41–50 of 80 posts
The term “meatspace” has always bothered me. It’s “real life.” The internet is the illusion.
Incidentally, this is a major theme of the anime Serial Experiments Lain, which is what inspired me to think about the topic.
The term “meatspace” has always bothered me. It’s “real life.” The internet is the illusion.
I mean, you're a real person that wrote this, and I'm a real person replying to you. No one of this is not real. The image that I might make of you in my head and that you might make of me in your head are illusions, but so are the ones we make in "meatspace". Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that, but it won't make it not real.
Just because it isn't real, though, doesn't mean that it can't be fun :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, you're a real person that wrote this, and I'm a real person replying to you. No one of this is not real. The image that I might make of you in my head and that you might make of me in your head are illusions, but so are the ones we make in "meatspace". Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that, but it won't make it not real.
Of course it's not real. This is Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation in practice. When you cannot tell the difference between a real person represented in the simulacra (i.e. a site like HN) and the simulacra being generated at will by a malicious actor (i.e. a simulation, fake accounts developing a history of posts, bots, guerilla marketing, etc.) then the smart person will recognize it for the un-reality th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, you're a real person that wrote this, and I'm a real person replying to you. No one of this is not real. The image that I might make of you in my head and that you might make of me in your head are illusions, but so are the ones we make in "meatspace". Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that, but it won't make it not real.
> Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that I think the word you're looking for is "cyberspace". > but it won't make it not real If I'm corresponding with someone via mail, are we inhabiting a postspace that is a real place? If I'm on the phone with someone are we inhabiting a voicespace that is a real place? If I'm reading a book, are the author and I in a space? These are not places. Thes…
That's the one, thanks
> These are not places. These are media.
I think that's just different ways to view things. I see HN as a place, and I go to it like I would go to the local pub or something. I see the discord server than I share with my friend as the same thing, a place. On the other hand, if I'm talking to someone on the phone, there's no "space". I think a good way to put it would be that if there's still something while no one is actively using it, I see it as a space.
A mail conversation would be more like a trail of letters, so not a place. I don't really know why, that's just how I see things. For a book, sometimes picking up a book (often with fiction) feels like going back to a certain place.
> to say any of these or the internet constitutes a place of equal primacy as the real world is just silly
I don't really understand why. There are lots of places in the world that are less important than HN. Of course you can go to the forest and touch a tree, but that doesn't make this tree more important than HN just because you can physically touch it.
The term “meatspace” has always bothered me. It’s “real life.” The internet is the illusion.
I mean, you're a real person that wrote this, and I'm a real person replying to you. No one of this is not real. The image that I might make of you in my head and that you might make of me in your head are illusions, but so are the ones we make in "meatspace". Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that, but it won't make it not real.
> I mean, you're a real person that wrote this, and I'm a real person replying to you. No one of this is not real.
I agree that it's all real, but I do say: there is so much less basis of experience gained from interacting with one another on the internet today are much smaller. I would say our experiences gained are very much "less real" because of that. We're not going to recognize one another the next time we cross paths, in all chance, we're not going to have anywhere near the visual or auditory recognition or pattern matching an in-the-world encounter would have brought. The internet is real, people on it are real, but our experiences here are extremely glancing, only the most bare, stripped down contacts, and most of us interact with each other on a near-effectively-anonymous basis, as though everyone were wearing masks & using text-to-speech systems, wearing the same plain clothes. The bandwidth of experience we have with one another in these interactions is extremely tiny.
The internet & online communications is real, it is not an illusion. But nearly everything that happens here comes almost entirely out of context. It relies on us to access our pre-established bits of context to understand & discern meaning. The receiver here has far far far more power than the sender, and the sender has very few signals or images at their disposal to establish themselves, comparatively.
The internet today really feels like a forest in which the inhabitants, almost universally, remain in the dark.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that I think the word you're looking for is "cyberspace". > but it won't make it not real If I'm corresponding with someone via mail, are we inhabiting a postspace that is a real place? If I'm on the phone with someone are we inhabiting a voicespace that is a real place? If I'm reading a book, are the author and I in a space? These are not places. Thes…
> I think the word you're looking for is "cyberspace". That's the one, thanks > These are not places. These are media. I think that's just different ways to view things. I see HN as a place, and I go to it like I would go to the local pub or something. I see the discord server than I share with my friend as the same thing, a place. On the other hand, if I'm talking to someone on the phone, there's no "space". I think…
Now we do have very distinct telephone habits, a telephone style of speaking, etc. Try using phone inflection in person sometime; it’s very jarring. “Hey. Yeah. It’s Matthew. I’m sorry, one sec, I need to…”
In an abstractly similar way, a lot of HN comments share some qualities, even from different people (including this one).
I know very few people who want attention from strangers when they go out in public. Most of us want to be left alone while we go about our business. Online provides a forum for people to get the sort of attention we might like. "Look what I can do!" or "Look at me!" Still, one of my gripes about social media is that there are so many people who lurk. The lurkers are there to look at people attempting to get attentio…
>Online provides a forum for people to get the sort of attention we might like. "Look what I can do!" or "Look at me!" Still, one of my gripes about social media is that there are so many people who lurk. There's a lot to learn from lurking. My mother watches Tik Tok videos and doesn't post herself, but cooks more now than ever based on the ideas she sees on there. You can learn about a cultural trend, a social cause…
While there's nothing wrong with lurking (I think we all mostly lurk in low commitment subjects and are active in a much smaller amount of things that really interest us), it presents a fairness of effort and commitment to require participation from everyone.
I know very few people who want attention from strangers when they go out in public. Most of us want to be left alone while we go about our business. Online provides a forum for people to get the sort of attention we might like. "Look what I can do!" or "Look at me!" Still, one of my gripes about social media is that there are so many people who lurk. The lurkers are there to look at people attempting to get attentio…
This inspired me to create a moment of silence for anyone who follows me on twitter. https://twitter.com/egypturnash/status/1406032570475855875
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Online provides a forum for people to get the sort of attention we might like. "Look what I can do!" or "Look at me!" Still, one of my gripes about social media is that there are so many people who lurk. There's a lot to learn from lurking. My mother watches Tik Tok videos and doesn't post herself, but cooks more now than ever based on the ideas she sees on there. You can learn about a cultural trend, a social cause…
I think OP's comment feels pretty valid, especially in an in-person event like burning man. There is a divide between participant and passive viewer. As a participant you give, and as a passive viewer you take, which can feel like an unfair arrangement, and there is a big difference between "being present" and "being fully present" which is a level of commitment burning man wants for the festival-goers. While there's…
But I think it goes to show the weakness of the analogy with social media, because participation and observation are very much different things on the internet than in person. I think that's a net benefit, because people can observe (and learn) without intruding in most cases.