YouTube, twitter, Facebook, and all the rest are fun diversions, and possibly useful resources. People can join these social media sites anonymously and vomit the racist, sexist, homophobic vitriol that rests in their souls, or they can spread love, peace and knowledge using a well thought out pseudonym. Acquaintances are made, ideological battle lines are drawn, virtual gangs form, and nonphysical romances are embarked upon. Social norms as well as languages are created, and so within these new boundaries people are brought together or driven apart.
The gold you earn in World of Warcraft and most of the achievements made elsewhere on the cybernetic frontier can’t be exported to our physical reality. No conversion tool exists to change data to material. Likewise no conversion tool can change fancy theory to action. No, the only way for that to happen is to act.
The internet is a tool, a valuable tool. But one tool alone can’t build anything worth building.
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