What are good uses of the internet?

1. wikipedia is better than a encyclopedia.
2. can store music in case house burns down
3. could be used for people with common interests to find each other and come together. But this is hardly happening. Trying to use it for this purpose is like endlessly surfing 300 channels of crap for something worth watching. The time wasted isn't worth what little one finds... I've found one worthwhile person online in a decade. Of that I'm very glad. But, I'm not going to spend another decade in order to find a second. Just the time wasted would be bad enough, not to mention the ugly memories, the knowledge of the existence of so many crappy people.
4. Free software/cheap software. VSTs, Reaper, etc.
5. Getting news of the world through a medium not completely owned by billionaires.

There is a lot though which is a waste, a time waster at best, and often worse. The thing it could be used for, is just not happening, I keep expecting it to change. It's not. Maybe someday society will change. But for now best just to turn away from some things.

Thinking of deleting self from facebook. What worthwhile thing has occurred there? I've got in contact with people I knew in the past. Which confirmed how utterly hopeless they were/how bad my situation had been. That was worthwhile to know, to confirm, as I had forgotten. I had turned it into largely being my own fault, when it wasn't actually.

Now though, just thinking of Douglas Adams immortal character who's goal is to personally insult every person in the universe. Comically was thinking of using facebook for that. Would be sort of nice to just send an insult randomly day by day to crap people I haven't seen in 10, 15, 20 years.

I think that's the only useful thing left for facebook. So off to delete self now. As a statement. Not that anyone cares. But also because it's just wrong. The way it's used. The way people interact. The time wasted.

The internet has primarily been used to increase people's isolation, not their knowledge. It is best to avoid using it to communicate/interact with people. Any exceptions must be very very carefully considered. Like using email to find a cello teacher for example. Or occasionally some short email to someone I communicate primarily by phone with. Or to mail pictures or short stories, etc.

A person must have a certain amount of positive social interactions and euphoria to balance out the boredom and fear. Some people turn to drugs to quiet the fear which is otherwise a constant. A constant which stops them from having the positive social interactions, etc that are essential to a life worth living.

I need positive social interactions pretty much every single day to feel right. And just my wife isn't enough. Although email is a pale thing compared to how we've communicated for 99.9% of our evolution, even that definitely can make a positive difference in me.

I get a couple emails and I sit here with a happy little smile on my face. My wife walks in and asks what I'm smiling about and I didn't even realize I was happy and smiling.

Work is a huge part of what we are. Without work many people just sit at home. The social interactions there... you can't entirely be you. At least most people can't. It's a bit of an acting job. And first off, if you're and honest person, having to act in the first place can really bother you. Secondly, the acting of it is a form of dishonesty which keeps relationships less real and meaningful and instead quite pale and hollow. Yet, work is a huge part of our social interactions.

In fact without work, many people pretty quickly are just stuck at home with nothing. The positive social interactions of work, (pale and hollow though they are) gone. Replaced by what? The new craze is facebook. It's somewhat pale and hollow, like email but worse. Because you're out in public posting under your real name where what you've said is stored forever and ever, so be careful! Don't say anything that someone might disagree with!

Still, facebook, work, and even email, they are 'positive social interactions' that we Need.

I can see email in that sometimes it's good to be able to think a bit more of what you're saying and what the other person is saying. Where in a face to face talk I might just be like, "Duuuhhhh". (Probably not.)

There is an accumulative effect of these positive social interactions, even though they may be just at work or facebook or email. There is definitely something. Something beyond the actual information received. Something emotional. Some positive change that can occur.

But at the same time a couple of days without any of them and quite quickly it feels that something essential is missing. Not like a drug being taken away. But something that as a human being is simply essential.

I do think we should return to a sort of communal living. Was thinking of say a huge house with a common center (kitchen, etc) and then spokes coming out from it that could be private areas. We need more positive social interactions that have more honesty then you can have at work or facebook, that have more sensory input then you get from email or facebook.

And we need to learn to get along with one another better. Learn to be openminded instead of dropping one another in the search for people more closely identical.

...I could see each little communal house ended up like the Hatfield's and McCoy's. Today there is the idea that outside of the family people (some people will honestly admit) don't really give a shit about anyone. But the blood/marriage family doesn't really provide enough so we still do bother to some extent, bother with being nice, dealing with other people. The problem with a communcal house of 50.... 75, etc people is that it would come much closer to providing all the emotional involvements you need, such that you could truly say to hell with everyone else, and descend to neotribal wars.

