Slashdot Mirror
Internet to Blame for Lack of Close Friends
Anonymous Coward writes "Duke and University of Arizona researchers are citing the Internet as one of the main contributing factors to a shrinking of social networks among Americans. People say they have fewer people they can talk to about important stuff, even if they are talking to lots more people from all over the place about unimportant stuff online."
Fluffy commentary my good man; and worthy of a column in a local newspaper. However like said columns it is more a sophisticated whine - with petty vague solutions stretched in meticulous fashion to fit everybody.
/. today merely due to this evolution. If persons like yourself stopped writing this then perhaps the world would be a better place? How about thinking more about the consequences of your own actions as opposed to wailing about the crying shame that our postmodern world is in those watery eyes of yours? This is not a flame; nor a troll - back in University they called this a fair rebuke.
Well here's the news: "Everybody" cannot be cohengently administered or instructed to change their lives; not "everybody" can swallow their pride and simply attempt to negate this implied "greed" culture of which you speak; some people are naturally ostentatious and extroverted - others, not so much:
"This mentality of "everything has a price and can be calculated as a cost-benefit" has already ruled American material life for years and led to a kind of spiritual bankruptcy that leads to cults, sappy new-ageism, under/overeducation, and other strange social pathologies and now it is polluting our social lives as well."
Really? What is your philosophical alternative then - that is, assuming you had one when you typed this fuzzy diatribe? It is really so ubiquitous across society? You criticize materialism; and accuse consumerism of breeding nefarious organizations and fail to back it up with hard facts or evidence. Prose like this is lapped up by your own condemned "sappy new agers" - it is attacking but in such a morosely vague way that refuting it is hardly worth the bother.
It is like a troll but without the subdued malice; has the same characteristics of a good troll: The sensical if somewhat fallacious criticisms; the broad assertions and lastly the botched solutions - few would doubt you meant well by this post and simply wanted to make a point; as said it'd be good in some publications. However you cannot make baseless accusations of an entire phenomena and imply causation of all the awful phenomena. I eagerly await a non-hostile, civil response which cogently argues your points beyond the tragedian confines of your current mind; find evidence and make us all believe what you say has some reality behind it.
A closing point; people like you worsen this problem - it is through these pseudo-intelectual rants that Slashdot's cynicism has been refined to a point where it has a sophisty about it. It is more simplistically pleasing to read
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Our government has attempted at every turn to shield us from sex
This is just ignorant. Sex-related prohibitions have existed for tens of thousands of years (and undoubtedly longer). Here's the reason why, in the simplest possible terms:
- Sex leads to a baby.
- Killing babies is discouraged
- Babies are expensive to raise
- When a baby is born outside of a marriage, the expense of raising a baby falls on a girl's father, the girl's future husband, or the girl herself.
- Typically none of those people want that expense.
- Therefore, sex outside of marriage is discouraged.
No government involvement. Tens of thousands of years of history. Simple.
Spend more time with our kids. Get them interested in education.
Educational institutions are the ultimate in places where no one cares about anyone else. I don't think you're going to solve the problem of shallowness there.
Expose them to culture other than sesame street - take them to kids museums, and when they're old enough, take them to classical music concerts. Instill a notion of self-worth and personal enrichment in them at a young age, and they won't grow up to be glassy eyed corporate whores. Maybe. Or maybe the cycle of cultural degredation is too strong to break - maybe this is why so many people are looking at other cultures for new ideas, whether in foreign films or obscure religions.
Museums and classical music are no better (or worse) than violent videogames and punk rock. Reciting anti-corporate slogans has no more value than singing jingles from ads.
Pretentiousness is an aspect of shallowness.
The blanket disdain of those so-called "glassy eyed corporate whores" is part of the problem. They are real people (and a huge percentage of the population, I might add). Stereotyping them isn't shallow?