Why is the net the way it is?

I'm never able to find a place on the net where I truly belong, yet it's all I have. It's always the same thing, if you don't dislike the thing they dislike, you're immediately the enemy. No such thing as an open mind or trying new things or whatever, just immediate hate and vitriol and ostracization while they return to just atrophying away in their little caves watching the shadows. Like what happened to the net? What was supposed to be this great information network full of people from all over that'd you'd have never known existed before in your entire life, now reduced to some balkanized hellscape of culture wars, us vs them, screaming matches, tribalism, chest-beating, closing off, elitism, and general doom and gloom. Just a bunch of isolated compounds full of clones immediately seeing the worst in everything, heads full of biases shoved so far up their asses that it's become all they know. It's really saddening seeing how the minute we open ourselves up to a new form of communication, it immediately becomes corrupted by all of our worst qualities. This isn't some misplaced rose-tinted nostalgic brainrot about some fairy tale Neverland "good ol days" either, I'm well aware that this is just how the net was it's entire lifespan. Have other lainons found better success on the net than me? Or do you feel the same way that I do, that the net is just a festering cesspit of the worst in humanity? Do you think it'll get any better? Do you think solutions for how the net is now exists? Or will people just continue to be people no matter what we do?

>>68943 Before the advent of cars, there was a superstition that if people traveled beyond a certain threshold, they would pass out or expire because their bodies couldn't physically handle it. I think that fear would be more healthily placed on the internet. Information moves at a perverse speed that while it doesn't break our minds, it's a suboptimal experience, and people feel the effects. It's too late to reject the net outright, but I recommend curbing it by finding passions or hobbies that necessarily have to take place in real life -- for me, it's marksmanship, but it could be carpentry or bowling or anything else where you do it at a physical location and can meet like-minded people in the same room to do something together. Pic related, having friends irl has become an uphill battle.

>>68943 What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments ? Asks about the meanings of such words as 'good', 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong' What is the nature of moral judgments ? Asks questions of whether moral judgments are absolute or relative, of one kind or many kinds, etc. How may moral judgments be supported or defended ? Asks such questions as how we can know if something is right or wrong, if at all.

>>68945 The problem is that it's always like-minded up to a point, stuff like revealing that I like something that they don't or whatever, that's when the air in the room starts to turn to the worst. It's this annoying game of assumptions, that you'll just nod along to everything they say. At least it's helped me see through a lot of the brainrot people embrace that causes them to act like this, hate politics, hate religion, never cared much for sports, hate nostalgia. It's a cruel irony that the more inclusive, tolerant, and accepting of people I learn to be, the more isolated I end up. I don't know, I might just be in the wrong, being uncompromisingly myself and true to who I am and what I like and finding pride and joy in it, rather than constantly warping myself to fir everyone else's expectations. The worst part is that I try to find like-minded people in my hobby, but not all has come out the other side of the path I walk unscathed, and so a culture of desperately hiding your interests, deflecting and disguising your love for said interest through irony, and shunning and dismissing everyone else because you believe them to be the same as everyone else. Makes it extremely hard to find people when they're going through the same loop of avoiding everyone and then complaining about how lonely they are. >>68948 I certainly am not the person to be answering those questions since I am just an ignorant and unimportant nobody, but even I can notice a social malaise seeping through. That despite being more connected, we feel more isolated and alone. That we're being taught to only associate with those who are just like us 100%, and not learn healthier methods of sociaizing and meeting with people. I don't know about the moral judgements of it all, but I can't just sense that something is off.

>>68950 Nullius in verba. It is an established rule of the Society, to which they will always adhere, never to give their opinion, as a Body, upon any subject, either of Nature or Art, that comes before them. Being paradoxical is important to avoid error. We should think about how to get away to be together.

I dont understand when people praise the internet because now outcast people can find each other they wouldn't have otherwise. I don't understand any of the nerd culture or outsider culture stuff. I don't really like any of these things. I don't understand how the 'nerds' of the past could ever thing they were different from the crowd. They were all far more socially gifted and outspoken than I ever was. They even had interests that they shared with others which I never had.

>>68953 You have a magnificent premise. We all forget that we have two entities. One real and one fictional. Even when we are walking alone, we never walk alone.

>>68950 In what I've observed, the best social relationships happen when both sides are honest and can argue about things without permanent hard feelings. I guess it's kind of like sibling relationships as kids. They fight all the time, but they do love each other, and are good friends. Maybe we should try to be more like that. Avoiding conflict is not sustainable.

