Tuesday, December 30, 2008

(That is what's real)?


On the internet it seems that people only present themselves as they would like to be presented. Every single picture or video or snippet of information or exhalation of information is displayed for one reason or another. There's a kind of digital disconnect between you and the person at the other end of the tunnel. How much does this filtration displace the person behind the screen? Inevitably technology may reach the point where you won't be able to tell the difference between a real person and a technological manifestation. Most people won't notice the difference and, if the intelligence programming is convincing enough, it might not even matter all too much. The people made of meat and neurotransmitters that revolve around you might be just as masked and distilled.

Evil sleeps with one eye open.

A few weeks ago I was waiting for one of my classes to start when one of my friends, or acquaintances (sometime these relationships can be such a blur), sat down next to me and talked about a conversation she had just had. She said that there was this guy that was talking to her about something that would not be of interest to anyone. He was basically wasting her time. All of this made me really uncomfortable. The subtext, or what I gathered to be the subtext, was that whatever she was talking about now was somehow significant. I almost made a joke about it but realized it would be a fairly awkward and uncomfortable exchange. The only thing I could do is shake my head and try to change the subject. It always seems really unnatural when conversation becomes self conscious. As far as I can conclude, almost everything is nonsense. Importance is not in the conversation but in the receiver.

Some people like bands. Some people like songs.

Post it notes, courtesy of Brad Murphy.




Speak easy,
Neil

1 comment:

Selina said...

I guess people do present themselves very differently in the digital world. Finding signifigance and meaning in conversation is something that can always be viewed as ironic, because what really matters?

trali