9 ms·

The Internet Is a Series of Lead Tubes

38 points by fredfoobar42 11y ago

vlehto 11y ago
>online harassment I don't think this is reason enough for most people. I've gotten death threat once. I just didn't chat with neo-nazis after that. People will learn to not attract that stuff. Personally I find internet consuming because I get this feeling of being social, but I never get my need of socializing satisfied. I can "talk" here sure. But going for a walk with a friend and not talking much feels better afterwards. But this neither might not matter for the majority of internet browsing people. About 50% of population are extroverst like me.[1] The remainder is introvers. It's likely that majority of internet users are introverts, who have lot smaller need for socializing in the first place. [1]http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/how-frequent-is-my-type.htm http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-...
- sp332 11y ago
  Only one death threat? That might actually be enough to drive some people away, but I think the article was talking about people who get death threats on a regular basis. Sometimes just being who you are is enough to "attract that stuff". The most vulnerable are the ones who don't have friends or a support system nearby. Their only options are to put up with being constantly harassed, or cut themselves off from their community entirely. https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-ebook/dp/B011JAV030/ https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-ebook/dp...
  - vlehto 11y ago
    Most people are not idiots enough to hang at notoriously neo-nazi filled irc channel and argue with them. Most people don't get death threats at internet. So internet is not lead plumbing. It's more like early electric grid, where lightning could burn a house nearby. It's not going away, it will just get better. That being said internet harassment is a genuine problem. And I don't have solution for it.
    - sp332 11y ago
      Death threats aren't the only kind of harassment. Check out the comments on any popular Youtube video, or most news sites that have comment sections. There aren't many of those left actually, because they tend to fill up with ridiculously high levels of harassing and even threatening remarks. Twitter users had to roll their own group-blocking solution (and Twitter has built-in some of these features recently) so communities can collectively compile ban lists. There's just too much shit out there for any one person to deal with.
      - vlehto 11y ago
        I agree that it's major problem. But I still don't think it's existential problem for internet itself. If some person has to delete twitter account, that doesn't really justify who someone else could not order pizza via internet. Twitter users are about 10% of internet users. And the problem looks lot worse than it is. Popular users are lot more likely to be harassed, and we are more likely to hear stuff from popular users. Most are probably like me, followed by my mom and one real life friend.
        sp332 11y ago
        I disagree. Twitter, Facebook, email, and other messaging systems are how most people communicate privately and participate in culture. Ordering a pizza slightly more conveniently does not outweigh isolating someone. You're more likely to hear about harassment from popular users, but that doesn't mean lots of regular people aren't harassed too.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  Different people have different experiences, and it's not so simple as "don't chat with neo-nazis". Women, particularly, tend to get a lot more harassment than men do.
  - TrevorJ 11y ago
    It's more accurate to say they experience different types (both in classification and severity) of harassment than men. Pretty interesting study: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
mhandley 11y ago
The analogy is a bit strained. It's not really the Internet that's harmful, but rather some subset of the humans attached to it. We could cure some of that problem by mandating the abandonment of all online anonymity, but that cure is probably worse than the disease.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  The author seems a bit focused on trolls and general obnoxiousness, but for me the real problem with such widespread, constant communication is something else. That lends itself to two of the most dominant features of current human culture: the suffocating smallness (or, more properly, sameness) with which it imbues our world, leaving the probably accurate sense that there's nowhere to run to or hide if you don't like what you see, and the vicious "outrage cycle" that reinforces a particular and very narrow ideology. If you don't happen to agree with that ideology, and there's nowhere you could go instead that's any different (and certainly not any that's better), what's left to you? It's not entirely fair to blame "the Internet" for this; as Tom Standage has described, earlier forms of communication started these trends. But it really hasn't been until the last 30 or 40 years that communication has been both universal and instantaneous, and those attributes are essential to the kind of feedback loop that creates what we have now. And the worst part of it is that checking out of it yourself doesn't help. The author of this article is absolutely correct on one thing at least: the abandonment will have to occur en masse to make much of a difference.
  - crpatino 11y ago
    There has always been deviants, and there have always been two kind of deviants: the ones that figure out how to blend with the masses while retaining their identity, and the ones that meet sad ends at the wrong side of a pitchfork.
    - xixi77 11y ago
      There's always been the third kind, those that would take action to change their surroundings -- either directly, or by surrounding themselves with like-minded people. At least the second method seems to have become much easier with the advent of the internet (first probably too, but that's a whole other subject).
13of40 11y ago
Even without the internet, the status quo in the western world for several decades has been to spend five hours a day eating Hot Pockets in front of the television. Hopefully future generations will remember that when they're criticizing us for looking at too much Facebook.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- dx211 11y ago
  When you factor in the number of people who are going out biking/hiking/vacationing/etc. so they have something to show off to their friends, I think Facebook probably has a positive effect on our collective health. (Present company excepted of course -- we all just love to get outdoors.)
Shog9 11y ago
The lead pipes are highways. Not "information highways"; literal, people-bearing transportation systems. For a relatively short period in human history, it has been easily possible for just about anyone with a small amount of wealth to leave the place of their birth, to escape those pesky social problems that always crop up in groups, and to do so without a great deal of risk. ...And now the 'net is making the world small again and an awful lot of folks are realizing that they don't like being part of their society any more than their ancestors did. We got our scarlet letters and our witch hunts and our untouchables and our religious wars and it's all ruining our ability to laugh at the ancients because more and more we look at ourselves and see the same failings.
- exelius 11y ago
  This actually is a pretty good analogy given that highways have been a key contributor to climate change.
- abandonliberty 11y ago
  The human platform is inherently flawed. We need to build something better.
ctstover 11y ago
I liked the article. Slowly more and more reach that point on the on-line adoption curve to start realizing some sort of shark jump point exists. In my older age, I've learned its called "boredom", and it's a way of your conscience telling you there is more to life. Also, gray text on white background promotes illiteracy. Just learn to say no. It's very paux west coast.
xixi77 11y ago
"I love the access it gives me to all sorts of information, and how it connects me with people I would have never been able to hear from before. I hate how it also contains spaces for people to easily gather to abuse and harass people." -- ie. the good thing for him is that people he likes are able to find each other, the bad thing is that people he doesn't like are able to find each other. Sounds rather hypocritical to me.