>>68953 >>68954 Woah. So inclusion in social groups s just an illusion? Or deeper than that; your distance from others is just that; a distance, and not a separation? For whatever reason, I didn't think that this meta was that far along yet.

I think that we're living the end of the internet hype, and unfortunately, it was a hype. It was THE internet, like a new item, car or videogame that you buy and you take good care of it a lot. This translated as good content, caring for the people on internet and trying to connect imaginations. Having 10-11 years old, connecting on dial-up connection at night to see some Newgrounds animations, RPG Maker forums, from people around the world sharing ideas of awesome adventures that we can develop for each other, for free, just for the art, was something magical and it's something I will remember until I'm dead. Also, the thing is, this magical thing is powerful. This magical thing can change things. And there is people that don't like it, because they depend that some things keep the way they are, so they can keep getting their system working wihtout problem. Getting money, power, happiness or whatever that is and they will not let it fall without a fight. So basically it's like airplanes and the nuclear energy, a niche hobby of curious people became a worldwide power tool, affecting multiple governments around the world and becoming a warfare tool. And when it became a thing that people can get money from, it starts to suck. Maybe we just need that hobbyish internet hype like before. I was raised on it and I miss that thing a lot. Now that even chans are dead and filled with AI, I think that my lurking will be reading old obscure technical books about botanics, first-aid, guerrila and awesome things that I used to read in 90s-2000s internet. At least we had the chance to see what we're capable to do with our good will, imagination and love. It was marvelous.

I honestly never see this on the internet, because I just refrain from using the several dozen websites that host that nonsense.

>I'm never able to find a place on the net where I truly belong, yet it's all I have. No offense but that's why you don't belong. Do you have a job, hobbies, or a social life? It's hard to integrate even online if you have nothing to talk about or have bad social skills.

Just find the place where you *do* belong. Getting there usually requires a lot of work. >Just a bunch of isolated compounds full of clones immediately seeing the worst in everything, heads full of biases shoved so far up their asses that it's become all they know Just be glad you weren't born in a time where this meant spilled blood. Yours, even. Pic so much related your question almost feels worthless, explained casually (and through grief) over 200 years ago.

>>68968 That is perhaps the most tragic part for all of this. To witness something so marvelous and the good from it only for it to have been slowly snuffed for something worse. In a way, it feels like witnessing the ruins of a great civilization and wondering what could have been had things turned out differently.

>>68992 I do, I have plenty of stuff to talk about, lots of hobbies and things I find interesting, but I bottled it all up after years of finding no one to talk to. Then I go on the net to try and talk about these things, and encounter the same thing. The net has gone from a place where I can talk to people and not get ostracized, to a place where I get talked over by other people and ostracized. I live a stable life with a job, but over there I don't talk either, mainly because the people over there are only interested in what they have to say, and constantly cut me off whenever I try to reply or start a conversation of my own, or make it clear that they're feigning interest and are waiting for me to finish. It gets worse whenever people spout the usual lies about being "all inclusive" and "accepting" and then don't practice what they preach, been seeing that happen a lot over the net too. We'll be all happy and inclusive and accepting of you, that is, if we approve of the stuff you like and everything. The blatant hypocrisy and obvious self-fellating irks me the most, especially to someone who genuinely tries to practice that. Hostility veiled as false positivity hurts more than blatant hostility, even though the latter is far more common on the net these days.

>>68996 I am aware, just saddened by the very obvious old fact that even after hundreds of thousands of years, we haven't changed at all, people will just continue to act like stereotypical people. Yes at least we aren't killing over it, but the methods and the madness will always exist, and we'll never be rid of it. People try to talk a lot about change these days like one day people will magically decide to stop being people. Things will only change once we're able to fundamentally change who we are at our core, change human nature itself, as everything that happens in this world is done by our hands now, not anything else's. We're the ones who make the world this way, and unless we're somehow able to evolve or shed our primitive instincts or rewire everyone's brains as a whole, it'll never happen.

>>68950 The only person I was able to have something resembling a relationship you seem to crave was my gf (feels weird calling her that, she's more like family t this point but we aren't married) but that's a special case it seems. I can go into it but I'm not sure anyone's interested how this lighting in a bottle occurred. It's not perfect though, we are both pretty fuarrrked up mentally but we're together and it's been happiest years of my life even though the world is burning around me. (The pic is a fox squirrel she made for me.) TLDR try getting into a relationship. As for the internet, the old style internet is still here, just tucked away. It's for the best I think.

