Blogging

[27x]

I've just gotten into blogging, and when I have my first one set up I'll put a link to it here.

The reason I didn't put this on off topic, is because I didn't just want to see some of your blogs, I also wanted to discuss blogging in general.

I really see no harm in them, but then again people didn't see any harm in selling tape worms as a weight loss product.

The way I see it, there are so many blogs, that the odds are that noone will ever see yours or mine.

Any thoughts?  

[shall she sail seas]

No clue. Off the top of my head, this might be related to information theory but I honestly don't know anything about it.

I'm not too sure if there is any harm in them.... I guess the argument for them being no harm would have to do with being able to choose which blogs you want to read and which you feel are not worth reading.

But then, you could counter that argument by saying that it leads to too my diversification of information such that people would end up having too many extreme combinations of blogs they read, which leads them to have a completely different point of view and set of knowledge from one another, which leads to miscommunication.

But uhh... I'm probably exaggerating, right?  

[27x]

On the contrary...

You were coming close to realizing, that information becomes distorted when it passes from one to another.

It's like the game were you wisper into someones ear, and they wisper to the next person in line, untill it goes all the way down the line. Eventually it gets back to you, and you say what the last person said.

There are four outcomes.

1.It is exactly what you said, or basically the same.
2.It's slightly different, or very different.
3.It was different because noone was paying attention, and they shair their opinion of what it was.
4.Someone along the line says something completely different than what they heard.

With blogging I am concerned about the third. In my opinion most people in this world won't hesitate to shair their opinions, when they don't know much about what they are talking about.

Knowing this, how can anything we read be right or wrong?

Even if we go back to the origional source you can't know that they didn't lie.  

[shall she sail seas]

I_27_04

Knowing this, how can anything we read be right or wrong?

Even if we go back to the origional source you can't know that they didn't lie.

You know... that question goes all the way back to the beginning of printing press. Thanks for bringing that question up.

So I guess, it's more a matter of moderation of information? But even that sounds a bit creepy. I say moderation because the printing press did offer lots of useful information - particularly for trade - at the beginning. And we also have our books which were instrumental in educating what was once illiterate common folk. So there IS some benefit in having this spread of information.

Now, with blogging, youtube, multiple grassroots online newspapers, etc., it seems like the information might be spread too widely and it's just not humanly possible for one to have a general picture of what's going on in the world without being swayed by one side. It's just not possible to pay attention as mentioned in your (3).

And yeah, I know what I'm arguing here is very nostalgic. You could easily undermine my argument by saying there were a tonne of lies even at the beginning of press.... the multiple translations of the Holy Bible are clear evidence of that.

lol. I dunno?  

[27x]

NomNomNominal

Now, with blogging, youtube, multiple grassroots online newspapers, etc., it seems like the information might be spread too widely and it's just not humanly possible for one to have a general picture of what's going on in the world without being swayed by one side. It's just not possible to pay attention as mentioned in your (3).

I think your jumping to conclusions. This is the scenario you are depicting:
There are so many versions of Robin Hood, that we can't know what really happened, therefore it's impossible to pay attention to the story it'sself.

The whole idea that we can't completely understand one topic is the very thing that I am trying to get at.

Although noone knows everything about a topic, you'd think a blacksmith knows more about smithing than an accountant. If an accountant walked up to a blacksmith and said, "You're doing it wrong." He would just look stupid. He would probably look even more stupid if he tried to explain why.

Most people in this country are simply too busy to study very deeply into politics, including myself, and I feel like I'm one of the few who will admit that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to the subject.

Anyway back to the subject of blogging.

Another thing amiss about this tragic tool, is that the pen is indeed stronger than the sword. People can say anythign they want in a news atricle, but people can be jailed for speaking their minds on their own personal blog.

The thing we use to easily spread our opinions to the world, has become dangerous to use. Therefore, there is little point of saying anything serious at all.  

[shall she sail seas]

Looks like we've got a bit of miscommunication here and we're talking over each other.

I actually agree that we can't completely understand one topic.

To further develop on what I previously said and with your latest reply, the issue is because there's so much knowledge out there, we are required to specialize. So your scenario with the blacksmith and the accountant is correct. The problem is that neither of them will have a general world view (and I'm not talking about "world view" in the political sense, sorry about the confusion in my last post).

So likewise with the blogging, we'd end up specializing too much in one or a few major areas of interest and neglect the rest.

As for censorship in blogging and comparing to the press, I'm not too sure that's really the situation. The press censors its writers, and even then, some journalists have been prosecuted for exposing classified information (that citizens have a moral right to know). For blogging, the self-censorship merely isn't that strong so it just goes directly to plopping them in jail.

As for the importance of saying serious things... ehh... kinda disagree on that one, but I'll pick it up later.  

[dybo]

I_27_04

Knowing this, how can anything we read be right or wrong?

Even if we go back to the origional source you can't know that they didn't lie.

Well that's a pretty conundrum. How can we know anything is true? How do we know we aren't lab rats for some stellar being that controls the environment of the world? The answer is: we can't. There is always some doubt about what is said. In science, a fact is a hypothesis that has quite a bit of scientific evidence for it and no evidence contrary. It is not immutible however. Someone may come along to tell us "No, plants don't use photosynthesis to survive, here's why," and then a new "fact" is put in place. In the end, what is truth? Is there an absolute yes/no answer to any question?

