Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site teddy.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!talcott!panda!teddy!lkk From: lkk@teddy.UUCP Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: wasting time Message-ID: <1631@teddy.UUCP> Date: Mon, 11-Nov-85 19:25:36 EST Article-I.D.: teddy.1631 Posted: Mon Nov 11 19:25:36 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Nov-85 04:40:35 EST References: <917@cvl.UUCP> <352@whuts.UUCP> <11@ttidcc.UUCP> <2966@sun.uucp> Reply-To: lkk@teddy.UUCP (Larry K. Kolodney) Distribution: net Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass. Lines: 50 In article <2966@sun.uucp> chuq@sun.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >In article <11@ttidcc.UUCP> hollombe@ttidcc.UUCP (The Polymath) writes: >>Electronic communication isn't real? You mean there aren't real people >>reading this stuff? It's just an AI experiment? Perhaps you don't believe >>in telephones, either? (-: > >Well, I definitely agree with Jerry's sentiments, but it really needs to go >a step farther. Just because you can't write things that live doesn't mean >others can't. I've carried on a number of 'relationships' or continuing >correspondences across this net that would blow away your average party >banter, or even your better than average party banter, for that matter. > >If YOU can't do >it, it is because you aren't good enough with your chosen language -- don't >blame the medium, blame the messenger (try writing your love letters in C? >naaaahhhhhhhh) I've done it Chuq. I've gotten very powerful emotional responses out of people thru letter writing. That's not the issue. I might get a tremendous emotional reaction out of a novel, but I wouldn't claim to "know" the author as a result. As I've said before, "knowing" somebody requires so much more than knowing about what they have to say to you, it requires seeing them in action, when they aren't making a "presentation." > I wish people would learn to stop generalizing their own weaknesses > onto the entire society of people they deal with. This has nothing do to with personal weaknesses. It has to do with the way that human emotions function. The fact of the matter is that there are many many inputs that we get from people subconsciously which shape our feelings toward them. Those cannot, by their very nature, be purposefully transmitted over a network. I have met people, I'll admit, whose emotional life is quite atrophied, and who live almost entirely in the world of cold rational analysis. For them, falling in love would entail finding someone whose philisophical system coincided with theirs. I guess for them, the visceral emotional factor is relatively unimportant. For these people, the net is probably the ideal way to meet someone. It allows you to avoid all that messy emotional stuff, and get down to what's really important, whether she is a hegelian materialist or a Millian utilitarian. -- Sport Death, (USENET) ...{decvax | ihnp4!mit-eddie}!genrad!panda!lkk Larry Kolodney (INTERNET) lkk@mit-mc.arpa -------- Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. - Helen Keller