The Internet Is Ideal

The internet is truly the ideal platform for someone like me, someone who IRL cannot stand any conversation or interaction for longer than 5-10 minutes at most. The few times I actually initiate conversation IRL, it is of a specific subject that I'm interested in, but I always come to regret saying anything in the first place, either due to a lackluster response and ensuing conversation, or just because it was ultimately pointless. I see most IRL social interaction as largely pointless, not due to some underlying philosophical bullshit but just plain apathy. So I'm usually either incredibly quiet or short with people, and I don't like being "friendly". But online it's different, online I can be as self-centered as I desire. At all times I can restrict what conversations I am part of, what subject is to take place or be looked at, to disengage at a moments notice when I either grow bored, dissatisfied or actually completely satisfied. Online I'm allowed to talk to people on my terms, there's no forcing of a conversation, no obligation to some response or such, there's no incentive to pretend to be interested. And in the communities I most often take part in, being blunt and unfiltered is something to be respected, so conversations can be void of fluff if you're part of the right group. Some trends that are awful for me but can be avoided since these places don't offer much of anything interesting or worthwhile: >account registration tied to identities >avatars/profile pics >karma/likes/hearts >communication platforms that show a user is typing (Discord, Riot, and most mobile "apps") >communication platforms showing when a user has "seen" a message Feel free to include other worry trends in communication platforms and services. But anyways: how do you feel about IRL interaction and compared to what you can experience online? For me I don't have any reason to pursue anything IRL related to social desire etc. Some may point out some sort of healthy balance and such, but this assumes someone is operating with the same social desire as you or other "normal" people, which obviously in my case I'm an outlier in this basic human need.

>But anyways: how do you feel about IRL interaction and compared to what you can experience online? I find interaction with 95% of individuals IRL to be horrendously mundane. Online I can interact, but there is still something completely inhuman to it. Perhaps the same as having a pen pal though that itself requires a certain level of interaction. I think that online discussion allows me to fully contemplate and formulate the exact words that I would like to present relative to the state of that interaction, which is nice, but I also think that it removes some of the randomization element present in real human interaction. If all of our conversations were well thought out, it would be more like a proceeding of some diplomatic or legal discourse, while IRL our conversations are dynamic: there is emotion, there are interruptions, there are distractions, which can also result in a great deal of serendipity. Another thing is that while I can appreciate someone online, their entire existence is subjected only to the means by which I can interact with them through a screen. I can pat someone on the back to congratulate him, I can embrace a friend who is experiencing loss or pain, I can fight someone who has threatened my well being, and I can be injured as a result. I can take an active role in the formation of action in any interaction. Online I can only observe. In the few "genuine" IRL interactions that I sometimes have, they can span hours, with the atmosphere influencing both the mood and the direction of the conversation. It is enjoyable to be lost in the waves of humanity. I have had a number of friends move away recently, and though I will likely never see them again for the rest of my life, there was a certain feeling of completeness in our final conversations that spanned many hours. When one converses with others, one can get a sense of humanity and the aspects of the mind, body, and soul not considered, and unlike an online environment where one may block anything foreign that is distasteful, one must digest the words and actions as areality just as much as one embraces the good that comes of those same conversations. I think that this also makes people more human than machine; a means by which to grow as an individual and help others grow in kind. A computer cannot be human to man, and a man acting through a computer is limited by the medium to only those actions which can be taken through a screen. On a darker note, how can we be certain that much of the interaction we experience on the internet is actually the result of humans, and not of machines....If online interaction can be reduced into coherent presentations of simple or complex text and speech, how can we be certain that anything we perceive is actually not just the product of a machine

The internet is the thing making you this way. It is poisoning you and then selling you the treatment for the symptoms, but not the cure. Don't be grateful for it; that's a slave mentality. This network took our humanity from us and then provided a cheap and shallow substitute.

>>28711 Not OP but I escaped on the internet because normal people would berate me and treat me like soykaf all the time for being "the smart kid". Teachers said I was exceptionally gifted. I used to love school and learning, by high school I hated it all. I hated all the soykafty cliques and people never getting any closer to me because I had brand name clothes. I thought all sorts of things about myself until I finally realized that, people were friends between each other because of status/money and other soykaf I didn't even see I used to find people I liked on the internet, who were normal people with lives and job but a thought system that wasn't as disgusting, but now all the normal people I did so much to avoid have invaded the corner of peace I did so much to build for myself and I hate them so fuarrrking much for it. I have to stand all the stupid bullshit of these people 24/7 because they've made the greatest invention of mankind into this festering bubonic plague that is social media, and as everything crashes down they don't blame themselves but the blame the rich, the niggers, the jews, the gays, everyone but the retarded collective of the stupid normal people who always ruin everything and make everyone's life worse. If I met a human being dying of thirst in the middle of the desert and I had a drop of water I'd rather give it to a scorpion.