OP here, my hobby in particular is something that society tends to frown upon. I am a collector of nude art featuring children as the main focus. I understand that due to the cues and way that mainstream society works you'll all probably completely change your mind. But I've come to expect that already. I'm just so tired of disguising my interests to the world. I can't talk to anyone I know about my interest and it's so hard to find people who understand my specific fascination in the same way. The longer time goes on I feel like eventually I'll not be able to hold this feeling of rejection and loneliness and collapse under the weight of all the pretenses I've set up. My 'flesh' life is filled with the same grey people who'll either think poorly of me for my interests and cut off any explanations or be completely indifferent to the point I can't say anything that'd elicit any reaction. I don't know what's worse. This illusion of an 'inclusive' and 'accepting' big tent community being possible, or the isolation.

>>69021 How much of your inner world does thi interest take? And do you mean loli hentai or realistic art? Because there are plenty of people who publicly announce on the internet that they love loli and they are fine, some of them are quite popular.

>>69022 If you have to ask... My interest encompasses all forms of itself. It's not my only interest of course but it's my biggest one and the one that I dedicate most of my time to. I have a whole wall covered with some prints I had made. They didn't give me any trouble at the shop. I made sure of that. I'll also say that I'm kind of inclined to agree with you about how I shouldn't be afraid to announce my interests publicly. At the same time I feel like this 'mask' I've made to protect the 'real' me slowly just began to replace the real me and now I can't remember how I used to be able to earnestly enjoy something with others. I think I might open up a little about this to my girlfriend since she's already seen the wall where I keep my favourites taped up. She hasn't really mentioned it but she just gives a smirk whenever she realizes my eyes drifted off to it. It makes this feeling of shame and anxiety well up in me. I don't know how to describe it, really. People on the internet knowing about my hobbies is one thing, people I know in the real world is another.

>>69062 For sure with the thing about real people knowing. I personally don't really do much of that stuff, but I somehow got into sonic porn rabbit hole at some point in the university. I usually don't visit those places now, but once in a while I come back. to be honest I'm not sure that my gf knows or not, She knows there is plenty of hentai and porn on my phone and pc and is ok with it, but we Don't discuss it and I don't feel the need to have in on my wall... Anyhow unless it's actually something involving real children being taken advantage of I don't think there's any problems. But that's just me.

>>68943 >I'm never able to find a place on the net where I truly belong, yet it's all I have. if you were born pre y2k, there were many places on the net where you could belong. google search used to send you to forums instead of just crap ad bullshit and reddit. interested in anime? you would type "anime forum", find many different forums, some dedicated to a single anime, and start talking to interesting people and finding places to belong. How did you find lainchan anon? im near 100% sure it was not a direct search result through google. >Or do you feel the same way that I do, that the net is just a festering cesspit of the worst in humanity? Do you think it'll get any better? it wont get better, only worse once AI content floods it. the influx of everyone on the internet created what I call "The Great Internet Noise". the average person fills every space they find with noise that blocks out any semblance of forming communities. when you got to a site like reddit, and all you see is noise, you want to leave. so who is left in these reddits? only the people who generate the most noise since they get enjoyment out of generating noise. >Have other lainons found better success on the net than me? I have, there are better nets out there. Approach the net like you would back in the day. Dont use a search engine. Go join random IRCs and start talking to people, learn what they are interested in, share things youre interested in, start looking for blogs and following the links on those blogs. check out webrings, follow those links, and follow those peoples sites, and send them emails or something. I do this all the time, and you can speak with and make friends with such interesting people and learn new things. You can get out of the hellhole that is the current net, and rediscover the net of the people, but you have to make a concentrated effort and look for small spaces. avoid any large space since its all noise (avoid reddit, discord, facebook, twitter, any other social media)

I'm sorry, man. Do you have any childhood friends you still keep in touch with? I neglected those relationships for so long but I've decided to put some time in and it's paid off in spades.

>>69096 >childhoof friend There's one that I want to apologize to so badly. lol, she was the only friend I had until I hit high school.

>>68945 I've never heard of that superstition towards cars before. Interesting, do you happen to have any sources citing it or even a documentary of some sort?

