Parting Thoughts

This is part four, and final, of an editorial series.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and out of series - Ennui's thoughts
I asked shp and coldfire to write their final thoughts too - but they haven't yet.

The net, as it currently stands, is a place to escape from the 'real' world.

People carry across their basic thoughts and perceptions - but change them as they try to come to terms with a new environment. One with different inhabitents, and different basic rules.

Total anonymity brings distance and distrust - but also means that you have to place more trust in those few that keep a constant identity.

The escapism of the net leads to some 'less mature' people deliberately trying to cause trouble, and failing to realise the friendly nature of the conflicts.

As the net becomes more mainstream, the tribal viewpoint will spread - until we get to a point where more of life is online than offline.

Then I think we'll see a lot of problems, as real world solutions are applied to the net rigorously. We may well see most of a generation moving deliberately offline, or finding other escapes within the net as they fail to fight this.

An optimistic view would say that the majority of people were well intentioned - and that they will help build communities that are a real alternative.

But I've spoken, in real life, to twelve year olds. Met people who are proud of beating people up over a game - heck, the muggings over pokémon cards.

Anyway - you just read a whole page of text (or were smart enough to skip to the bottom) You are my audience, not them. I want to change them - I will do so by example. Come with me and found a community.

Or is all this just a lot of fancy words to say 'I like writing silly headlines - you like reading silly headlines - we both like lists of comics - lets have a website'

Thanks go to Iceman, Shp, Ennui, Coldfire, Injektiv, Iceman and the many others present at the conversation. Why don't you join us sometime?