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Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

suicidemachine.org

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Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#31
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I have different definitions of dangerous. Risky might be a better word. But the right word for that sentence is probably "unpleasant" or "vexing". Dangerous is getting your hand caught in your disposal. Not being able to talk to a neighbor is like getting a piece of food caught in your disposal. I'd say it's more dangerous to not know your neighbors. If you're ever in trouble in your neighborhood (where you…

I think... hope... he was being sarcastic.

I don't think he was :-)

(I was going to say "you must be new here", but clearly you are not)

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#32
post #19
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have to disagree on that one, as a designer. I see a lot of mistakes: - Inconsistent font usage. - The page isn't centered properly, it's slightly to the left. - Light blue on white text. - Improper whitespace usage on the "Faster, Safer, Smarter, Better" section. - The social network icons, the monitor, and the trophy are all aliased horribly. Someone used the wrong type of anti-aliasing when resizing them.…

Listen, a designer spent 1 month painstakingly criticizing and pulling apart smashing magazine (a very famous designer/developer's blog) website's new design: http://www.awayback.com/smashing-magazine-realigned/ Designers are like that. Give them enough time they will find some mistakes in your work and brag about it. As a designer/developer I think I speak for myself and most design community. Chances are, some desi…

Tim's criticisms weren't at all small nitpicks. That's Design 101. I'm not a designer and I noticed the same things he did.

While it's true that designers thrive in critique, this simply was not an impressively-designed site.

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#33
post #22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea. I have a job and bathe regularly. Yet I walk through the ghetto every day, and find that folks there are still unemployed and smelly. They're just not following my example like they should!

Memetic propagation is not instantaneous, grasshopper.

Perhaps. But I guess my point was that "be the change you want to see in the world" is easy, since all I want is for everybody to be like me!

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#34
post #4

Good concept but, personally, I find the overdone suicide logos and graphics unsettling.

Very unsettling. I don't understand how this topic is a punchline to so many people.

Utterly tactless, but I'm not sure how much you'd be able to muster with a url like that.

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#35
The people who feel the need to do this have missed the point of the sites in the first place.

I have an account on all three services. All of my friends on there are people I have physically met and like as people (or in the case of LinkedIn, business contacts). The only site I'd probably be fine with losing is MySpace, as it was fine before Facebook went public, but after that all of my friends moved to Facebook, making MySpace redundant.

I think the real issue is people who treat it like some soft of demented game of Pokemon. You don't have to "catch 'em all" and get everyone on the site to "friend" you. You don't win.

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#37
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're speaking with tongue-in-cheek but there's some unsettling truth to what you say. People can be less involved in their community if they can just escape to like-minded havens on the internet rather than fixing the real issues going on around them (see al3x's post about fleeing to Portland for reference: http://al3x.net/ ).

I went to a church on Christmas Eve last year for the carols and I found it invigorating and enlightening to talk to people who weren't 20-something grad students or professors. I worry that we're missing out on something by congregating in social and intellectual monocultures in which we are never challenged by someone that sees the world from a different viewpoint.

I think there is a lot that is lost by society's tendency to group similar people and people's natural tendency to seek out those who are similar to each other. When all the elderly people get put in retirement homes think of what is lost by those who could have benefited from the elderly person's years of experience and wisdom.

If you want to be a better entrepreneur, you are probably going to find an older entrepreneur who has some experience to teach you something, not one in your peers. Well, if you constantly surround yourself with those similar to you, how are you going to be challenged to grow as a person?

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#38
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should give http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone a read. Might offer some new perspective: He has described the reduction in all the forms of in-person social intercourse upon which Americans used to found, educate, and enrich the fabric of their social lives. He believes this undermines the active civil engagement a strong democracy required from its citizens.

There was a story on NPR a few years ago about this exact phenomenon in retirement communities in Florida. Places where there was no one under the age of 55 and no kids around. The societies quickly degenerate because no one has any incentive to invest in infrastructure beyond what they can use in the next 10-15 years. They care about the functioning of the society to the extent that it affects them directly.

That's the same idea as in this David Brooks' editorial, in case anyone's interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/opinion/28brooks.html

Re: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine - Meet your Real Neighbours again - Sign out forever

#40
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a church on Christmas Eve last year for the carols and I found it invigorating and enlightening to talk to people who weren't 20-something grad students or professors. I worry that we're missing out on something by congregating in social and intellectual monocultures in which we are never challenged by someone that sees the world from a different viewpoint.

I think there is a lot that is lost by society's tendency to group similar people and people's natural tendency to seek out those who are similar to each other. When all the elderly people get put in retirement homes think of what is lost by those who could have benefited from the elderly person's years of experience and wisdom. If you want to be a better entrepreneur, you are probably going to find an older entrepre…

Books.

Edit: I am not trying to be snide, but you don’t actually have to talk to people to get an understanding of their viewpoint. Try reading some books from the far left and far right in the US and you will start to see how the other side thinks. Heck even tuning into Fox News, NPR, and the BBC in the same news cycle is useful.

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