>>28712 >because I had brand name clothes didn't have

>>28677 In a conversation I usually have nothing to say but feel obliged to so it doesn't seem that I'm completely silent. When I do say something I immediately regret it and feel like soykaf >account registration tied to identities >avatars/profile pics >... All things that give people an identity. On an anonymous imageboard there is nothing to give identity or power to people but for the text that appears on your screen. No namewhoring or egotism >>28706 >how can we be certain that anything we perceive is actually not just the product of a machine Does it matter? A human can produce soykaf and propaganda just like a machine can. Likewise a machine can send news and information. Its all fair game as long as you don't know that it's a machine, and it doesn't make a difference.We communicate for two reasons: socializing to acquire sex and allies, and getting information to learn about potential dangers or get advantages. One of the reasons people inform others is to socialize. Popular social media networks pretend to replace the real thing like >>28711 said. Now, without the incentive to educate, or the social aspect , what are people doing on social media? Social media becomes gamified, and everything you do on there is to get you more points

>>28712 Classic outcome of putting somebody in a gifted program in school. Luckily that high school nonsense doesn't last; don't continue to isolate yourself just because kids are cruel and our education system doesn't know how to treat bright kids and just turns them into retards with badly-designed and socially-alienating programs like that. I'm glad I voluntarily left the gifted program, it's a travesty.

>>28718 University is eternal high school, saw one prof in other department who was worse than a neet. Hospital work same soykaf, one dude not here? Group bickers about him. Personal highlight of high school feeling hospital secretary took for whatever naked pics at her work place and it got shared. Really brought that 9th grade feel home. Maybe there are some real adults somewhere but all i see is old kids.

>>28718 I was not put in a gifted program, my parents didn't follow up on that. I stayed in the soykafty school with soykafty kids and I was bullied every day. Older adults betrayed me in many ways and I have learned to blame myself for it. By the time I got in university I was dysfunctional but I did my best as I always did. Turns out people do not want to put up with you as soon as you reveal anything problematic about your personality or any weakness, and the people you call friends or lovers will leave you without thinking twice. Again, this ended up with me blaming myself. I turned to other pursuits and every time I have seen that people only know how to corrupt. There's a hypocrisy and selfishness in every person's mind that makes me feel completely alien to them. I was always receptive of others and because of this I went from a joyful, bright person to someone who looks at people and feels only contempt.

>>28719 That sounds pretty terrible. To be honest, my favorite workplace was being in the back of a commercial kitchen. True camaraderie, minimal drama, everyone genuinely stuck up for each other and didn't just act two-faced and backstab each other once someone wasn't present. They'd call you up and be there for you after work. We'd go out in a big group together once a week or so and blow off steam. They'd stand up to the boss with you and make sure you don't get screwed. I feel like working-class jobs are kind of where it's at as long as you can afford a somewhat dignified life (you can't). But as far as community and my social and emotional life, they were by far more healthy than my office jobs and such. These days I just feel like a weary ghost. Working in restaurants and kitchens, mechanic shops, as a ranch hand, as a small-time construction worker, driving a truck cross-country with a close coworker in turns... those were some of my favorite moments, times when I really felt like I belonged and was wanted by a greater group of decent people. But I was so damn poor and eventually had to hustle up something a bit more substantial. Which I was able to do; I played the field not so much out of necessity, I just wanted to see other facets of life first. Oh, and I had to live hours outside of anywhere and commute half as long every day as I worked, which just wasn't sustainable. I got so sick of sitting in gridlock for hours each day without any AC. You have my sympathies for that hospital work... I've heard how incredibly stressful that is. Have some friends who are nurses and one who is a trauma surgeon. And to hear it's not even a good community to boot? They're cliquish and mean? That's ghastly. I'm sorry. Have you ever thought about doing some doctors without borders stuff? Or is that not really an option unless you're a big-time MD? I don't really know this field very well.

>>28721 I kind of think I identify with parts of this. I've had some pretty nasty stuff in childhood and for a long time when I'd reveal it to anyone close it promptly firebombed the relationship, often in a spectacularly cruel way. It made me cynical and bitter for a very long time. But I did eventually figure it out... or at least ways to manage it and determine who is safe to try to be close to and who should be kept at a kind of professional distance. It has been a very tiring learning experience, but I'm glad I got this far at least. I hope things look up in your efforts as well. I don't know how many parallels there are or if there's even any specific advice I could give, or if you would want that in any case. But I'd love to listen if you have anything to vent about. Might have spotty replies; I'm not gonna be around any reliable networks for a while.

