Social Networking in the Digital Age

An anonymous reader writes "It used to be if you wanted to win more friends, influence more people or make more money, you bought one of those self-improvement tomes and tried to pump up your personality. These days, all you have to do is go online and join a "social networking" site. The pumping will be done for you."

Comments

Re:"The pumping will be done for you"

[vDave420]

".sig: Why are the people who call Bush a dictator the same ones who want to take away our guns?"

Sorry to reply to your .sig...

I read Michael Moore's books and agree with him on nearly all points EXCEPT this one (gun control)

In principle, I agree that guns are used to hurt those we care about, rather to protect ourselves, on average. I applaud his (and others') efforts to secure our society from accidental danger by controlling guns. Never mind that more (civilian) people die from Autos then from Guns.

However, one of the big points that he (and other anti-Bush-ites) seem to miss is exactly that which you bring up, and irritates me to no end:
We don't need guns to hunt. We don't need guns to 'protect ourselves' in case of intrusion, despite what gunowners (like myself) will tell you.
We will say such things, however, because the truth is too aweful-sounding: We need them to keep Government close to reasonable! We need them to keep those Washington fools semi-open and semi-transparent. We need the constant threat they provide, the threat to our societies' foundations, the threat to dramatically alter our way of life.

We NEED them, not so we can shoot the intruder who is (apparently) breaking into our house, we need them so we can still effectively "threaten" the Gaylord Fockers who would suppress and control us, without our consent, as happened here, and will undoubtedly happen again.

This is what bothers me so much when I see comments like "If you want assault rifles, join the [US] Army, we have tons" (misquote, I know) is that the whole point of citizens having guns is the ability to overthrow that army and Take Back the control of the country.
Obviously, joining the Army and not owning a gun would have exactly the opposite effect.

Yes, a world without guns would (possibly) be a more peaceful one, but not one in which I would particularly want to live. Why? The ruling powers-that-be would be almost infintely secure.

The (presumably constant) threat of assasination is at least in the mind of current leaders, like D.Cheny, J.Ashcroft, and GWB, for instance, and hopefully serves as a constant anchor to reality for them. (emphasis on hopefully)

The ultimate problem for them is that many see a democratic process as being ultimately the one true way towards change. While I agree in principle (again with these principles) I don't think that this is the reality in which we live. Violence is sometimes the only reason things change, for better or for worse.
Will I go and start a revolution myself? No. Would I go and join a pre-existing revolution, bent on overthrow of our current government, should they refuse to yield political power this November? Probably. However, this would be a last resort, and I am taking other (more democaratic, less violent) steps first.

-dave-

Ugh MSN..

[Archwyrm]

I am sorry, but immediately upon opening up that article the whole layout of the site bitch slapped me with one big Microsoft ad. After having read the entire article, I am still recovering..