38 points by fredfoobar42 11y ago

>online harassment I don't think this is reason enough for most people. I've gotten death threat once. I just didn't chat with neo-nazis after that. People will learn to not attract that stuff. Personally I find internet consuming because I get this feeling of being social, but I never get my need of socializing satisfied. I can "talk" here sure. But going for a walk with a friend and not talking much feels better afterwards. But this neither might not matter for the majority of internet browsing people. About 50% of population are extroverst like me.[1] The remainder is introvers. It's likely that majority of internet users are introverts, who have lot smaller need for socializing in the first place. [1]http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/how-frequent-is-my-type.htm http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-...

sp332 11y ago
Only one death threat? That might actually be enough to drive some people away, but I think the article was talking about people who get death threats on a regular basis. Sometimes just being who you are is enough to "attract that stuff". The most vulnerable are the ones who don't have friends or a support system nearby. Their only options are to put up with being constantly harassed, or cut themselves off from their community entirely. https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-ebook/dp/B011JAV030/ https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-ebook/dp...
- vlehto 11y ago
  Most people are not idiots enough to hang at notoriously neo-nazi filled irc channel and argue with them. Most people don't get death threats at internet. So internet is not lead plumbing. It's more like early electric grid, where lightning could burn a house nearby. It's not going away, it will just get better. That being said internet harassment is a genuine problem. And I don't have solution for it.
  - sp332 11y ago
    Death threats aren't the only kind of harassment. Check out the comments on any popular Youtube video, or most news sites that have comment sections. There aren't many of those left actually, because they tend to fill up with ridiculously high levels of harassing and even threatening remarks. Twitter users had to roll their own group-blocking solution (and Twitter has built-in some of these features recently) so communities can collectively compile ban lists. There's just too much shit out there for any one person to deal with.
    - vlehto 11y ago
      I agree that it's major problem. But I still don't think it's existential problem for internet itself. If some person has to delete twitter account, that doesn't really justify who someone else could not order pizza via internet. Twitter users are about 10% of internet users. And the problem looks lot worse than it is. Popular users are lot more likely to be harassed, and we are more likely to hear stuff from popular users. Most are probably like me, followed by my mom and one real life friend.
      - sp332 11y ago
        I disagree. Twitter, Facebook, email, and other messaging systems are how most people communicate privately and participate in culture. Ordering a pizza slightly more conveniently does not outweigh isolating someone. You're more likely to hear about harassment from popular users, but that doesn't mean lots of regular people aren't harassed too.
marssaxman 11y ago
Different people have different experiences, and it's not so simple as "don't chat with neo-nazis". Women, particularly, tend to get a lot more harassment than men do.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  It's more accurate to say they experience different types (both in classification and severity) of harassment than men. Pretty interesting study: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/ http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/

