The value of messageboards (was Kalyx right?)

I have been giving my habits a thorough review- I used to scroll through websites like 4chan and certain subreddits searching for something of value, but came away disgusted almost every time. I of course recognized this and only rarely visit either of those sites, for the sake of my mental health. However, you have to wonder why these sites, whether they be corporate social media or not, are so low in quality. And I mean going beyond their curation style- of course Reddit can be done far better, see Hacker News for that- I am asking not about the cause per se, but about the effect. What is it about these sites that promises gold yet reeks of dross? I then came across an old comment by the previous owner of this messageboard, where he stated more or less that users on sites like this should experience something in the world before they comment about it / document it online. Could it really be that simple? Could the mind-numbing, soul-sucking mediocrity of this style of information-sharing really be reduced to something as simple as a mass of humans having an impulse to speak with more frequency than they actually act or think about something relevant to what is spoken? Are these places hellscapes merely due to users treating them as an extension of their social organ, rather than as a tool? If so, what does anonymous think the proper frequency of I/O ought to be? I personally read my RSS feeds and HN once a week, and check some altchans for posts I can contribute something useful to every few days. What amount of posting do you think is too much? Most importantly, when should you post and when should you not? I personally lean towards thinking that Kalyx was right. I could sit there lurking on a board like /lambda/ for a while, or I could use that time to actually program something and bring the board something to show for it, but post less often. For some reason, lots of us humans have natural compulsions to prefer to lurk and chat with more frequency than real action, and I don't know what to think about that. Maybe it's just a form of FOMO.

>where he stated more or less that users on sites like this should experience something in the world before they comment about it I remember this too, but can't recall where have I repeatedly seen it. Was it a banner or a screenshot? https://lainchan.org/banners.php

>>34210 I don't see the quote, I looked through the PHP file.

Large communities built around one upping eachother will always tuen out such ways

>>34210 Here's the third party quote from someone (I genuinely can't recall when it's from, unfortunately no timestamp) paraphrasing kalyx, I had it saved in a text file but my soykafty indexer couldn't find it. >kalyx had this saying about how it should work: you go out into the world, you see and do soykaf, and when that's done, you have something to post about on lainchan (if it's relevant). People who never go out into the world have nothing to say, so their posts will be meaningless and bad.

>>34204 >Could the mind-numbing, soul-sucking mediocrity of this style of information-sharing really be reduced to something as simple as a mass of humans having an impulse to speak with more frequency than they actually act or think about something relevant to what is spoken? Definitely. What made pre-2010 internet great is we all had unique backgrounds, and spent more time unplugged from the Matrix, so there were more unique opinions. Now it's like everyone is plugged into the Content Beast 24/7. Which is horrible, because all that downtime between activities or alone time of experiencing X in isolation is not a bad thing -- it's super important time for your brain to reflect and make connections on what it experiences. Like when I played games as a kid, I had no clue what the internet thought about them -- I just did it because I loved video games. So years later I would find out the internet hates some game I love and be shocked. And I used to play Metal Gear games in like 6-hour time spans just fuarrrking around with guards. Now, I'm more likely to spend that time on image boards instead, reading other people's opinions. It breeds homogeneity in people, not the good kind. We really have to limit ourselves with the net now. It became way too addicting. >What amount of posting do you think is too much? Most importantly, when should you post and when should you not? Once or twice a day. Active posting (i.e. for a purpose) is okay whenever, passive lurking is acceptable only when you've run out of energy to do real activities

I can read about Biden's dog biting someone, Nazis in Canada, bombings in Syria, the Trump trial, celebrities making TikToks, serial killers etc all of this leads to information overload. We're surrounded by information technology and there's now an attention economy where everyone from small forums to news media are obsessed with getting you to click on and view their content. At the same time we live in an age of chronic loneliness where people crave company and community, a place to belong. That encourages people to contribute but it can also lead to dependency. In the attention economy, there are dozens of people and corporations trying to exploit your need for company and online discussions have become more and more hyperreal. Someone posts an image to social media, someone screenshots that post to 4chan with a bait comment that implies something about an 'other' group of people. The replies section fills with rage posts, these are then reacted to by a streamer on another platform etc. Reality gets lost in this cycle. The internet today is 90% enraging reaction content. People reacting to other people reacting to something else with everyone gluing their own narratives onto it. Nobody slows down and asks "what exactly am I looking at? Is this something real? Does this make sense?" Everyone is chasing a dopamine hit whenever they generate responses or bait a reaction out of someone. Social networks and 4chan generate a unique kind of short term thinking based on the need to quickly process vast amounts of information. When you go on /p0l/ or Twitter you realize the regular posters there are mentally deranged. They are unable to process more than a paragraph of text. What they do read they fail to process accurately. They interpret everything through pre-fabricated archetypes to cut down on processing. Whenever someone uses X word it must mean they are a transphobe, whenever a black man is killed by a cop its because he was a feral nigger who was probably a [insert racist stereotype]. 4channers seem to spit out recycled soykaf memes as if they've been programmed to do it. People fire of shots in the dark. They see something, jump the gun, loose their cool and have to say something about it. Then someone sees that and does the same. People feel compelled to speak even if they have nothing meaningful or lol worthy to add. There's that old saying, if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say it. What it really means isn't "don't hurt people with words" but saying angry, enraging, negative soykaf all the time can consume you and hollow you out and turn you into a horrible person.

> what does anonymous think the proper frequency of I/O ought to be? I try to cut down. I use command line web browsers. This keeps me off most websites and I’m not being overwhelmed with images and seductive links. I limit imageboard usage and web surfing to 2 hours max at the end of the day in Firefox. I avoid using YouTube for music. I pick playlists and albums and download them. This forces me to listen to all the tracks and choose my options carefully. I figure I need to try some kind of meditation to clear my mind too.

>>34204 He was right as hell, but how the hell do you program compliance with this practice in users? Already open access forums have a free rider problem, where posters are only rewarded by the pleasure of posting, and not with the pleasure of those they help, causing mass posting and little thought for the users of posts. Culture can only hold out for so long. One easy solution: know everyone you talk to on a personal basis, and reward/punish each other for useful/premature speech. Don't know how it could be scaled. Million dollar question that.

>>34280 This, people like to feel important and better than others. That's why there's an impulse to reply even if your reply isn't insightful or even valid to that matter. You can take this post as an example. Why would I type this answer? What do I gain?

>>37839 Do you read? It's a good way of passing the time without melting your brain.