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If the Vandals were at the gates, would you invite them into your community? Or would you rather live until tomorrow? From day-one, humans have had to deal wit

If the Vandals were at the gates, would you invite them into your community? Or would you rather live until tomorrow? From day-one, humans have had to deal with the very real threat of other humans trying to kill them. Unless you subscribe to a social-Darwinist belief that the strongest tribe can rightfully wipe out or absorb every one of its enemies -- and the weaker tribes deserve to go -- your morality must reckon with the real problem of inter-tribal agression. Perhaps this is what you meant by "Outcasts aside, ..." But if so, then your argument reduces to "we shouldn't keep people out, except for those that we should."

rolha-capoeira 7y ago
Feels like we've jumped the shark a bit, from talking about a free and open global Internet to talking about Vandals wanting to conquer our tribe? Obviously, we should keep people out that want to end our way of life, but that isn't where this conversation should be going. The original comment was talking about the privilege of early internet usage and escapism. And so to bring it back around, I can understand the nostalgia but I think wishing that the "rest" of the world would stop messing up "our" internet is a terrible thing to wish.
- gmfawcett 7y ago
  We've hopped perhaps, but not jumped the shark. You did invoke morality and the human condition as the basis of your statements about the Internet. So a rebuttal on that front is fair game. We mustn't disregard that other people are applying the dangerous-tribe mentality to their reasoning about the Internet. There are extant fears of hackers and terrorists organizing and funding their operations online, right alongside the bake sales and peaceful marches. Some of those fears may be justified, and the actors may represent a danger to our way of life. But even if they were all boogeymen, the fear is real, and people act dangerously and irrationally when they are afraid. The existence of an open forum where even boogeymen can converse, itself, leads to a general unease and reactionist policy making. Balance is needed in these discussions, but we can't achieve that without acknowledging that there may be a few Vandals in our midst who've already made it past the gates. If we pretend otherwise, we will be constantly talking past each other.

rolha-capoeira 7y ago

Feels like we've jumped the shark a bit, from talking about a free and open global Internet to talking about Vandals wanting to conquer our tribe? Obviously, we should keep people out that want to end our way of life, but that isn't where this conversation should be going. The original comment was talking about the privilege of early internet usage and escapism. And so to bring it back around, I can understand the nostalgia but I think wishing that the "rest" of the world would stop messing up "our" internet is a terrible thing to wish.

gmfawcett 7y ago
We've hopped perhaps, but not jumped the shark. You did invoke morality and the human condition as the basis of your statements about the Internet. So a rebuttal on that front is fair game. We mustn't disregard that other people are applying the dangerous-tribe mentality to their reasoning about the Internet. There are extant fears of hackers and terrorists organizing and funding their operations online, right alongside the bake sales and peaceful marches. Some of those fears may be justified, and the actors may represent a danger to our way of life. But even if they were all boogeymen, the fear is real, and people act dangerously and irrationally when they are afraid. The existence of an open forum where even boogeymen can converse, itself, leads to a general unease and reactionist policy making. Balance is needed in these discussions, but we can't achieve that without acknowledging that there may be a few Vandals in our midst who've already made it past the gates. If we pretend otherwise, we will be constantly talking past each other.