If you can, get off the Internet now.

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EVERYTHING you mentioned can and has been done offline before the invention of the Internet.

Do you honestly believe the war on drugs would have lasted as long if it wasn't for the Internet? Or companies like pseudo which hosted online TV for the first years of the Internet? You can only transfer heat for so long until that transfer of heat explodes in a closed system. With the invention of the Internet, we have created a never ending, and open system which transfers heat every which way and only a small amount of that heat ever makes it out of that system offline and had any real influence because all of that demand is online. Demand for support, demand for emotional support, demand for friends and I could go on forever.

That's super duper.

It's also a terrible excuse, really.

The bit about this site itself, for instance. My own experiences are already direct proof that "oh you can do it without it" isnt true. I dont have anywhere else I can go for knowledge and insight into autism, the thing that affects so much of my bizarre existence. Nobody I know understands it. Nobody I know can help. Hell, most dont even know what it IS, even if they know me well... they know only that I have it.

Without the Net, I wouldnt be able to get any assistance... and I wouldnt be able to assist others. Which is another thing I do. How selfish of me, right?

Or how about the job bit? I recently completed a contract with a software developer, where I assisted in the specific development of a part of something that was a product they were working on. You know, something that actually gets sold and allows them to make a living. Guess what? Cant do that offline. It's not a matter of "wont", it's a matter of "cant". I have to be able to get in touch with them *immediately* if needed, I had to be able to send files back and forth, and deal with documents that needed to be perused in order to keep track of how everything needed to work... this all needed the Net to function. Particularly as I live near Chicago, and they live on the coast.

And beyond that, I come onto the Net because friends I know can be met only here. You think it's so simple as just using phones? Hah! You cant have been on this site very long, if you think that. Oh, there's a couple of people I know that could be contacted by phone easily enough... but they also live near me, so I just drive over instead of use that (yes, some of us DO actually get out of the house!). But the others? No. It wouldnt work, and it aint happening. For their reasons and for my own. And I can respect that, for the reasons that are on their side. Yet we can still have immediate, real-time conversation, even despite the lack of phone, BECAUSE of the Net.

And beyond that, I've met real, lasting friends on here that I've known for years. And yes, I mean people that I now actually see IRL. The internet is, at it's base, a way of making contact with other people after all.... some of us really do use it for that.


Again. I could go on, and on, and on. And that's just MY situation... or some of it, I should say. The situations and reasons of others here often get even more complicated, their reasons even deeper.

"It's been done other ways" is seriously a bloody stupid excuse, and I think you might already know that.

However, that's completely irrelevant. MY point is, that regardless of what you think, you shouldnt come on here and try to tell everyone how they should behave, how they should do things, when you dont even know any of them.

People are "connecting" with people at an abnormal rate. They're not really connecting, they're isolated and they're sharing their deepest secrets, and garnering support for their deepest desires which are sometimes illegal and disgusting. Don't believe me? Just "Google it". That's what everyone does, and says nowadays. When was the last time you were able to pull hard offline evidence?

You First!

....you didnt read a thing I said, did you?

I've already made lasting friends... that I meet *offline*, note that important word here.... and they are people that I care about. ....and would never have met without the Net. I owe it, for that, bastion of insanity though it may be. Just as I owe it for allowing me to keep in touch with those that have now moved elsewhere, far from me, where I cannot reach.

If you really, honestly think that "real" relationships cannot start here (friendship *or* romantic sorts*) then you are deluding yourself in your anger. Dont think that because YOU havent seen or experienced it, that it means that others havent.

Dont get me wrong, the Net can be a very dark place. But if you think EVERYONE is like that... well, frankly, that's not a very good way to think. Hang around this site long enough, and you'll learn otherwise.

Well why is WP a website and not an international support group? Hell, it could even be a company but the demand exists online.

It's really hard for me to believe much of what you're saying. I don't see the connection with 9/11 and people "doing nothing" about it because they were posting on forums. What should they have done that they didn't do, in your mind?

And what about all the soldiers that got deployed to fight terrorism? Were they too busy tweeting while out in the war zone, that's why they died? Honestly, that's really disrespectful.

And by the way, you have provided NOTHING in the way of evidence of your claims.

WhiteWidow,

If the Internet is so evil that we should all log off right now, then why are you still logged on?

Do you want the Internet all to yourself?

I did read and I read that part. If you had a better job due to demand for other industries offline, you'd have a different lifestyle.

It's all a matter of accessibility.