No man. I havent. Even though there was maybe more bad moments (and good moments) I settled on making friends with real life people. Ive been with someone for 3 years now almost 4. Whats funny is I see how they interact online (mostly just on tiktok and stuff) and I always am like what the fuarrrk. The stuff they post in comments sections or like isnt stuff id hate but id be like this person definitely isnt like me at all, I doubt we would interact ever. But thats always been the case. The people interested in me arent the people im interested in necessarily. Reverse ways, I see stuff in people no one else maybe would (well most). And not to jack myself off but im not often wrong on my own terms at least. When I see something beautiful in people they almost always end up ever increasingly doing something beautiful or horrifying to me. I sometimes in the past have not even known someone I used to know was now doing something online I liked or maybe thought was terrible but found distinctly memorable only to realize it was the same person. But just online no ones ever good enough, I have two other main online friends and even them were people I used to know in highschool barely (I pretty much only know them online we just went to highschool together) and its likely cause we all kind of share in this no ones good enough. We always are pushing and prodding at eachother, sharing some heartfelt moments inbetween. Lainchans the only online place I post anymore not cause I feel I fit in but no one fits in. Everyone is so incredibly different here people almost know whos who even though everyones anonymous. I think on /hum/ at least all we are united in is we want to know people better, whether we are a neet or a hypersocial person. Theres something about people we dont get we want, and it might be something no one gets and its like chasing the dragon, but even so its all that unites us. Elsewhere though aside from my two other friends and lainchan, I frequently join discords and leave after a few months. Sometimes everyone goes where did you go??? Sometimes everyone says nothing at all and is glad im gone. There is always something it can be just one person it doesnt matter if most disagree it just takes one person to say something i find dissapointing and il leave. Its a me problem, I know it is cause I can find the best in people in real life. I can ignore so much. Yet online il disregard an entire community off of one bad interaction. But its not just online either totally, maybe thats another big theme of lainchan, the connection between the two. The more I spend online the more wary I become in real life. The more scared I become to engage, cause I just worry "please dont say something that will make me hate you, please please". I can get along with anyone till they say something that makes me consider people im closer to and that i know better and how they would feel aboit me just letting someone say something like that. Let alone associating with them. But also I noticed my moms the same way, so it could just be a me thing. Regardless its not a matter of who I can get along with, its who il allow myself to in the end. I have no one else to blame but myself. Its funny everyone in real life knows me as this incredibly patient person always willing to help but everyone online knows me as this highly irritable person who dissapears at the slightest perceived wrong. Im not proud of that, its some kind of dissonance I need to solve. I just know that even with my (or how I see it) horrible antisocial nature and unlikeableness its easier to have a community in real life. I think theres something more open about online communication and i dont not like it but i guess it makes me less friendly. I realized at some point im kind of fake, and I dont care. I appreciate way more a respectful conversation with someone who if I really knew id hate than someone I hate being open with me. I dont care, im at peace with it. Id rather be talking to a human first than someone immediately glowing red in my vision as someone that would hate me or the people I associate with in real life who I deeply care about. It becomes unresolveable at that point. But in real life there is a kind of immediate cordial respect and we can find whats common first. We can see in eachother what makes us just like eachother even if we find something about eachother unforgiveable. I dont think i have nothing in common with people I hate, I think I have a lot in common. Id like to see that first and maybe only. Hard to do online

>>69098 Not him, but many cultural beliefs were lost before the internet. Many beliefs, especially animism and paganism relied on specific proximity to significant trees, rocks, or the graves of ancestors. People also believed (and some still do) that you will fall off the edge of the earth if you venture too far. Family ties were important so leaving your "tribe" was abandonment and probably a deathwish, which is why adventurers were so notable. This was not necessarily the case for nomads. As for traveling speeds, people once thought that going too fast on a bicycle all the air would be sucked from your lungs and you would die or something like that. >>68945 How do you do fellow marksman, what is your preferred style?

>>68943 We used to believe that society is imperfect because people can't physically communicate with each other and iron out our differences. By wiring us together the internet would fix that, creating an enlightened republic of knowledge, free debate and reason. In reality, pseudo-anonymous internet sites ultimately descend into dictatorial normal person group think or useless and /b/ grade vapid content, gore and hardcore porn. The internet exposed the big lie: human nature is not good and we are not rational. The real problem isn't that we don't have enough phone lines to communicate, but we don't actually know how to talk to each other. There isn't a common social language or even moral ideas we all share anymore, we simply can't understand each other and don't know how to talk like a couple in a failing relationship. The net is a festering cesspit because society is one and if you fix society you'll fix the internet. >Do you think it'll get any better? Do you think solutions for how the net is now exists? I have hope. It's easier said than done, but it's doable.