Internet is the ideal place for me because I can dissolve myself in infinite identities. I can be who I am and I can immerse myself in obscure communities. Internets is absolute nihilism. You never know if people are real and you can play on multiple levels of personality. I call it schizobrowsing. I love how lots of people took the problem the wrong way, talking about who can we trust or not... My simple number one golden rule on the networks: trust couldn't exist cause people may be real or not and you never know.

It depends on one's disposition, I suppose. For a community like Lainchan (which in and of itself is a point to note) that seems to favor fostering thoughtful, contemplative discussion, it wouldn't terribly surprise me if the majority of users here veered on the more introverted, isolated, introspective, and perhaps even socially dysfunctional end of the spectrum. God knows I don't exclude myself from that designation. For such an audience though the Internet provides a myriad of advantages - it allows one to collect their thoughts more coherently than in face-to-face conversation, to find and converse with communities of like-minded individuals across the world, to express one's mind more freely with far less fear of immediate severe repercussions, to discover expressions both intellectual and artistic beyond one's real life limitations. For this kind of audience, the Internet allows one to basically customize meaningful human communication to their liking should they have the will to seek it out. Separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. But this works both ways, especially with the arrival of Web 2.0 innovations. This benefited the introverted types by way of simple communication means such as messageboards, instant messaging and e-mail, but in pushing the notion further has allowed your average, everyday person to integrate the Internet into their lives as well. I'd wager the popularity of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok and so on survives on largely from people who have no issues with real life communication and merely use these as tools to keep socializing after they've left each others' company. To that end, over the last 10-15 years in particular we've seen the Internet increasingly cater to and be shaped by the very people many people in this thread seem to want to avoid in real life. Case in point, nearly every Tik Tok I've ever seen fills me with revulsion because it always seems to revolve around the sort of narcissistic trendiness that I have always found disgusting my entire life. I'm very much more at home with imageboards like this one, but taking a look at how the Internet seems to be growing more extroverted, interconnected, normalized outside of sites like these and I feel that's how we get trash like cancel culture, where a person is ostracized even on the Internet because the herd mentality decided they didn't like something they did and proceeds to bully them into irrelevance. How is that much different from the awful ostracism some people in this very thread experienced growing up in real life, other than it being on an even bigger scale? I feel like good ideas are often ruined for the many by a choice few, but in the case of the Internet I feel it has a chance of the many ruining it for the few, and unlike people who can function well with real life communication there's little reprieve for those who lose the genuine solace they find in Internet-based communication. Again, communities like these are generally fine and I feel OP illustrated that, but in a way it feels like this side of the Internet gets smaller and smaller with each passing year. I don't want to say it will disappear entirely someday with no suitable replacement and maybe I'm just being paranoid about nothing, but who knows how much more difficult it will be to form pocket communities like this years down the road? What if social media became some all-encompassing norm and niche communities like these are relegated to some anachronism? A bit melodramatic maybe, one of the great things about the Internet after all is that they will come if you create it, but it leads me to wonder how long the Internet will remain "ideal" nonetheless.

You have more control but the conversation is a lot less fulfilling, I certainly haven't found many memorable deep conversations or whatever, privately or in forums/imageboards, and I don't see many things that you can't actually talk IRL with with someone you trust, even edgy racism or whatever.. Maybe gross habits or cooming stuff at most. OP might be an exception, but a lot of people out there moan about ghosting, not being able to make friends on the internet and so on, there is certainly a missing component that maybe the higher control of the conversation takes away

I feel terribly anxious in both contexts.

>>28740 based nihilst

>>28740 I also like experimenting with identities on the internet. I don't do it as radically now as I used to.. but yeah, I think it's basically a waste to always be yourself and broadcast your real opinions/personality while online. It's incredibly valuable to mix it up sometimes. Explore those personas but also explore the communities and secret little niches attached to certain types of personalities in certain places.

>>28828 That's why I hate the modern normiternet where you couldn't use a service without providing all info and soykaf. This is why I don't use services that are explicitly tied to you (phone number and soykaf). It's ok, I can live without social merdia. Lainchan is one of the onlyplace where I interact with peolple on internets (lots of imageboards are boring, filled with soykafposts) and some specifics forums/irc.

meltdown

>>28740 >>28828 Totally agree. I feel like I caught on to this rather late (previously I didn't feel comfortable using my real identity so I just never talked to people anywhere but anonymous forums or social media where everyone knows me IRL). When I figured out I could use mutable identities to exaggerate and experiment with new aspects of my personality it was extremely freeing, not to mention the totally fictional characters I'd sometimes choose to portray for one reason or another.

