Thank you, that is all.
Online Community, Revisited
It’s a little embarrassing to bring this up, but…
When I posted about online community, I neglected to mention the heart and soul of online community. That special something that online community brings, that no other community can bring in quite that special way:
Spam.
So of course that was the post on which the spam filter broke down and let a couple spam posts through. Call it the internet’s little irony.
Spam is the ultimate in sacrifice; that is, it is the ultimate in making others sacrifice. Let others pay the price for your benefit – that’s spam in a nutshell. Place the burden on the community commons.
But I guess I’m a little sad, because spammers seem to understand community better than people understand community; they seem to understand people better than people understand people.
Why do I say that? Well, let’s look at the spam message. I’ve left it on the original post. but I’ve stripped the original spam e-mail address and link.
Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed reading your latest post. I think you should post more often, you evidently have talent for blogging!
This is brilliant. Ignoring the fact that the poster’s name was “Amazing Weight Loss Story”, this is a fantastic spam post. It’s almost indistinguishable from a genuine comment.
I love my genuine comments. They mean something to me; they make me feel alive in the same way that every conversation makes me feel alive. The spam comment is a mockery of the real ones.
But… I can’t look at that spam comment without acknowledging its understanding of people. The person who wrote that knew exactly how people work. They knew what kinds of comments I want to keep around. If only the author had decided to use that insight for good, for building people up. Maybe they’d have built a community.
The problem with flattery and insincerity is that it always shows itself to be false. The reason it’s flattery and insincerity is precisely because it differs in some way from genuine concern, genuine compassion,and genuine sacrifice. It has some other purpose, some other concern, some other goal. And it’s that difference that betrays it, every time.
I’ll always spot the spam posts, because the spam posts are always interested in something other than genuine community. It doesn’t matter how well written they are, they always link back to their true nature. If I can’t trace a spam post back to a bogus site, then it has failed in its role as spam advertising, and so every spam post is always identifiable, because it is what it is.
Online Community
Scott Hanselman expresses a thought well:
“I’m of a slightly older Internet generation that doesn’t believe everyone is a unique snowflake and that if everyone behaves with a “this is me, like me or leave me alone” attitude then anarchy (ahem, or the internet) will emerge.”
Community is hard. It means seeing other people and caring for other people. Sometimes it means sacrificing what you want because you believe other people are important.
I know what it is, even though I’m not very good at it.
Sacrifice isn’t mentioned very often on the internet. I think that’s because most of us approach the internet as something of an escape from the real, sacrificial world. The internet is a place where we can be who we want to be and portray ourselves as we want to be portrayed.
In some ways, the internet doesn’t feel real.
Facebook is a wonderful example of a mixing of the internet and the real world – it’s more real than the rest of the internet (people are who they say they are) but it’s less real than the real world (people pick their best photos for their profiles).
Of course, when you say it like that, the real world is less real than the real world, too.
If you want to make things work on the internet, eventually you wind up acknowledging the need to sacrifice, because the internet is really all about people, and people need to sacrifice in order to get along.
The Two Little Pigs
This is a continuation of a little game I thought up. The game is to retell a fairy tale or children’s story while omitting one of the major characters. It might make a passable party game.
Without further ado, and without a third wee porker, I present The Two Little Pigs.
Once upon a time there were two little pigs. One day their mother said to them, “It is time for you to go and establish lives of your own.” so they set out to seek their fortunes.
As they traveled, they talked between them and decided that they must build houses. “We will each build our own house,” they declared, ” and we will visit one another on week-ends. Unless the weather is bad, then we will telephone. Unless we are out of town, then we will e-mail. Unless we have been drinking heavily, then it will have to wait for next week.”
Having decided this, the two brothers went to find some material from which they could build their houses.
They first came across a man selling bricks, and he encouraged them to buy some.
“These bricks are strong.” boasted the man. “They will withstand ill weather and ill fortune both.”