>>69096 I used to have friends that I met back in middle school knew all through high school and after, but they revealed themselves to be extremely toxic people (one of which was essentially raised on the net, ironic right?). I was an extremely happy and optimistic person back then, but they slowly drove me down into a dark pit. From that point onwards it became less of a "happily shrug off their abuse and pretend it's just light banter and teasing, friend soykaf" to "I'm extremely sick of their soykaf, but the only reason why I stick around is because I don't have anyone else". Predictably after some point I just blocked them all and have been going it alone, though I still wish I got some real closure with them (mostly me calling them out on all their bullshit), but it's probably better this way. Funny thing is that they were exactly the kind of people I talked about, obsessed with being right, obsessed with politics, smug know-it-alls, never engaged my hobbies meaningfully and always forced me to do what they wanted me to do, always degrading me and talking soykaf behind my back (found out that they had a secret chat to each other full of nothing but verbal abuse towards me, among other things). They also lived on the net and had very little IRL social lives, which was probably a red flag I should've seen coming. I've been trying to restore myself to how I used to be back then, but as a person who's also now forced to essentially live on the net, it's hard. It's why this is such a pet topic of mine, I've had physical experience being with the modern netizen, and it's just hell.

>>69092 >[...] there are better nets out there [...] Dont use a search engine [...] Go join random IRCs and start talking to people [...] following [...] links [...] send them emails or something. >[...] you have to make a concentrated effort and look for small spaces [...] (avoid reddit, discord, facebook, twitter, any other social media) excellent post lain this is (part of) the solution

>What was supposed to be this great information network full of people from all over that'd you'd have never known existed before in your entire life, now reduced to some balkanized hellscape of culture wars, us vs them, screaming matches, tribalism, chest-beating, closing off, elitism, and general doom and gloom The average human was introduced to the internet. It's also a sign of the decay of western civilisation. When you permit everything, people begin to act like twats. >t's always the same thing, if you don't dislike the thing they dislike, you're immediately the enemy. This is kind of how social circles in the real world work. You better share the opinion of the group on everything meaningful (We all dislike John after he was rude to James). Ofcourse offline you can disagree on trivial things and nobody cares. Online however, in a place where communities are created around trivialities and people hide all meaningful parts of their life from others in the fear of getting 'doxed', only trivialities remain.

>>68943 to some extent i really think people just suck. In terms of reason it's worse then IRL all i could think of would be that the internet usually has likes and upvotes which fundamentally change the way people interact. Even on imageboards like this I think the effect on the having likes on almost social media changes the way users interact with other. For so many reasons likes encourages sameness, one day I'll type out why I think that but it's too much to type for me right now. If anyone actually wants me to elaborate in another post I will. >>68960 I agree with this. Conflict will always exist, often, it even leads to good.

OP, you're me, I am you. We're out there, don't stop looking, I'm not stopping!

>>69002 This is probably one of the most accurate depictions of how I feel in general that I've ever seen. I spent 10+ years in the therapy+psychiatry treadmill and none of it helped because this is the truth. I just keep bettering myself and trying to be as good of a person as I can be, expecting nothing in return, and occasionally I am pleasantly surprised when someone turns out to actually be genuine. It's not that everyone is evil deliberately; they just don't understand what they're doinf.

>>69002 I'm not sure if I would be a good friend, the kind who can listen well. I'm impatient, and scattered, but I genuinely care. I wish I could be your friend and learn more about you, but I don't think I'm that person. I'm not even sure who or what I am anyways, or if I'm even human. But no matter where you are, just know I'm rooting for you. I pray that God will find you another person that you can relate to and be friends with. >>69003 I have hope that things will get better someday, try to have hope too.

>>71041 I would love to hear your elaboration

>>68943 > I'm never able to find a place on the net where I truly belong, yet it's all I have. Don't expect a warm welcome here, OP. Your sentiments aren't exactly unique. > No such thing as an open mind or trying new things or whatever, just immediate hate and vitriol and ostracization while they return to just atrophying away in their little caves watching the shadows. Ah, the disillusionment of the digital age. It's not like your idealized version of the net ever truly existed. It's always been a mix of the good, the bad, and the utterly mind-numbing. > Like what happened to the net? What was supposed to be this great information network full of people from all over that'd you'd have never known existed before in your entire life, now reduced to some balkanized hellscape of culture wars, us vs them, screaming matches, tribalism, chest-beating, closing off, elitism, and general doom and gloom. Funny how naive expectations tend to crumble in the face of human nature. Your utopian dreams got caught in the crossfire of reality. > Have other lainons found better success on the net than me? Or do you feel the same way that I do, that the net is just a festering cesspit of the worst in humanity? Success? Define that. And yes, the cesspit analogy isn't too far off. > Do you think it'll get any better? Do you think solutions for how the net is now exists? Or will people just continue to be people no matter what we do? Change? Maybe. But don't hold your breath. People being people is the one constant you can rely on. > Or will people just continue to be people no matter what we do? Precisely.