>>28845 youre right, i cant find good boards anymore. danger.us, arisuchan (aka lainchan.jp), 8ch.net/cyb are all gone.. r there any good currently active /cyb/ boards to check out?

>>28904 I remember browsing danger/u/ like 3 years ago but got busy with my life to the point I had no free time and forgot about it. What happened?

I'm pretty much in the same boat as OP, but don't really know how to feel about it. It feels like i'm perfectly adapted and grateful for the "information age" and some of the elements it has brought. But the fact that i only got so far through life due to the "information age" feels selfish and artificial sometimes, given how many problems and consequences the internet does bring to the real world. As if the only reason why i'm even here, actually somewhat succeeding into the real world as i am, instead of suffering the consequences of being socially retarded, is being a pawn of some bigger agenda warping society away from how the nature and humanity meant it to be. Where would people like me have been, if born in any other age, before the internet? Perhaps either as hermits completely detached from society, bullied into suicide before even graduating HS, or living mediocre lives locked into a tard school along with severely retarded people for "lacking empathy" despite having relatively manageable mental conditions and the capacity for improvement. Even though i soykaf on the 2010's and onwards culture a lot, the internet in general has been a huge factor in my life, more than i'm proud to admit. And i still don't know where the hell i would rather be instead.

>>28911 Forgot to mention, i don't feel i could entirely consider it escapism or a "vicious cycle", since the internet actually taught me a lot about social cues and self-awareness. I really was like some sort of mini-CWC before i found imageboards at age 13.

>>28677 I like irl interactions more :)

>>28931 Well, they are very strong on the free speech thing there, and thats nice, no user mods, you can do and post almos whatever you want, seems promising, remembers me of OG old 8ch, but its still very new, wellsee what is it about.

>>28932 I must admit that Lainchan moderation don't bother me. If I want to make offensive brewing soykaf, it's just not the right place. It's ok, it keep the board clean.

>>28933 Yeah, but sometimes this feels like reddit, its pretty normal to say something off or even soykafpost slightly on a chan, but this, this gets too disgusting.

>>28677 Only around 30% of the virtual interactions I have are worth my time. The self-centeredness, the illusion of lack of filters (that actually creates new, unconscious filters) and the edgelording present in the remaining 70% fuarrrking tires me. It's a prime example of contemporary ideological alienation: a love for stillness and sameness disguised as "self-centeredness" and "individualism". The conversations which I find productive are the ones that open me to change and improvement by actually confronting me with that which is not the same as me: the other. In that sense, both IRL and virtual conversations can either be awesome or utterly suck.

>>28959 Yes I even subconsciously filtered your comment once i glanced at language like 'edgelord'

>>28964 Impressive! The wonders of subtext never cease to amaze.

>>28966 What figure is this pepe supposed to represent? Lacan?

>>28973 classic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aqGYYBwKbQ

>>28911 Forget the guilt and enjoy it while it lasts anon. Although then again it might not last long since """cancel culture""" has pretty much become the petty bullying of social media.

>>28973 Yup.

>>28994 This was simply put an absolute delight to watch. Indeed, where are the situationists of today to liven things up, to break the dullness of present day (present time hahahaha!) spectatorship?

>>28807 Exactly, I think humans need to find a certain sweet spot of control and availability to have meaningful conversations. IRL you have very limited control over who you interact with. Your class at school has a small number of people you get to interact with everyday, same with uni, then work and in the end the retirement home. If you're a total normal person, like most people are, these limited opportunities for interaction are still enough to find people you "click" with, people who are in one way or another similar to you. But the weirder (meaning different from the average) a person is, the harder it is to find someone who is weird in the same way, so that there can be some understanding and common interests between the two. This makes weird people look for interactions on the internet. The chance of finding someone IRL who loves SEL or has at least watched it is extremely small, but on the internet finding someone like that is super easy. Problem is, it's too easy. If I can easily find thousands of people who love SEL, why should I talk to specifically you? If you can easily find thousands of people, why talk to specifically me? On the internet, there simply is no incentive to talk to the same person over and over again, but exactly that is necessary for a meaningful exchange. We have too much control. How do you find that sweet spot of control over who you talk to? I don't know. Maybe I'll make a thread about it in the future.

>>28677 have sex