Thoughts at work....

Well, I didn't post Sunday. I was a bad, lazy person and mostly just bummed around the apartment, hacking on the computer now and then, IRCing with the folks on #watertower, or taking extended naps. Productivity was definitely not foremost on my mind yesterday.

I'm currently idle at work, waiting for some time to pass so I can go to lunch. I desperately need to get some food and caffeine in me so I can prep myself for the massive amount of meetings I'll be having this afternoon. I know already that I won't be able to just sleep with my eyes open through these -- we're discussing far too much stuff in far too little a time, and the decisions we make in these meetings could make or break my network (and my sanity in 18 months). But, for the moment, I have some down time so I thought I'd take a moment to put an entry in. Which brings me to the thought I've been mulling for a little while now: Are friends any less real if they're "Internet friends?"

There's been a lot of talk the last few years about addictions to the Internet making people less social, geeks struggling to fit in while out in the "real world," all sorts of negative press about what the Internet can do to stunt your growth as a productive human being in society.

I'll admit it, I'm a geek. Always have been, and always will be. I fell in love with computers on that fateful day when my father brought home the Apple ][e. It unlocked a lot of potential for me and is, I'm convinced, the reason I'm in the job I am making the money I am (for all I complain about the salary I'm at, I have to admit that I'm making a pretty good amount of cash per year for somebody without a college degree and who is only 22 years old). I spent a lot of time in my youth on that computer, as well as on the machines that successively replaced it. I used to spend hours every day after school dialing up to the BBSs in the area (before the Internet killed them all), I ran a BBS, I knew a lot of folks online that I never had the chance to meet in person. Sometimes a BBS I was on would have a get-together (or "GT" for short) and I'd be able to attend, catching a ride with somebody before I was old enough to drive, or scheduling time off from work to attend when I finally was had my driver's license. I got to meet the faces behind the names, and I almost always had a good time. I made a lot of friends online, some of them are people I still know (Like Melissa, the Cthulhu Coffee mistress). But conversely I had very few friends in junior high or high school. I don't know if my social skills for real life were stunted or if it was just a matter of me not being that interested in associating with my "peers"... I couldn't stand most of them. When I moved to Illinois and started college, much the same thing happened. By this time I was on the Internet, and had been spending time on the IRC and on various online games like FurryMUCK. I'd replaced a lot of my friends from the BBS world with friends from the Internet world. And while I was lonely sometimes (I didn't go out with my roommates in college much, one I wasn't into drinking at the time, and two I wasn't OLD enough to drink and it sucked being carded) I mostly didn't mind. In fact, during those two or so years that I attended school and spent all my spare time online, I made some great friends whom I eventually got to meet face to face (Namely Aureth, Roho and Jen, amongst others. About a month ago I found myself on the IRC networks again, most notably hanging out in #watertower where I met Kette, Captain, Masem and other folks. I've mentioned before I've gotten a chance to go hang out with Masem and Cap a time or two, so I consider them friends, and I honestly consider most of the other folks on the channel friends as well, even though I've not had a chance to meet them.

But back to my point -- are the friends I make online any less "real" than the friends I make in person (e.g. those at work)? I care about my friends online. I feel bad when bad things happen to them, I joke with them, they provide me interesting conversation and challenge my beliefs, at times forcing me to expand my horizons. They give me a hand now and then when I have problems they have experience solving. They ask after me. They're exactly like friends I make out in the "real world," except I don't regularly (or ever) see them face to face. So why do people look down on these folks? They don't entirely replace social contact in person, but they can certainly augment it. In certain cases they've lead to close friendships in the "real world" as I've mentioned above. I don't differentiate, so long as you meet the requirements to be a friend, you're a friend to me, regardless if you live a block away from me or half a world away.

I for one value them a great deal, and wouldn't give them up for the world.

Thought for the evening....

I flitting through my usual web sites, Slashdot, and Flayrah to name two of the more interesting ones, and stumbled onto what looks to be a nice flame war on Flayrah after Aureth posted a review of a new comic that takes quite a satirical look at the "Furry Fandom." People were pissed off that this comic existed, others were pissed off that Aureth would dare to post a review and further glorify this "piece of evil," still others are pissed that the person who wrote the review dislikes the comic and attacks the author/artist, accusing Aureth of so-called "yellow journalism" because he didn't immediately go and contact the artist to "get his side of things."

