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Yes

21 (27.3%)

No

45 (58.4%)

Not decided entirely, maybe

11 (14.3%)

Total Members Voted: 76

[Loud Whispers]

I must add I'm not disagreeing with you, at least on most of the things you said
Just saying if you selected random mainland Chinese and asked them on their opinion of the Hong Kong protesters, you would just be hearing the PRC's narrative.

[Radio Controlled]

Whenever I see discussion about internet (debate) culture and manipulation of information and such, I am often reminded of mgs2 at the end. As Rose and the Colonel explain:

The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half truths. The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems. Everyone withdrawals into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little pounds, leaking whatever truths suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large. The different truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but no one is right.

And that's from 2001, almost 15 years old by now. There's some more, you can find the whole thing easily on youtube and such. Dunno how far I'd say Kojima's prediction is correct, but it does seem he was on to something (or at least worded it nicely, I like the final line especially).

[Frumple]

*shrugs* Would still say that, correct or not, that still describes something better than what was before it. Even with the "gated communities" of the internet, you still get a lot of exposure to other views and whatnot, massively more than what insular societies would see just a few decades back. Before, it was entirely possible -- and damned likely -- to go pretty much your entire life in one of those little ponds, except the ponds were defended often to the point of violence. You still have many places in the world, even with internet exposure, that are like that -- even in the goddamn US I've met what's probably dozens of folks now that's shared stories of spending twenty, thirty years, their entire formative years and much of their young adulthood, without ever meeting/getting within speaking distance or exchanging any words of note with, say, a liberal, or a hindu, or a black person, and talked to older folks that literally spent everything but the last decade or two in that kind of situation. Nevermind anything substantial or any "clashing or meshing", it just outright didn't bloody happen.

From just about everything I've seen over the last near-three-decades now, even the most echo-chambery and protected of internet echo chambers doesn't even remotely approach how insular things can -- and pretty often do -- get outside of it. The ease of communication and equivalent actions to movement, the general lack of reliance on conforming for goddamn survival... stuff like that makes a genuinely massive world of difference when it comes to mitigating those flaws that blurb was talking about. I'd say pretty strongly that if you think the internet exacerbates those flaws, you haven't seen much of their manifestation in the wild

[Loud Whispers]

*shrugs* Would still say that, correct or not, that still describes something better than what was before it. Even with the "gated communities" of the internet, you still get a lot of exposure to other views and whatnot, massively more than what insular societies would see just a few decades back.

Nope, the wild west of the internet was a hell of a lot better than the gated communities today where you can get b& for saying the wrong thing and no one will even notice. Total segregation occurs and the only time they're exposed to outside ideas is combative but close minded.

Before, it was entirely possible -- and damned likely -- to go pretty much your entire life in one of those little ponds, except the ponds were defended often to the point of violence.

The USA is too damn big, people in the states have all they need in the world and don't need to ever go abroad
Jokes aside, geography and group mentality. People like to be around people like them (unless they like being confrontational) and so form groups which in turn moderate themselves to align everyone closer, then geography or social/environmental conditions separates those groups. All the ethnic, political, religious e.t.c. whatever way you cut it are separated by geography and infrastructure. Worlds within worlds. The internet going that way too is a tremendous loss.

You still have many places in the world, even with internet exposure, that are like that -- even in the goddamn US I've met what's probably dozens of folks now that's shared stories of spending twenty, thirty years, their entire formative years and much of their young adulthood, without ever meeting/getting within speaking distance or exchanging any words of note with, say, a liberal, or a hindu, or a black person, and talked to older folks that literally spent everything but the last decade or two in that kind of situation. Nevermind anything substantial or any "clashing or meshing", it just outright didn't bloody happen.

