In Defense Of The Net

created by novalis

(idea) by novalis (11.7 mon) (print) ? 1 C! I like it! Mon Jul 17 2000 at 6:41:53

Did you ever wish you could go back and add a line to a conversation you had? I made this as a nodeshell after a a conversation, and after adding the line, I have returned to fill the nodeshell.

Two weeks ago: I was waiting for the train to go into the city for a job interview. I was looking pretty spiffy, with my hair combed and a shirt with buttons (this is really rare for me). At my station was a girl, about two years younger than me, who was reading a book on C++. We started talking about stuff. Some time during our conversation, I mentioned that we might meet again. She said:

"I'm an artist, you're a geek - we will never meet again".

I hadn't been thinking "maybe we can go on a date." I had been thinking "you live/hang out near my home, because you are taking my train. Therefore, the probability is high that we will see each other again." But that's not important. What's important was the "we will never meet again part."

At any rate, we got to talking about the net. She claimed that the net didn't give you anything that RL couldn't give you. This is a very condensed version of our conversation:

Me: You can meet people from far off places. I now know people in Finland and Australia.
Her: What's wrong with the people here?
Me: It's higher bandwidth - I can read 3 times as fast as I can listen, and I can type faster than I can talk.
Her: I read slowly, and anyway, you don't have the facial expressions.
Me: You can create communities of like-minded people on the net.
Her: There are like-minded people everywhere.
...
...

I was unable to convince her of the unique values of the net. For the next few hours (excluding my interview), I thought about the problem of what's so special about the net. Then, on the way home, I solved it. I didn't think it too likely that I would see her again, but I still though about what I would say if I did. I got it down to an ultra-condensed form - the sort of thing I could say in 2 lines. It's not a bad way to pass the time.

Today, I was with some friends, and I saw her. She was with an old lady in a neck brace, walking somewhere. My friends and I were trying to get to a movie at the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, so we were in a bit of a rush. Here's what I said:

"H-T-T-P colon slash slash T-R-I-K-U-A-R-E dot C-X and Magenta had not known other furries until she went online.

The chance that she caught (and remembered) that URL is near zero. The fact that the statement is incomprehensible without lots of knowledge about lots of stuff didn't bother me in the least. The point is that I was able to add exactly one line, and I added a line that (to me) proved the unique value of the net. She just looked at me, and walked on. We walked on too - we were off to see "Helpless Maiden Makes an 'I' statement", "Gang Girls 2000", and other short films.

If I could do it a third time, I would write it down. Or maybe just give her a print out of this write-up.

printable version
chaos

furry	I'm feeling like a custard now	Archaeopteryx	community
What makes music good	Why I am going to pretend I am a girl online from now on	White People	C++
bandwidth	Australia	Finland

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