Frankly, most of these people are acting like spoiled children, and they're pissing me off big time with their wild accusations, faulty logic and general attitude problems. I wanted to jump in there and tell them to get anally violated by an angry pit bull with genital herpes. But I stopped to think about it for a minute -- my mother always said cooler heads will prevail, and every now and then I'm reminded of this when one of my ranting e-mail at work comes back to haunt me (or backfires entirely). I started to think about the motivation some of these people have. A few are definitely out to make Aureth look bad, or to infuriate him to the point he says something that wouldn't be proper for the chief editor of a news site to say. Others are genuine in their anger (either way) about the topic. Others are just there to stir the pot and see what sort of reactions they can get from either side of the line; they'll be happy just as long as somebody falls for their trolling and spits venom.

At this point I started to remember just what a double-edged sword free speech really can be. Believe me when I say that I'm proud of the First Amendment. I personally think it's one of the greatest things about our society and our country: everyone has a right to speak out, and nobody needs to be afraid to. Is it misused? Perhaps. No, I take that back -- it almost certainly is. As an example: I certainly have no love for those hate-filled folk over at the KKK, who try to hide their fear and anger behind spin and rhetoric about how they "don't hate blacks, just want them to stay in their place and let the white race stay pure." Hitler's party line revisited, and then some. No matter how they pretty it up I can see the amazing amount of hate they have, and I feel nothing but contempt for them because of it. I also don't much dig on the way some protests have been staged by various sides of the "right to life" debate. All around me, people are saying or doing things that go against my beliefs and the values I was raised with (as well as the ones I developed for myself as I grew up). I don't like it when flags are burned, for another example. There are any number of things that offend me or go against my beliefs that are said and done every day, and they are protected by the right to free speech, no matter what I think of it.

To come back to an example... I've already mentioned that I don't like burning flags -- I'm entirely against it, I think it's a disrespectful thing to do towards your country and towards the men and women who have served it and died for it. Partly I feel this way because my father volunteered to the Army and went to fight in Vietnam, putting his life on the line for his belief that what his country was doing was right, even if thousands of other people disagreed and called him a murderer. I was outraged that people would say this sort of thing about people who were travelling thousands of miles away from their homes and dying, away from family and friends, from warmth and comfort, alone in a strange place.

So you can see where am going with this. I mean, it was patently obvious within the first paragraph, wasn't it? Surely you understand why I say Freedom of Speech is a double-edged sword: I love being able to say what I think and believe, but I absolutely loathed some of the things that were being said. I WANTED some of this sort of speech to be stopped. Gay bashing, racism, any number of things -- I wanted it to go away. But then I started to think...where would I be if we outlawed that? What if somebody found what I was saying to be offensive or threatening? It wouldn't be hard to be threatened at times by some of the beliefs I hold and speak out on -- I'm a firm believer in the right to bear arms, for example.

So... I still want it to go away. But I want it to go away because of the right reasons, not because we put a lid on it and shoved it under the couch like some dirty secret. That never fixed anything, look at what a total and complete flop prohibition was. So, as time went on, I became more focused on desiring to see the First Amendment protected, even if some of the things it protected offended me. When I heard that legislation was being drafted to make flag burning illegal several years back I got very upset and voiced my opinion via a letter to my representative (who knows if it ever got read, but I made the effort and that's what matters most to me). I may not agree with what these people saying -- hell, I may be violently opposed to it -- but I simply cannot begrudge them their right to speak their opinion, because I fully expect to be able to speak mine in return. Sure, it's easy to play armchair politics and decide what's right and what's wrong, and say "That sort of thing should be made illegal." But when you start to think about the larger ramifications, you start to see things aren't so black and white. And besides, if you only play armchair politics and voice your opinion in a know-it-all manner, but never get off your duff to do anything about it, I think you've already given up any real rights you have to bitch. I hear during every presidential race how this thing or that thing is never going to be addressed or change, but nobody ever bothers to get off their ass and ride their reps about it, or get the media to ask the candidates about the issue. God does that piss me off to no end.

And it's been awhile

Since I can say I love myself as well.