about the Tar Baby from childhood …

And don't forget Hermit Crabs …

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 3rd April 2008, 4:45am

[Somey]

Where do you get your gas? Do you find yourself using the same two stations, over and over? And the same PUMP in that station, even? Be honest. Exploration and investigation is hard work and takes wetware processor power better used for thinking about your income tax return.

I suspect there's more to it than just brand-loyalty, force of habit, and fear of malware - though the all of those things are certainly involved...

Participation in the building of a site creates (pseudo-)intellectual capital, even if the site isn't really a pseudo-academic enterprise. From the perspective of the site operator, MediaWiki's most significant feature is its ability to give people a means of easily displaying and measuring their intellectual capital, in the form of contribs pages, blue links, and so on. (IOW, if you're listing the articles you've written on your user page and most of them are red links, then your intellectual capital isn't doing so good.) Constant reminders of the amount of time and effort expended on the website already are crucial to getting people to keep coming back.

There's also the matter of giving people a means to spend their intellectual capital in such a way as to win arguments, obtain greater privileges, develop political alliances, and so on. MediaWiki isn't as good at that as it could be, but it's good enough. If anything, it's to the credit of the MediaWiki developers that they don't add additional Facebook-like social-networking features, since then things would get much, much worse. (Of course, they generally haven't been adding any useful features whatsoever, so you can't give them that much credit.)

You can't just pass it off as the effective use of software to encourage addictive behavior - it's probably true that there's some degree of addictive tendency in everyone, but it takes an extremely cleverly-designed system to hook people who are, by and large, smart enough to know better.

[Miltopia]

The attraction of the Internet is that every idiot can use it. So, of course, every idiot does.

Suddenly the problem with Wikipedia comes into focus...

Side note: haven't seen you post in a while, maybe our interests just haven't interseted recently. But if you were away, glad to see (read) you back :-)

[Jonny Cache]

Where do you get your gas? Do you find yourself using the same two stations, over and over? And the same PUMP in that station, even? Be honest. Exploration and investigation is hard work and takes wetware processor power better used for thinking about your income tax return.

I suspect there's more to it than just brand-loyalty, force of habit, and fear of malware — though the all of those things are certainly involved …

Participation in the building of a site creates (pseudo-)intellectual capital, even if the site isn't really a pseudo-academic enterprise. From the perspective of the site operator, MediaWiki's most significant feature is its ability to give people a means of easily displaying and measuring their intellectual capital, in the form of contribs pages, blue links, and so on. (IOW, if you're listing the articles you've written on your user page and most of them are red links, then your intellectual capital isn't doing so good.) Constant reminders of the amount of time and effort expended on the website already are crucial to getting people to keep coming back.

There's also the matter of giving people a means to spend their intellectual capital in such a way as to win arguments, obtain greater privileges, develop political alliances, and so on. MediaWiki isn't as good at that as it could be, but it's good enough. If anything, it's to the credit of the MediaWiki developers that they don't add additional Facebook-like social-networking features, since then things would get much, much worse. (Of course, they generally haven't been adding any useful features whatsoever, so you can't give them that much credit.)

You can't just pass it off as the effective use of software to encourage addictive behavior — it's probably true that there's some degree of addictive tendency in everyone, but it takes an extremely cleverly-designed system to hook people who are, by and large, smart enough to know better.

Yup, I think that Somey is on the right trek here.

It's like the orbits that e-lecturons fall into on their lazy-fairy low-energy days. They gravitate — excuse the mixed meta-φorce — to sites where they get to feel like Least Action Heroes in the Catatonic Imperative Crusade of the Grand Unifixation Church (GUC) without hardly lifting more than a singular finger at a time.

And, not indecentally, it's just the sort of non-motive farce that feeds into that favorite hook of con artists everywhere — the Fantasy Of Getting Aught For Naught (FOG∃4Ø).

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 3rd April 2008, 12:52pm

[Jonny Cache]

Okay, that's it, I can't take another wave of retched refuse from the tag-teaming shores of Wikipedia, much less another Great Wale Of China story.

There is nothing new to say here. The problem with Wikipedia is exactly what it's always been — it's a Multimarionette Online Blog (MOB) pretending to be an information source.

But spending too much time in the Jimbo Naborhood (more precisely, the Gomer WikiPyle) of people who will not learn is making me lose my faith in humanity.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 3rd April 2008, 6:56pm

[Miltopia]

Jonny, isn't it better to lose one's faith in humanity than hide from what may be the truth?

If you're losing faith in humanity, maybe that faith is misplaced... it's a depressing thought, but I don't believe hiding form the truth (for want of a less melodramatic phrase) is ever good.

[Moulton]

Wikipedia is not an instance of what Peter Senge calls a "Learning Organization."