Right now, this is happening, I am sitting here typing this, you just read it, It is happening, It’s not imaginary, it’s not virtual, It’s an electronic means of projecting my thoughts upon a larger amount of people through a huge amount of tiny switches. This is happening in real life, right now!
There is no such thing as not really being here.
how could there ever be,
you may know someone deeply involved in an mmorpg, where I suspect this idea came from. where did this come from?
after I post this I may be somewhere else and these words will still be here. when you get here to this thread to read this, you are in real life, sitting somewhere, standing on your head while flying in an airplane, submersed in a submarine or riding a train in a giant bunny suit.
how is it that so many people came to think they are leading fake lives?
But posting on a forum, or writing murals, or books, or blogs is practically all the same.
Your words and thoughts don’t die with you if you write and they don’t burn your books.
Why do people think they are mortal?
The idea of IRL comes from the stupid computer-illiterate assumption that computers “aren’t real life” … that time spent online doesn’t have any relevance to real life, and therefore, should be avoided. Somehow, computer junkies picked up on this awful meme and started using it.
And if someone attacks my use of the word meme I’m going to laugh my ass off.
Don’t exactly remember how it went but, this reminds me of the old-wives tail; they needed to put plugs in the electrical outlets or the electricity would leak out.
If I do I would say, I guess it’s true most people may not see the server houses, orbiting satellites, copper and fiberoptic cables, RF waves, lasers and a giant amount of boxes as the internet really is.
That’s a tricky thing, cuz even after you output part of you in some method or fashion. It is certainly an essence of you, but it’s not exactly the current you, now.
I could change my mind completely tomorrow about everything I have ever output upon the world, and many things I do.
Though. after writing that, in this age, I don’t know if anything I output is truly mine anymore, mainly because it was a part of me at that time, but now it’s all itself now.
now, how do we tag such an ethereal thing such as an Idea.
In that sense, internet is only real life in chatsession-like situations, direct interaction, like a telephone call.
But reading a book is real life, so reading a posted blog from the past is real life, too. Whether you still
believe what you wrote or not, what you think today may very well be a result of what you thought
yesterday. The output is still yours, it’s too easy to distantiate yourself from your thoughts by claiming
it’s said/written in the past. They were still your actions, resulting in what you are today. That IS life.
In my opinion, YOU/ME/THEM/US = PAST + PRESENT
And yes, where the time was spent is entirely up to you/me/them/us. It’s still living, I agree fully.
I wouldn’t know exactly how to tag Idea. I guess I’d say a conclusion of gathered thoughts from past and present? Does that make sense? I really don’t know. Actions often speak louder than words and thoughts
anyway, anyday
lol. i see all that stuff(cept the satellites).i work with that stuff everyday, but what i mean can be summarized in the following story:
this girl i know came to me in tears. every account of hers on the internet got hacked. myspace, facebook, youtube, and assorted others. she told me her life was ruined, she would loose all her friends, loose all credibility cause no one would believe that someone cracked her passwords. i plainly said. don’t worry, the internet isnt real. your life will continue to be the same tomorrow and none of your friends will even care.
i was right, the next day she told me that no one really cared and would just contact her through other means and whatnot.
serious business doesnt happen on the internet. so i dont think it really exists. and i use the term"exists" very loosely
“Serious business doesn’t happen on the internet” is preposterous claim. Identity theft may lead to people losing real money, get involved in criminal activities or ruin their life altogether.
Never take such things lightly. It’s not “JUST INTERNET”, it’s a means of communication based on “trusted identity” principle, which basically means people in your friends list know it’s you without having to see you, hear your voice, see your handwriting… Easiest to figure scheme for profiting is when user loses his/her paypal password aswell, but it’s not must elaborate and dangerous scheme.
Consider following scenario:
User uses same password everywhere.
Hacker gains access to her email and social networking sites.
Hacker quickly sends a message to all of the users friends: “There is some person who is claiming to be me and saying that I stole their account, don’t trust this person, it is internet worm, trying to spread viruses!”
Hacker reads users emails, private message archives, all that he can find.
Hacker thus establishes users relationship with her friends. He is aware of the relationship status, etc.
Hacker asks small loans from better friends who are not too often in contact with the user by other means than the social network and asks for discreetness.
Hacker flirts with some people with who the user have been flirting with, and may get video footage that can be used for blackmailing.
You can leave rest of the stuff for imagination. Identity theft in internet IS serious business, everybody who uses social networking actively has some information on their accounts that can be used for malevolent purposes. It depends on the skills and experience of the hacker guy.
But taking it lightly is no option, if your accounts get hijacked, report it to the social networking site support and try to get the account blocked or returned to you.
Everything I describe you here is not a theory, it’s very common and tried out attack method, there are organizations that make living by just hijacking peoples social networking accounts. And I can assure you, it’s very-very-very real and as dangerous.
I recently re-read William Gibson’s Iduro…It’s about a rockstar who wants to marry a japanese idol, who isn’t a real physical existence. Shallow plot, great atmosphere.
The thing is, it was quite the trip to return in 2009, since he wrote that book in the mid-90’s, in the early days of the commercial net. A lot of the buzzwords thrown around inside that story was quite confusing to me back then, but at the same time it was absurdly pleasing to realize today, that so many of the seemingly wacko Ideas has actually managed to get into the mainstream these days.
Btw: Meme tunes, one of my fav albums of all time.
Serious business doesn’t happen on the playground, so I don’t think it really exists
Seriously? SRSLY? Serious business DOES go down on the internet every single day. It happens to be the biggest business in the world right now. There’s real information contained in it, there’s real money being spent and made on it, and there’s realworld implications to every thing that’s happening on it.
That said, EVERYTHING in our world exists. Every single thought you have, though it may not exist outside your head, most definitely exists physically inside of it. The signals that travel between your neurons exist. If those thoughts did not exist, you would not be having them. The internet exists… the information ON the internet exists… the ASSHATTERY that happens on the internet exists, and the DRAMA that ensues most definitely exists.
ONE OF THE MOST DAMAGING THOUGHTS WE CAN HAVE IS THAT OUR ACTIONS (online OR offline) ARE MEANINGLESS
The internet is seriously a reflection of our collective consciousness, and as such, GIGO (Garbage in, Garbage out) is more pertinent than ever.
In the instance of your friend, Plastik Frankenstein, your story is simply about human nature. Noone cared that some random person hacked her account because no real damage was done. There were no nekked pictures of her posted… her secret list of embarrassing fetishes was not released to the public… and there was no dirt released on her friends either. She simply lost her accounts… this is relatively easy to move on from. If, however, something more serious had happened, the implications would be much “more” real.
