From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Feb 17 2000 - 04:41:26 MST
Spike Jones <spike66@ibm.net> writes:
> ``The more hours people use the Internet, the less time
> they spend with real human beings,'' said Norman Nie...
Hmmm... I wonder exactly who we are talking with on the net. OK, a
quick survey: how many of us are AIs, posthumans, jupiter brains,
fictional people, uplifted squids, dogs or internet protocols?
> And I will spare you the rest. It did get me to thinking however,
> what if... somehow our new heaven-sent toy were to disappear,
> and we were to go back to the way we were, before the internet.
> What if we had to rely mostly upon our neighbors for social
> contact? I have never felt so alone as when I am at a block
> party with my neighbors. We have so very little to talk about,
> so little in common.
Exactly. Once upon a time we were forced to interact with people
simply because of physical proximity (or social class, which often
translated into proximity anyway), but now we are associating
depending on shared interests, values and projects. Maybe we are
really becoming more *efficient* in our social interactions since we
now can find the people to have fruitful interactions with more
easily? There is no doubt that there are some drawbacks and social
contacts we simply have to handle anyway despite a lack of suitable
conversation subjects, but overall I think this could be the start of
something new and positive in the development of humanity. Or another
reason for the species to splinter into special interest groups :-)
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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