Now that I've gotten completely off topic...back to the OP. You're right. The odds of you being seen and read amoung the countless throngs of people dying to tell the whole world just what a ***** their girl/boyfriend is is slim. There are few ways of getting the world's attention. Running through the streets naked would get you noticed in life, but on the internet, you'd be a part of the 97% porn content. You could yell profanity at the top of your lungs, and not be any different from anyone on /b/. The only way to be noticed is to create something completely original and viril, then pay some people to start mimiking you in poor Youtube videos. Or, that's how everyone else does it (not too sure about the paying part, either). Are you sure you want the world's attention, though? Once you have it, it doesn't go away easily.

On to your questions, last one first:
Are you in possesion of some knowledge that would put you in danger with the law? The chances of you saying anything that will get you arrested on the internet are slim, and most of those topics have clearances associated with them, so they know who could say it, anyways. Getting arrested is a nonissue.
There's always the chance that despite what you have to say, you'll be ignored by the majority. Actually, that's what normally happens. The majority of internet users don't even read blogs not linked to their favorite news page/webcomic. However, SOMEone will read it, if only the people who host your web page. It's always a crapshoot.

In conclusion: there is no way to know that everyone's not lying to us, you probably won't get arrested, I doubt the majority will listen to anything any of us have to say. Just go for it. Write what you think. It's not illegal (yet).  

[27x]

It's one thing to think that people are decieving us. It's another thing to think that there are enough people out there, in unified colaberation, to controll everything that happens.

People can't run a government of a small country well, let alone controll the whole world, and it's media.

I can go online, knowing that I can blog about anything I want, and if there was somone controlling that to keep me from blogging, it would be apparent by the fact that I wouldn't be permitted to post what I wanted to online. Sure people can sew, and it is possible that the court sytem could be controlled by the government, but I doubt that something like that could be kept a secret for long. You can't be 100% sure to keep someone from tattling on basically any piece of information, unless you right up and have them killed, and even then, if they escape death, theres a possibility their word can get out.

Sure, it's one thing to see homeless people scream out that the world is ending, but it's another to see a judge, or a government official to do the same.


It's not like you can brainwash every person in power who is just that, in power.  

[dybo]

Can't you? There are all kinds of military technologies we don't know about, how sure are you that they don't have mind control? How sure are you that we aren't some sociological expirement of some alien race, or a zoo for superadvanced humans elsewhere in the universe?

I digress. It is impossible to know FOR SURE that something is true, anywhere, for anything. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. I was answering your questions, and in my usual fashion mocking some of the previous post subjects.  

[27x]

The thing is though, if we are being controlled, then it's really useless.

If people were controlling us I think it would be less chaotic, enough said.  

[dybo]

That's what they WANT you to think! xd

So, act normal. We can't prove it one way or another, so ignore it and get on with life. Or make a career out of proving that we're all being controlled by an evil military dictatorship!  

[27x]

The way I see it, if I was controlling everyone on earth, I would have already done something interesting by now. Nothing interesting is happening.

If any entity realizes,"these people are my complete slaves," it will soon think, "I want to make them preform for me."

Nothing really interesting is happening, so I doubt that anybody could be controlling us.  

[Smartteaser192]

27x

The way I see it, if I was controlling everyone on earth, I would have already done something interesting by now. Nothing interesting is happening.

If any entity realizes,"these people are my complete slaves," it will soon think, "I want to make them preform for me."

Nothing really interesting is happening, so I doubt that anybody could be controlling us.

27x, But the question is how would you do it? How would you control everyone on earth? Would you put some technological mind-controlling device into their brains?

There are deviants out there that will not respond. So, it will still be chaotic. Whether you like it or not. That controlling scheme only appears in an authentic military setting. No where else. We have a conscience, we have an initiative and we have a mind. So, you will understand if you watched the 1st movie of the Matrix trilogy.

There is a philosophical possiblity that we as humans or every living entity on this planet are being controlled by something. That something controls our behaviors and create a sense of uniqueness in a certain personality. It is not you controlling everyone, but something. Were did the actions come from? Our mind. Were did the mental activity originate? So, this explains one of the 5 ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. The first causer.

It is a spiritual entity not a physical entity. That spiritual entity is what we call the Supreme Being or simply called GOD. I will end it here since this thread is not about the existence of God. I apologize if this goes out of topic but It is relevant.  

[x3 SuGarr CoOkiie]

You are right. There is a big chance no one would see it, but on the other hand there is that chance that someone will see it and say something about it. I think that is what keeps me blogging. I type endlessly and I have kept a particular blog I have for years but I also have not had a reply in years. With the internet having more subscribers than ever I still believe that I am being heard, no matter how silent people seem to be.
Sometimes it gets irritating that no one has anything to say, but I keep in mind that through those millions of people there is bound to be just one person who is reading or has read one part of article I have written and that is enough for me to keep writing.  

[27x]

What you're saying is somone could rule the world right now and no one would know about it.

Example: I rule the world. See? You had no idea untill now. rofl

You can't rule something if no one knows who you are. And even if somone ruled the world under an alias, we'd still recieve messages from that alias.

The only way somone could acutally have power over the world and make decisions when we don't know it would be the matrix, where the authority controlls the laws of the world, and rarely interacts with it.

And even then, the robots of the matrix did not rule the world, they simply maintained it. It was the people inside who ruled.

And even though this is an interesting discussion, we have gone off topic.

The topic is blogging.