“These bricks are too expensive.” thought the one pig to himself. “I don’t want to spend all my money on a house. I need something left over for my own enjoyment.”
“These bricks are too heavy.” thought the other pig to himself. “They are too rough. They will tire my shoulders carrying them and they will bruise my young and tender hooves.”
So the two pigs passed the brickman by. They soon came by a man selling sticks.
“Aha!” cried the cheap pig. “The right product at the right price.”
“These sticks are a good weight,” thought the tender pig, “but they are still too rough for me.”
So the one pig stayed to barter with the lumberman, and the other went on a little further, until he came to a man selling straw.
“This is exactly what I need!” cried the pig. “It is light and smooth and easy to work with.” And he stayed to negotiate with the hayman for a fair price.
Now when the two little pigs had built their houses, one of wood and one of straw, they were extremely pleased with themselves, and visited each other not just on weekends, but also on Wednesday afternoons, so that they could enjoy one another’s houses.
This continued for quite some time, until one day a wolf arrived at the house of straw. The little pig was outside tending his garden, and when he saw the wolf approaching he ran straight into his house and locked the door behind him, before cowering under the kitchen table, too frightened for words.
“Little Pig.” growled the wolf. He had a mean, gruff growl, and its itchy-scratchy sound made all of the little piggy hairs on the little pig stand up straight.
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!”
“Not on the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!” squealed the terrified little pig.
The wolf took in a tremndous huff, and let out a tremendous puff, and blew the straw house all to shivers.
Seeing his house disappear from around him, the little pig took off with a shriek, and running and squealing for his very life, headed for his brother’s house.
The wolf chased after him, but could not catch him, for (thanks to his Wednesday visits) the little pig knew a shortcut through the forest to his brother’s house. The path was just right for little pigs but too snug for big, hairy wolves.
Once the pig arrived at his brother’s house, he locked the door beside him.
“The wolf!” he cried to his brother. “The wolf is right behind me!”
He need not have said anything, for the wolf signaled his own arrival with a long and horrifying howl that made all of the little piggy hairs on both the little pigs stand up straight.
The wolf came snuffling up to the door. The little pigs could hear his breathing: heavy, angry and ominous.
“Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house in!” the wolf snarled.
“Not on the hairs of our chinny-chin-chins!” squealed the terrified little pigs.
The little pigs heard the wolf’s footsteps padding softly away from the door, and for a while there was silence. They thought that perhaps the wolf had gone.
But the wolf was only recovering his breath, and soon the pigs heard a terrible rushing sound all around them. The wolf had taken in a tremndous huff, and had let out a tremendous puff, and it blew the stick house all to shivers.
Seeing the house disappear from around them, both little pigs started to run. The little pig who had built his house of straw ran back to the forest, while the one who build his house of sticks ran over open country, and it was he whom the wolf followed.
The first pig could only watch in horror from the forest as the wolf overtook his brother and swallowed him up whole.
“Oh what am I to do?” moaned the pig. “I have no house and I have no brother and the wolf will surely find and eat me if I don’t do something. Oh why did we not build our houses of brick?”
It was then that he remembered the words of the brickman- “They will withstand ill weather and ill fortune both.” And he remembered how heavy the bricks were, and how rough the bricks were, and he began to form an idea.
The little pig ran to town as quickly as he could. There he sought out the brick-man and purchased three bricks. Taking his bricks, he ran to the bakery, where he bought three loaves of fresh bread, a bakers hat, and an apron. Inside each of the loaves of bread, the little pig placed one of his bricks.
Then the little pig put on his bakers hat and his apron, and went out to the road where he knew the wolf would pass by. There he waited, and it was not long before the wolf did pass by.
The little pig, disguised though he was, was terrified, but he called out in a loud voice, “I have fresh bread for sale! Fresh today from the bakery!”
