tdxsys@dartvax.UUCP (TDX sys Mark Mullen) (02/16/85)
<<< squish >>>
About three months ago I posted an article concerning the demolition of
another of my relationships by another of my business ventures.
Since, then I have had a great deal of time to think about everything that
went down, and have decided that I was definately deserving. Not neccessarily
deserving of all of the circumstances and minor plot threads, but I was a
major contributor to the result. I have learned a great deal, and I hope I
avoid making those same mistakes in the future.
But, this isn't the issue. What has particularly intrigued me are two specific
statements that I encountered in articles in net.singles.
The first was a comment to js that said something to the effect that he should
quit complaining to an `impersonal' net, and go out and meet some organic
life-forms.
The second is the subject of various articles, specificly the current
discussion that seems to be trying to determine if net,singles could be
considered some type of encounter group.
Now, my interest is the juxtaposition of these two concepts. I propose that
the net is an encounter group, as such it serves a valuable purpose, and that
rather than discuss fragmenting js off net.singles, we discuss how to triple
the user base and start *lots* of subgroups. Networks such as this provide
a brand new form of communication, and will be a very prevalent form of
communication in the next twenty years.
First, I can empathize with jeff. I don't know his situation, but mine is
so heavily scheduled and committed that I have little or no opportunity to
go out and meet people. The people I work around are friendly enough, but
there is no question that I am a hired gun, therefore a little frost always
remains. Plus, at what my shop charges, they account for time down to the
minute, and I can't really blame them. So that effectively rules out work.
As far as the remainder of my time, I just finished implementing a subset
of MACLISP from scratch and selling to both venture people and real users.
So you can guess what happens to the rest of my time. I meet a lot of people,
but most tend to turn into another blur on the canvas, ***EVEN IF I DIDN'T
WANT THEM TO!***
My position is quite simple. I am about thirty pounds overweight, will always
be built like a stovepipe, my only credit is supposed to be my face. It is
a complete waste of my time to frequent bars, between my outward appearance
and my complete disgust with the chaff that one has to run through in order
to find anything. At work I am seen in a differant light, however I have
been informed far and wide that going blank and walking off is not the way
to convince people that you are a nice person. Plus I don't forget they
pay for me to play for them, and for what they pay, they are entitled to
a success or death scenario.
I have offered myself only as an example, one that could possibly be more
indicative of the whole user group. I am satisfied with where I'm at today,
and I know I'll meet someone sometime. But in the interim it helps to have
people to talk to.
And *that* is the issue here. Because of my internal desires for self
futhfilment, the structure of the system with which I must coexist,
and all of the relationships between these two objects, I cannot
easily meet other people via the older avenues, unless I'm willing
to restructure all of my goals, and that is *unquestionable*! So, I read
what people on the net have to say, and sometimes I say something myself.
And by doing this, I get he opportunity to communicate with other people.
And if this wasn't available to me, I probably would slack off, just to
gain some personal time. But by doing that, I run the risk of failing,
since he main differance between make and break is still Thomas Edison's
famous formula. And I've never been touted as a good loser, although I
have had a fair amount of practice.
So brethren, what say you? Is the net just a hobby or is it something
more? I think we are the original pioneers in a very important development
in interpersonal relations. Very dissimilar from the old ways, but just
as valuable.
In closing, I would offer a short example. How many of you have asked
a question on net.unix or net.unix.wizards about something horrible that
happened to you. What did you *feel*, personally, when the response
***
S'allright, did the same thing myself a while ago :-)
just do
.
.
.
and it will be all better again!
***
or a similar version arrived. Just another piece of documentation, right!
mark @ ozone
!decvax!dartvax!tdxsys
POB 2545/Manassas VA/22110
***
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble
activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted
activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its
pipes nor its theories will hold water.gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) (02/18/85)
<DDT>
[In response to an article (basically) asking for opinions on
whether the net is important on a personal level - for those who
don't want to read long articles the answer is (basically) yes
but with a caveat - how's that for an informative summary! :-) ]
[This might be titled "On the Net Tonight" after the Phil
Collins song from "Face Value"]
Thank you for your very open and personal statement Mark,
it's much appreciated.
I would like to second the notion that the net is something
much bigger than the sum of it's sites. To me the net is like an
overmind (not in a fascist sense - since it can be tuned out very
easily - just unsubscribe!). It's interesting to see it slowly
(and sometimes painfully) evolving into something completely new.
Speculations from netland on where the net is going and what it's
evolving into (assuming it is evolving) are welcome.
To me interacting with the net is rather like if being in
contact with a huge number of the sharpest and most dogmatic
(pig-headed? self-opinionated?) people alive and, yes,
it is good to know that no matter what strictures there are on
your time there is someone (a whole bunch of someones actually)
to talk to. I think that we can only handle such a large number
of "contactees" because the contact is through a medium that
Turing thought was good enough to remove any vestiges of the
humanity of the contactee and leave only the intelligence (or
lack thereof ;-). If that is the case then i submit that that is
also what is *wrong* with the net.
Before i get roasted let me say that i'm not convinced
that it's a *bad* thing, but the fact is that for several
hundred thousand years human beings have been
evolving societies and modes of behaviour to deal with a
reasonable small number of contactees in their lives (i vaguely
credit Toffler's first book for introducing this idea to me - i
suspect it wasn't new even then). The point is that contact
through the net is *antiseptic* none of the cues we've evolved
over the centuries can aid us here (for example this explains the
code that we've been forced to adopt to tell when we're joking :-).
So while the net is good as a source of information; as a
sounding board for new ideas; as a representative sampling of the
population (well...); as a place (way) to meet others of similar
occupation (if not similar views on the world ;-); as a news
source (wow!); etc., like it or not it probably will not decrease
the need for actual physical contact (take that as you will! :-)
since that is what we've predisposed to need. (Hoo boy am i gonna
get it for this...).
I'd like to mention a related idea here and that is that
whenever a question is submitted to the net the net acts like a
brain, where the brain is made up of many loosely connected
independent processors each with their own view of the world. It
is interesting that with such disparate inputs we (the net) can
reach any consensus at all (well...this depends on the newsgroup,
i'm mainly thinking of the more technical ones like net.lang.c
etc., discussions on newsgroups like this one tend to sort of
peter out with nothing really established except a better
understanding of the problem and a heightened appreciation of
the old adage about variety being the spice of life).
Well i think that's all from me for now, i'm off for some
Real World Processing (or a reasonable facsimilie thereof
anyway), it's time for someone else to carry the ball;
fortunately, on the net, there is no dearth of such. Cheers.
Greg.
--
Gregory Rawlins CS Dept.,U.Waterloo,Waterloo,Ont.N2L3G1 (519)884-3852
gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet CSNET
gjerawlins%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa ARPA
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