Social Networking and Social Responsibility

[Baron Max]

This leads me to think that a big fear some people have when communicating with others (IRL, but probably moreso online) is that someone would have them for a fool. And so to avoid this, they seek to depersonalize the whole communication.

So you're into psychoanalyzing fictional characters, too, huh?

Baron Max

 

[Tiassa]

No, Tiassa, it's because people ARE inherently .....liars!

The point of human corruption is useful in discussions of human nature as a consideration of where the species is headed. It is not useful as a justification for your own dishonesty.

Good faith is a fairly simple concept, Max. You can play a character in good faith, but I understand that's too confusing for you. After all, playing in good faith a character defined by the absence thereof gets you about as much as multiplying yourself by zero.

 

[Baron Max]

Good faith is a fairly simple concept, Max.

Which most humans can't grasp ....unless, of course, it's for their own personal greed.

Baron Max

 

[Xev]

Good faith is a fairly simple concept, Max. You can play a character in good faith, but I understand that's too confusing for you. After all, playing in good faith a character defined by the absence thereof gets you about as much as multiplying yourself by zero.

Honest, honest Iago!

I mean if you really dont believe youre interacting with a human-being right now, what it is you think thats communicating with you?

It's strange that when you remove the absurdities of physical nature, people act even more ridiculous. Certainly he's communicating with a person, but not with a physical person who stutters, sounds funny and burps. You'd expect that the quality of conversation would be much higher for that but it's not.

 

[Tiassa]

Which most humans can't grasp ....unless, of course, it's for their own personal greed.

Exartly.



Your contribution is noted.

 

[Baron Max]

The point of human corruption is useful in discussions of human nature as a consideration of where the species is headed. It is not useful as a justification for your own dishonesty.

Good faith is a fairly simple concept, Max. You can play a character in good faith, but I understand that's too confusing for you. After all, playing in good faith a character defined by the absence thereof gets you about as much as multiplying yourself by zero.

So, let's see ......from that post, I can see that your idea of communicating with people is to insult them and denigrate their character and call them liars.

So, is that due to your own self-righteousness or is it that you feel you're actually typing a message to ....ahh, an invented character? And so if it's an invented character, you don't have to be nice ...like you keep trying to claim people should be???

Do as Tiassa says, not as Tiassa does?

Baron Max

 

[Tiassa]

So, let's see ......from that post, I can see that your idea of communicating with people is to insult them and denigrate their character and call them liars.

You don't get a "system reset" every day, Max. Just because the sun has set and will rise again tomorrow doesn't mean I need to naîvely presume that you will, for some random reason, behave like a decent person. The façade you show is what you choose to show. It's all I've got to go on. I see no reason to cast you in any other terms.

So, is that due to your own self-righteousness or is it that you feel you're actually typing a message to ....ahh, an invented character? And so if it's an invented character, you don't have to be nice ...like you keep trying to claim people should be???

Again, I'm not going to fool myself into believing that just because tomorrow isn't today, you're going to behave differently. When you choose to put forward a different façade, I will respond to it as I see fit.

In the meantime, as long as you continue to play the roll of mean-spirited half-wit, that's how I'm going to treat you.

Do as Tiassa says, not as Tiassa does?

Whatever you find gratifying, Max. The character you've presented isn't capable of understanding either my words or my actions, as you've so frequently reminded over time. So whatever gets you off, Max.

 

[heliocentric]

You're failing to take into account that the people who are willing to meet you might not be projecting a fictional character ....ON THAT INTERNET SITE. But it says nothing about what they do on other sites ....where you don't know who they are. It also says nothing about others who are NOT willing to meet you.

It doesnt matter though. All i need to do is meet 'one' person off the internet who isnt a fictionalised character to know that all individuals online are not fictional characters.
Formal logic ftw.

Helio, if someone is lying like a rug, do you seriously think he'd be willing to meet with you in person? So see, only the people who aren't lying are willing to meet you .....and by your own count, that's only 5 out of ....how many?

But im still basing my views on real-data unless youve actually met a handful of people off the net then all youre really doing is guessing.

I mean this is a science-forum so id assume youd hold with some form of empiricism.

If the sites have anonymous names, then I'm more than willing to assume that lots/most/everything they say is lies in one form or another. It's sorta' like meeting a used car salesman ...don't you just automatically mistrust everything he says? And when you hear a politician speaking, don't you automatically suspect most everything he says?

Sure, but there's a limited extent to which you can be reasonably skeptical.
After a certain point it becomes a kind of solipsism where you start discounting the reality of absolutely everything other than your own thoughts.

And once again, you'll never know. And see, that's the beauty of anonymity on Internet forums ...anyone can be anything they wish.

Again, i see what youre saying, but its just about being reasonable in your skepticism as i see it.
Is it possible for someone to acrue 17,000 posts pretending to someone they arent - absolutely. But it is highly unlikely.
In other words, id have far more chance of being wrong by assuming youre a fabricated character created from the ground up, than i would assuming youre more or less the person you present yourself to be.

I don't know about that ...perhaps you should go back and check some of my posts. I've been accused on several ocassions of being contradictory and hypocritical from one post to the next. But see ...you'll never know, will you?

Baron Max

I think we're getting slightly off the central point that the original poster made here, which is about treating people online as individuals with emotions, thoughts and feelings.
Tbh i still havent really seen anything in your argument to convince me that i shouldnt care about the emotional responses of those i deal with online.

Even if we can say that *some* people exaggerate, or construct parts of their online persona does does that then make it permissible for me to behave without responsiblity towards them?

 

[greenberg]

What are our social obligations in a semi-anonymous social network?

I think a strong factor regarding this responsibility might be the person's sense of community, and not so much whether they see those they interact with as "persons" or just as text on the screen (or words and bodies in the air).

If there is a strong sense of community, a strong sense that the people are somehow connected and important to eachother, then regard for the other person will come naturally, out of this sense of community.

Take group sports, for example. You can go to the soccer or basketball court, play with total strangers. But because you are a team, you have regard for your co-players. Not because you would see them as "persons", but because you function as a sports team, there is a sense of community.

There are some people though -and they tend to really stick out and be poor team players- who insist on personally getting to know everyone on the team, seeking to "treat everyone as a person"; and if for whatever reason they can't do that, they're displeased, quibble or pull back. These people seem to have a lesser sense of community, they are "individualists".