An issue with art is knowing that if while making it or beginning to make it you think about how no one is ever going to listen to it, if you think you're doing the equivalent of rolling a boulder up a hill where it will just immediately be let loose to roll back down, it makes it harder to bother doing so. But making exactly that analogy provides the answer. You can do it like Camus' atheist who just doesn't think about that relatively important fact that no one's going to listen to it and instead concentrates on rolling it well. Or you can pretend that it's not just going to roll back down, that other people are going to appreciate it, a sufficient number to not make it a waste of time. But what exactly to pretend? Shall you pretend you're the next Kafka or Hemingway and eventually hundreds of books and articles will be written about you? Or shall you try to return life to a preindustrial age before mass production; where the numbers aren't quite so gaudy/obscene. Perhaps the difference doesn't matter too much.
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So sick of how people talk about one another behind their backs.
Like this article about Samuel Beckett; the writter of the article is annoyed that their doesn't seem to be gossip in Beckett's voluminous letters. He doesn't talk about the women he's with except to say he likes her. The article writer apparently wants an assessment. But what is that? Even if he's saying just good things... to go on about someone behind their back... I guess if it's exactly things you have said to their face. Otherwise it's an ugliness. And it's rampant in this world.

Making me want to be a hermit. Hard to find people who don't take part in it. I myself could do a little better still I guess. Although I do pretty well.

Last night wife and I went out to dinner with S from work and two or her friends. Afterwards of course as we're driving home we talk a little about S. Which again, heh, I hate that. Even though I only said good things. Solely good things. I think pretty highly of her. And... what if I thought bad things? Would I just shut my trap and keep them to myself?

The good doesn't matter much when the bad is just censored. (Like the clear empty fakeness of facebook.) The ideal is that all assessments would be things you'd have no problem saying to the person's face thus it's not like you're hiding anything when talking about them behind their back...

And thus, my favorite people are those who will at least just throw out negative stuff in front of everyone. Many such people come to mind... Take S for example who probably hurts herself at work by just telling people what she really thinks. Being like that will catch up to her most likely, over and over again. Many others...

There is the question are they making a moral choice to be real instead of fake? Seeking truth? Or, are they just too dumb to assimilate to the social norm? I hope it's the former. But still, even if it isn't, I still prefer such people. People who will scream and yell and carry on at times.



...the problem with spending a long time on a song, story, etc is that you get sick of it eventually. And by the time you're done, you've ruined it for yourself, just thanks to the amount of time you've spent with it.

So then the ways around this are:
1. Have multiple people working on it? So it can get two, three, four times as much work without anyone person getting so sick of it...
2. Get better. So that you can make something great much faster.
3. Try at least to think of yourself as the legendary artist and that millions will listen to this song, read this story, etc for decades... centuries and thus you must spend a long time working on it.
4. Don't spend a long time on most things. Just do it to the extent you can amuse yourself.

Facebook

Now what was it....? Damm.

Facebook. Briefly a humaniod race evolved to put up with horrible treatment. They just pipe on about insipid shlock incapable of facing negatives. Evolved into a happy slave race.
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The first man to experience the "beneficial" mutation of anger. He goes around killing people ensuring anger genes are more likely to get passed on. His victims are bewildered...
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The traits we have evolved as opposed to those that would bring utopia...
Small tribes in the forest, which ones survive/pass on their geners?
Violence
-Agressive
-bigotry
-mindlessly conformity
-specialization of tasks (men as cold and warrior-like as possible with women balancing them somewhat to stop tribe from disintegrating)
-so many others...

hypersexual of course
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Maybe a second more respectable blog soon.
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Facebook is like a virtual high school reunion. I have all these friend requests from people I don't remember. I see their insipid chat and think I'd rather not know them anyway. If I accept every friend request I could end up with a hundred people with notifications of all kinds of time consuming stupidity. Hate to seem mean though...

It was just a way to keep in touch a bit better with one friend of 30 years. Beyond that I'm interested to hear what about three people I knew in high school are up to. (Out of class of 1000.) Well maybe 4. Found one and I'm disappointed. He spends way too much time on facebook keeping it meaningless...

"The difference between a fool and a wise man is the wise man learns something from the fool."