With it on the Net, anyone with any manner of Net access can get at it easily. The nature of a forum also means that you need not worry about dealing with real-time contact... there's no "business hours" here, for instance, and you dont have to worry about wether or not anyone is around at the exact time you are. You can leave a topic/post, and check it later, rather than requiring someone be there at the very same time you are. It also means that what you say/ask can be seen by LOTS of people, which is often the very thing that leads to an answer, in the end.

That first bit is important too. Some people just cant get at something like this in any other manner. For example, someone that for whatever reason, is simply unable to get out of their house. They cannot go to a support group, or something like that, if they cannot even leave, for whatever reason. Or they might be someone that has no money.... someone that might be using a public machine (like at a library) to come to this, the one place they know of that they can get help on, for their autistic condition. Accessibility is part of what the Net is and part of why it exists. Yeah, it can be used for dark purposes... by nasty jerkbags. Plenty of us ARENT nasty jerkbags.

Again, there's LOTS of reasons. You may not know them, or have experienced those reasons yourself, but that doesnt make them not exist.

I want people to log off so that bad things don't continue to happen like Charlie Hebdo. People are currently arguing online about it, more vehemently than offline because they feel safer tweeting about their feelings than saying it in person. The use of hashtags which garner racial hate and poke fun at problems in the first world which aren't really problems for anybody except them, make conversation offline that much more difficult because of prolonged ignorance.

But like I said, demand for industries offline would have lead to much better jobs and wages by now so there wouldn't be as many people stuck in their house. We would have different lifestyles.

Those support groups could potentially run 24 hours per day if the demand was all offline. It's not like people don't know aspies exist. They are fully aware though that a free source of supply exists for them which has lead to hand over fist profits and Mia appropriation of funds.

Oh come now... that isnt doable and you know it.

How do I know? Because a time BEFORE the Net became huge wasnt exactly THAT long ago. I still remember that time. Much better jobs and wages? No. I dont think so. Alot of it is still the exact same menial crap now as it was way back when. And a support group that's open ALL THE TIME? For autism? That actually helps? Aint gonna happen. Not offline. Even just the logistics reasons would be problem enough, but it's more than that.

HERE though, people dont need to meet very strict demands in order to help. USE the site. NOTICE how many of us try to help. Nobody has to pay us anything to do this. If funds dry up? Doesnt matter! Those of us that help, do it because we want to help! Offline, if funds dry up, that's it, that's the end, game over, everyone head on home! And the bigger the organization, the more funds that they need. This though? It's just a site... nice and simple. It doesnt require the physical space that an "offline" thing of this type would, it doesnt require that people stick to a super rigid schedule, it also doesnt limit HOW MANY people there can be around to help. That last one is important as heck, too: Alot of us have already dealt with offline "support" groups. And found them to be very.... unhelpful. Because sometimes, they're staffed with idiots, or people who dont REALLY care. To them, often it's JUST a job. And when you run into people like that, there's NOTHING you can do, because the amount of people that can work at a place like that is very limited. But here, this place? It's not a job for any of us. That's not why we're here. And there's *alot* of us. Even if you meet someone unhelpful who is just being a jerk, well... there's so very many others to talk to here, that ARENT jerks, that will actually care.


Seriously though, all of this.... you dont NEED to reason it out here, not with me, not with anyone else. Like I said... hang around the site for awhile. Get to know some of the people here (once you do, you can probably speak with some of them OFFLINE too!). There's alot you can learn here, and not just about autism. Learn more about the Net, and how people really do interact (or not) with it, and what it can do, BEFORE you condemn them for... anything, really. But more importantly, learn more about the people that you condemn before you do so.

"... and it was written in those days that every evil known to mankind found it's soul and inspiration on-line; for it is well known that the desire for bandwidth is the root of all evil, and many iniquities may be discovered there ..." -- Book of Fred, 1st Chapter, 14th verse, c. 12,027 of the Human Era.

The internet is like a gun. It's not good or bad, but it can be used for good or bad. Yes porn, video games, pointless news articles and similar content is bad. It wastes time and takes away from productivity. But... you can LEARN things from the internet. I got halfway through my high school physics class without buying any textbooks because I could learn from the internet. No I didn't google the answers to the questions, but I researched the topics I was learning. I finally caved and spent 50 bucks on my textbooks because it got fairly difficult halfway through. Still... you can learn pretty much anything on the internet for free. You can connect with others, share ideas, and save data. Two sides to the coin.