Dehumanizing Internet

[fredd bear]

It occurred to me that the internet is making about 80% of us redundant on a pretty basic level.

Where I came from, not that many people thought like me, or expressed ideas like the ones you guys do.  That gave me a niche-- just by being a pretty smart guy and knowing how to use words, I had a role.

But there's that same guy in every town, and a hundred of them in every city, and thousands of cities in the world.

I started playing a little game-- I go to any other site, and figure out which guy is the bennboy, or the Khem, or the Little Ricky, or the Shell B or the Losty or the Jorg.  They're all there, in slight variations, like archetypal internet gods.

It seems to me that technology hasn't just made certain production jobs irrelevant-- it has made entire categories of thinkers pretty much irrelevant as well, in the sense that you could weed out 99% of the bennyboys out there and still have that category of thinking well enough represented.  And at the risk of being mean-- I'm not sure that if this entire forum (or any other particular one) disappeared, that the holographic info that is archetypal humanity would be affected even a little bit.

Am I unique?  I always thought so, but now I'm not so sure.

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Thoughtful post. I agree in principle.

I've been hanging around forums for over a decade, mainly for atheists, except the time I joined  that Cairo based History forum.. I made the mistake of challenging a guy who insisted the the Quran is  History. Fair dinkum, those cunts are nuts!  They all turned on me, some made death threats. I left. 

The longest I've ever spent on a forum is 18 months . I usually leave after I've become too involved and allowed myself to become distressed by something someone has written at me. Forums are a past time for me , hopefully a bit challenging as well as a source of some fun.

I never leave in a huff, it just makes people defensive.  Usually say goodbye privately to a few personalities I like and respect. I remain acutely aware that an internet forum is a virtual reality. Its anonymity allows people a freedom of expression not found in real life. That is not always a positive experience for others.

I man no offence when I say individual forums are usually almost clones or others I've been on. bennyboy's right; similar personality types. This forum is slightly different in that I can't remember ever before running into anyone as wilfully ignorant and intransigence as a few of the resident alleged Christians here. 

It has never taken me more than 15 minutes to find and sign up to  a new forum.


Are any of us unique? In a metaphysical and biological sense, possibly. In terms of interaction with others, not really. That's why police can use profiling, and psychs of varying types can work out personality types, and even predict broad behaviour in within a personality type or disorder. 

When I was 23 I wrote down a couple of personal ambitions;  I wanted a 5000 book library (never had more than  about 2000) and I wanted to experience a truly original thought. That I have not yet done so, as far as I'm aware, suggests to me my sense of being unique may simply be a personal conceit.


Thought for the day: "Youth and enthusiasm will always be defeated by old age and treachery" (Tarquin St John Shagnasty)