
The Internet Is a Series of Lead Tubes - fredfoobar42
http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2015/11/13/the-internet-is-a-series-of-lead-tubes/
======
Shog9
The lead pipes are highways. Not "information highways"; literal, people-
bearing transportation systems. For a relatively short period in human
history, it has been easily possible for just about anyone with a small amount
of wealth to _leave_ the place of their birth, to escape those pesky social
problems that always crop up in groups, and to do so without a great deal of
risk.

...And now the 'net is making the world small again and an awful lot of folks
are realizing that they don't like being part of their society any more than
their ancestors did. We got our scarlet letters and our witch hunts and our
untouchables and our religious wars and it's all ruining our ability to laugh
at the ancients because more and more we look at ourselves and see the same
failings.

~~~
abandonliberty
The human platform is inherently flawed. We need to build something better.

------
13of40
Even without the internet, the status quo in the western world for several
decades has been to spend five hours a day eating Hot Pockets in front of the
television. Hopefully future generations will remember that when they're
criticizing us for looking at too much Facebook.

~~~
dx211
When you factor in the number of people who are going out
biking/hiking/vacationing/etc. so they have something to show off to their
friends, I think Facebook probably has a positive effect on our collective
health. (Present company excepted of course -- we all just love to get
outdoors.)

------
xixi77
"I love the access it gives me to all sorts of information, and how it
connects me with people I would have never been able to hear from before. I
hate how it also contains spaces for people to easily gather to abuse and
harass people." \-- ie. the good thing for him is that people he likes are
able to find each other, the bad thing is that people he doesn't like are able
to find each other. Sounds rather hypocritical to me.

------
vlehto
>online harassment

I don't think this is reason enough for most people. I've gotten death threat
once. I just didn't chat with neo-nazis after that. People will learn to not
attract that stuff.

Personally I find internet consuming because I get this feeling of being
social, but I never get my need of socializing satisfied. I can "talk" here
sure. But going for a walk with a friend and not talking much feels better
afterwards.

But this neither might not matter for the majority of internet browsing
people. About 50% of population are extroverst like me.[1] The remainder is
introvers. It's likely that majority of internet users are introverts, who
have lot smaller need for socializing in the first place.

[1][http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-
mbti-...](http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-
results/how-frequent-is-my-type.htm)

~~~
sp332
Only one death threat? That might actually be enough to drive some people
away, but I think the article was talking about people who get death threats
on a regular basis. Sometimes just being who you are is enough to "attract
that stuff".

The most vulnerable are the ones who don't have friends or a support system
nearby. Their only options are to put up with being constantly harassed, or
cut themselves off from their community entirely.

[https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-
ebook/dp...](https://amazon.com/The-Internet-Garbage-Sarah-Jeong-
ebook/dp/B011JAV030/)

~~~
vlehto
Most people are not idiots enough to hang at notoriously neo-nazi filled irc
channel and argue with them. Most people don't get death threats at internet.

So internet is not lead plumbing. It's more like early electric grid, where
lightning could burn a house nearby. It's not going away, it will just get
better.

That being said internet harassment is a genuine problem. And I don't have
solution for it.

~~~
sp332
Death threats aren't the only kind of harassment. Check out the comments on
any popular Youtube video, or most news sites that have comment sections.
There aren't many of those left actually, because they tend to fill up with
ridiculously high levels of harassing and even threatening remarks. Twitter
users had to roll their own group-blocking solution (and Twitter has built-in
some of these features recently) so communities can collectively compile ban
lists. There's just too much shit out there for any one person to deal with.

~~~
vlehto
I agree that it's major problem. But I still don't think it's existential
problem for internet itself. If some person has to delete twitter account,
that doesn't really justify who someone else could not order pizza via
internet.

Twitter users are about 10% of internet users. And the problem looks lot worse
than it is. Popular users are lot more likely to be harassed, and we are more
likely to hear stuff from popular users. Most are probably like me, followed
by my mom and one real life friend.

~~~
sp332
I disagree. Twitter, Facebook, email, and other messaging systems are how most
people communicate privately and participate in culture. Ordering a pizza
slightly more conveniently does not outweigh isolating someone.

You're more likely to hear about harassment from popular users, but that
doesn't mean lots of regular people aren't harassed too.

------
mhandley
The analogy is a bit strained. It's not really the Internet that's harmful,
but rather some subset of the humans attached to it. We could cure some of
that problem by mandating the abandonment of all online anonymity, but that
cure is probably worse than the disease.

~~~
fredkbloggs
The author seems a bit focused on trolls and general obnoxiousness, but for me
the real problem with such widespread, constant communication is something
else. That lends itself to two of the most dominant features of current human
culture: the suffocating smallness (or, more properly, _sameness_ ) with which
it imbues our world, leaving the probably accurate sense that there's nowhere
to run to or hide if you don't like what you see, and the vicious "outrage
cycle" that reinforces a particular and very narrow ideology. If you don't
happen to agree with that ideology, and there's nowhere you could go instead
that's any different (and certainly not any that's better), what's left to
you?

It's not entirely fair to blame "the Internet" for this; as Tom Standage has
described, earlier forms of communication started these trends. But it really
hasn't been until the last 30 or 40 years that communication has been both
universal and instantaneous, and those attributes are essential to the kind of
feedback loop that creates what we have now. And the worst part of it is that
checking out of it yourself doesn't help. The author of this article is
absolutely correct on one thing at least: the abandonment will have to occur
en masse to make much of a difference.

~~~
crpatino
There has always been deviants, and there have always been two kind of
deviants: the ones that figure out how to blend with the masses while
retaining their identity, and the ones that meet sad ends at the wrong side of
a pitchfork.

~~~
xixi77
There's always been the third kind, those that would take action to change
their surroundings -- either directly, or by surrounding themselves with like-
minded people. At least the second method seems to have become much easier
with the advent of the internet (first probably too, but that's a whole other
subject).

~~~
crpatino
Right, I'd considered those to be part of the first group, but the differences
are too obvious to not grant a cathegory of their own.

At the end of day, though, it all boils down to claiming a niche in society.
If you fill a niche, your excentricities will be tolerated, otherwise you will
be labeled as "other" and ostracized.

------
ctstover
I liked the article. Slowly more and more reach that point on the on-line
adoption curve to start realizing some sort of shark jump point exists. In my
older age, I've learned its called "boredom", and it's a way of your
conscience telling you there is more to life.

Also, gray text on white background promotes illiteracy. Just learn to say no.
It's very paux west coast.