The wolf had set his sights on having *two* little pigs for lunch that day, and so eating the first one had not satisfied him like a little pig usually would. Smelling the fresh bread, he came over to the little pig and purchased all three loaves and swallowed them whole.
The wolf had not gone far when he began to feel very tired and very unwell. The bricks he had swallowed made his stomach feel quite heavy, and their rough edges began to irritate him. Before long he felt that he could not continue walking and, stretching himself out by the side of the road, he lay down and went to sleep.
Now the little pig, who had been following the wolf from a distance, had been waiting for this very moment. He crept up to the wolf, and taking a large knife from his apron, cut the wolf’s stomach wide open.
Well, that was the end of the wolf! Far better still, out from the wolf’s belly popped the little pig’s brother! He was well, and whole, and very happy to have escaped.
The two little pigs took the wolf’s hide to the magistrate of town and received a handsome bounty, for the wolf was a notorious predator who had caused a great deal of trouble in the area.
They took the money and with it built themselves fine houses of brick, where they lived happily for the rest of their lives.
(Except for those weekends where they drank too much to visit… but that is another story.)
News worth reading
This cracks me up.
Reports that some of the suspects were enjoying their stay in Dutch prison cells and were considering eventually claiming asylum, were met with disdain by the country’s foreign minister who was quoted as saying he would prefer it if they were being tried in Kenya under UN auspices.
Maxime Verhagen was quoted as saying that in his opinion, penalties should “deter” pirates, and that he did not want them to end up living happily in the Netherlands.
Somali piracy is not a problem of piracy. It’s a problem of, “What do we do with these bored young men who are insanely poor?”
We tried ignoring them, which seemed to work like a charm, until they started plundering our shipping.
If you have a bored young men problem on the high seas, it looks like piracy. If you then take that bored young men problem off the high seas, without solving it, and throw it into a Dutch jail, the problem starts to look different. It now looks like, “Gee, it sure is nice in here. I’m not sure I want to leave.”
Because you haven’t solved the problem. You’ve just displaced it. Same problem.
Don’t read the news today either
I’d just like to tactfully point out that if yesterday’s story was grisly and disturbing, today’s fare is a man sentenced to hang for murder, four men on trial for plans to carry out jihadist bombings, and 23 people killed in actual terrorist bombings.
I didn’t *mean* to pick four stories all related to the Arab world, but they were all on the BBC front page in the morning, and while I’d like to believe that the BBC maintains relatively unbiased coverage I’m not sure that’s the case.
I fully intend to follow up on yesterday’s post because there’s a lot more there to be said, but I just thought I’d point out that not reading the news is a full time job.
A guy can really tire himself out trying to ignore all the things around him.
Don’t read the news
Gee, a guy gets up in the morning, checks the news and has this gem of a story staring him in the face.
How’s a fella supposed to react to someone getting his hand chopped off?
Reaction 1: Don’t read the news.
Umm… I don’t really like this as an option. It seems a little naive and perhaps a little foolhardy to adopt a head-in-the-sand approach to the world around me. Not that I haven’t taken this as an option before, just that, well… I don’t like it.
Reaction 2: Thank God I’m not in Somalia
Umm… I don’t really like this option either. It seems to have the same naivety as the first option, and the same drawback. If I ever wind up in Somalia then I haven’t really equipped myself well, because my entire strategy was based on not being there.
Reaction 3: Thank God that we’ve moved on past this kind of primitive, nearsighted worldview
Umm… I don’t really like *this* option, either. This has the same naivety as the first two options. In the first one, it was turning my back on the world; in the second option, it was turning my back on a nation. In this one, I have to call it turning my back on people. First of all, the chopping off of limbs is not just an Islamic thing, it dates back to ancient Sumeria. For pretty much as long as there have been people, people have done stuff like this.
I don’t have any good answers on this one.
Parting is such sweet sorrow…
…which is why I wear my hair short.
Erritant
The thing that makes me say, “You’re doing it WRONG!”