mhandley 11y ago

The analogy is a bit strained. It's not really the Internet that's harmful, but rather some subset of the humans attached to it. We could cure some of that problem by mandating the abandonment of all online anonymity, but that cure is probably worse than the disease.

fredkbloggs 11y ago
The author seems a bit focused on trolls and general obnoxiousness, but for me the real problem with such widespread, constant communication is something else. That lends itself to two of the most dominant features of current human culture: the suffocating smallness (or, more properly, sameness) with which it imbues our world, leaving the probably accurate sense that there's nowhere to run to or hide if you don't like what you see, and the vicious "outrage cycle" that reinforces a particular and very narrow ideology. If you don't happen to agree with that ideology, and there's nowhere you could go instead that's any different (and certainly not any that's better), what's left to you? It's not entirely fair to blame "the Internet" for this; as Tom Standage has described, earlier forms of communication started these trends. But it really hasn't been until the last 30 or 40 years that communication has been both universal and instantaneous, and those attributes are essential to the kind of feedback loop that creates what we have now. And the worst part of it is that checking out of it yourself doesn't help. The author of this article is absolutely correct on one thing at least: the abandonment will have to occur en masse to make much of a difference.
- crpatino 11y ago
  There has always been deviants, and there have always been two kind of deviants: the ones that figure out how to blend with the masses while retaining their identity, and the ones that meet sad ends at the wrong side of a pitchfork.
  - xixi77 11y ago
    There's always been the third kind, those that would take action to change their surroundings -- either directly, or by surrounding themselves with like-minded people. At least the second method seems to have become much easier with the advent of the internet (first probably too, but that's a whole other subject).

13of40 11y ago

Even without the internet, the status quo in the western world for several decades has been to spend five hours a day eating Hot Pockets in front of the television. Hopefully future generations will remember that when they're criticizing us for looking at too much Facebook.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dx211 11y ago
When you factor in the number of people who are going out biking/hiking/vacationing/etc. so they have something to show off to their friends, I think Facebook probably has a positive effect on our collective health. (Present company excepted of course -- we all just love to get outdoors.)

Shog9 11y ago

The lead pipes are highways. Not "information highways"; literal, people-bearing transportation systems. For a relatively short period in human history, it has been easily possible for just about anyone with a small amount of wealth to leave the place of their birth, to escape those pesky social problems that always crop up in groups, and to do so without a great deal of risk. ...And now the 'net is making the world small again and an awful lot of folks are realizing that they don't like being part of their society any more than their ancestors did. We got our scarlet letters and our witch hunts and our untouchables and our religious wars and it's all ruining our ability to laugh at the ancients because more and more we look at ourselves and see the same failings.

exelius 11y ago
This actually is a pretty good analogy given that highways have been a key contributor to climate change.
abandonliberty 11y ago
The human platform is inherently flawed. We need to build something better.

ctstover 11y ago

I liked the article. Slowly more and more reach that point on the on-line adoption curve to start realizing some sort of shark jump point exists. In my older age, I've learned its called "boredom", and it's a way of your conscience telling you there is more to life. Also, gray text on white background promotes illiteracy. Just learn to say no. It's very paux west coast.

xixi77 11y ago

"I love the access it gives me to all sorts of information, and how it connects me with people I would have never been able to hear from before. I hate how it also contains spaces for people to easily gather to abuse and harass people." -- ie. the good thing for him is that people he likes are able to find each other, the bad thing is that people he doesn't like are able to find each other. Sounds rather hypocritical to me.