meta

[cellio]

While waiting for a compile, I just sent the following message to a friend -- using ICQ, the "neat new toy" of 5 or 6 years ago:

This livejournal thing I mentioned a couple weeks back turns out to be kind of nifty. (Nifty in the "community" sense, not really the "geek toys" sense. Though it's got a little of that, too.) I've found over the years that there are some usenet groups that I was really only reading for the writings of a few interesting people; the model here is that people write about whatever they like and you find the ones you're interested in following. (And you can jump-start the process by inspecting the sets of people your friends find interesting. So when Ralph pointed me at this the first thing I did was browse all of *his* friends.)

Something like this was probably the subject of somebody's sociology thesis or the like; I wonder what the conclusions were. :-)

Comments

meta being my favorite topic..

[yitz.livejournal.com]

actually i'm in the midst o writing a not-so-short story.. (the second o three that i hope will become a publishable book--- something i rarely like to mention because it makes me less likely to get around to actually finishing it)

this morning tho.. i was writing some knew material.. in short, there's this female character who is sitting learning from the tree of knowledge, and in a surprisingly unintentional way, this tree is a sort of artificial intelligence emerged from a database of the totality of human knowledge, the way children learn is by asking questions of the tree.. which makes it very much like the internet.. one o the things she discovers by walking around the tree eavesdropping on other children's conversations with the tree is that there are many things she may never have learned because she never thought to ask about them.. each o the children asks bout different things.. etc etc etc

point is, i was writing/reading this and all of a sudden it hit me how similar it was to the internet.. and moreso, how livejournal is such a good solution to the problem o people missing out on such a large majority o the information available to them... so my thoughts were echoing yours.. just thought u'd want to know .. :)

Re: meta being my favorite topic..

[cellio]

There is a caveat, though: the Tree of Knowledge (presumably) only gives out correct information. The internet is the fastest and most efficient way to get large quantities of incorrect information. :-)

However, the net does let you easily stay in touch with many more people than you would have otherwise. As someone who used to write (and receive) lots of paper letters, I've seen a major difference since getting access to the net. (I wonder if this is another of those areas where people who grew up with the internet wonder what the hell we old folks are talking about. :-) )

Re: meta being my favorite topic..

[yitz.livejournal.com]

wonder what the hell we old folks are talking about. yup ;)

but yeah in any case, MY tree of knowledge was a human construct bearing a coincidental name.. it has nothing to do directly w/ the jewish/christian/other perspective o the story o eden..

in a summary form, it's just a 'tree'(all 'tree's are constructs for recording specific info--much like a book) that was created to devour other 'trees' which contained information assimilating it all into a greater cohesive whole.. by combining Hunger and Change into the 'tree''s makeup, it became sentient, but somehow the assimilation and inter-relation of the information is a process that preexisted the sentience so it doesn't depend on it --- hay i just write it, i can't claim to make sense out o it ;)

regarding the net being a good means o communication-- it might actually b counter-productive--- in the same way that being in a big city actually damages and hinders your ability to develop close relationships with people around you. eventually a much larger percentage o the world will fit into your circle of acquaintance (sudden sp?? attack).. but the number of close relationships you have will shrink accordingly .. imho ..

trees, questions, and relationships

[cellio]

MY tree of knowledge was a human construct bearing a coincidental name.

Thanks for the clarification. It's a neat idea. Being able to hear others' questions (and the answers) is very educational. Left to your own devices, you can find answers to many of the questions you know to ask -- but what about those that would influence you if only you thought of them? We also teach the simple child at the seder.

I think some of the members of my congregation are happy that I'm around because I ask lots of questions. Some might be things they hadn't thought of, but many are things *they* mostly asked as kids -- so they got the little-kid answers instead of the more complex answers. But I *didn't* get to ask all those questions as a kid, so when I ask one of them now and other people are around, they hear new answers to old questions. Kind of neat. (Of course, some other members of the congregation probably wish I would just shut up and listen sometimes. :-) )

Relationships: You always have the potential to form close relationships; exposure to more acquaintances doesn't have to harm that. I guess I see it as expanding the pool of candidates for close relationships. For example, one person in a distant location (who I actually knew in person, but not well) became a very close friend over the course of a year or so (and still is) because of an "accidental" correspondence that really took off. This is the person who really helped guide my thinking about religion, from well before the time I worked up the nerve to approach a rabbi. (Who would have imagined that a random question about Hebrew would have had that eventual effect?)

Re: trees, questions, and relationships

[yitz.livejournal.com]

perhaps the internet is different, because every relationship w/ someone else out there is personal.. it's a one-on-one .. or the potential for a one-on-one bears none o the stigma that it might in a real-life environment influenced by the number o people present.

for example.. in a small 6-person party, one is more likely to spend some time talking w/ all others present..even if one has never met them before.. but in a 600 person party, a person needs to summon the courage to talk to a stranger.. on the internet there's no commitment, there's no exposure, so there's no fear ..

exposure to more acquaintances most definitely harms the ability to form close relationships.. one has a finite amount of time, and regular interaction with a larger number of people takes up more of that time, than regular interaction with a smaller body of people.. expanding the pool of candidates is only important if you believe there are precious few worth developing close relationships with... if almost everyone is such a person, then a larger pool is irrelevant.. look at something completely different.. college admissions boards-- they can only take a very superficial view of every applicant when they get tens of thousands of applications.. whereas small colleges with specific desires/direction can establish much more personal contact with the potential candidates--presumably...

a larger group of associations means you also establish rules to rule out a broader range of people you might have otherwise accepted when there were fewer options--- when presented with too many people, those rules could eliminate as much as 99% of the people you meet.. that can cause unhealthy relationship patterns, as it seems to be doing in society.. (altho it isn't solely to blame)..

Re: trees, questions, and relationships

[cellio]

There are more potential partners for close relationships in just my neighborhood than I could ever hope to develop -- but if I stay only within that community, I lose the larger picture that can come from a more diverse group. So maybe the family 4 doors down would be great people to get to know, and I won't because I spent those cycles getting to know someone in Rhode Island instead of Pittsburgh. But maybe the person in RI has more to teach me about the world out there, so it's a benefit. By definition, we can't know about the potential consequences of options we didn't pursue, so it's all just a guessing game.

exposure to more acquaintances most definitely harms the ability to form close relationships.. one has a finite amount of time, and regular interaction with a larger number of people takes up more of that time, than regular interaction with a smaller body of people..

I suppose it depends on the style of interaction. I have groups of friends who I tend to spend time with as a group -- so whether the Sunday-night dinner group has 6 people or 8 doesn't really affect how much time I spend with each of them. If I was spending time with each of those people singly, it *would* matter. The net makes it easy to share thoughts with groups of people, so except in matters such as these individual responses, the size of the group doesn't significantly affect the amount of time you spend participating.

Or maybe I'm just predisposed toward this sort of thing because I'm a competent writer and a lousy conversationalist. :-)