This surprised me until I realized it was pretty much the norm across the world, the farther you get away from interconnected infrastructure and the globalist world "touristy areas" everyone finds you an oddity. Which is funny, because I find them odd ^_^
I always found it funny when I was hopping around southwest England where people were complaining the media was making a right butchery of UKIP (our right-wing nationalist party) whilst back at home people were complaining that Blairite Labour (centre-left party members) were planning a coup on Corbyn's leadership (left-wing communist green pacifism with union backing), the two worlds were completely oblivious of one another. Where the roads carve up streets and even the great barrier of the Thames line up there is a stark contrast in peoples and beliefs. I find it amazing how 30m of water and a smoky tunnel are all that separates the people with blue hair socjusticing for lgbtqah+ from the Orthodox Muslims who came from states where they would've given them the death penalty

From just about everything I've seen over the last near-three-decades now, even the most echo-chambery and protected of internet echo chambers doesn't even remotely approach how insular things can -- and pretty often do -- get outside of it.

I've seen things

The ease of communication and equivalent actions to movement, the general lack of reliance on conforming for goddamn survival... stuff like that makes a genuinely massive world of difference when it comes to mitigating those flaws that blurb was talking about. I'd say pretty strongly that if you think the internet exacerbates those flaws, you haven't seen much of their manifestation in the wild

I've had people cut me off because I joyously maintained that eating chicken was ok, you think I say this lightly? I'm dead serious m8

[Bohandas]

I've had people cut me off because I joyously maintained that eating chicken was ok, you think I say this lightly? I'm dead serious m8

But they didn't actually shout at you or touch wih their unwashed hippie hands...

[Loud Whispers]

I've had people cut me off because I joyously maintained that eating chicken was ok, you think I say this lightly? I'm dead serious m8

But they didn't actually shout at you or touch wih their unwashed hippie hands...

They did both of those actually

[Bohandas]

I've had people cut me off because I joyously maintained that eating chicken was ok, you think I say this lightly? I'm dead serious m8

But they didn't actually shout at you or touch wih their unwashed hippie hands...

They did both of those actually

Oh. I thought you meant in an online discussion.

[Morrigi]

What honestly possesses people to believe that assaulting or yelling at someone because of a difference of opinion is acceptable?

[TheBiggerFish]

What honestly possesses people to believe that assaulting or yelling at someone because of a difference of opinion is acceptable?

Human idiocy?

[Bohandas]

The point is hat ypu can't do either of those things over the internet. The closest you can do is TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

[Graknorke]

The point is hat ypu can't do either of those things over the internet. The closest you can do is TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

But you can take it off the internet, get someone arrested for cyber-assaulting you or call a lynch mob or whatever.

[Bohandas]

The point is hat ypu can't do either of those things over the internet. The closest you can do is TYPE IN ALL CAPS.

But you can take it off the internet, get someone arrested for cyber-assaulting you or call a lynch mob or whatever.

I suppose. but inventing a trumped up charge is still harder than simply hitting someone.

[Reelya]

Face to face leaves little paper trail. The internet has obvious redundancy too, but with face-to-face you have much more capacity for repetition and not being able to be told that someone else has already had that exact same argument. It's pretty common to use previous debates as a resource when people are researching a topic to make points on it, and with online "paper trails" all previous debates are now part of the public domain literature that you can draw on. Sure, a lot of forum threads are bullshit, but so are face to face conversations. I'm sure everyone can remember at least one time that a well-written and sourced forum post was the thing that really enlightened some topic or other.

In this way, internet debates become a growing body of knowledge in every sub-topic area, whereas purely offline debates do not get added to the collective body of research very much, they only affect the knowledge of the direct participants. Wikipedia and other knowledge-base sites are good for facts, but debates are dynamic, not static information. A wiki page can tell you the facts but not teach you how to debate. You need examples of debates to learn that, and forum threads present those examples to learn from.

I'd compare it to the difference between asexual reproduction in bacteria and sexual reproduction in eukaryotes: offline debates spur the knowledge of the direct participants. Online debates become part of the collective knowledge, of both the subject area and how to debate the arguments.

[Loud Whispers]

Ah, in response to socjus twitter banning

Spoiler: Wikileaks is threatening to make a rival to twitter (click to show/hide)

I'm moist

Absolutely moist

[Egan_BW]

Wikileaks-brand Twitter? That would be interesting, to say the least.