Comments on: The Affirmation Society in the Information Age http://www.paulholmes.ca/2009/06/21/the-affirmation-society-in-the-information-age/ Internet Geek, Blogger, Web Developer, Entrepreneur, Social Media and WordPress Enthusiast, Public Speaker, Husband and Dad. And Serious Caffeine Addiction. Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:10:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: NN http://www.paulholmes.ca/2009/06/21/the-affirmation-society-in-the-information-age/comment-page-1/#comment-6623 NN Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:50:34 +0000 http://www.paulholmes.ca/?p=438#comment-6623 We were already a society of affirmed self-righteousness, and the only thing that can change that is a questioning attitude. What the Internet exposes in these early days is that other views are not only possible, but widely held in forms you couldn't even have imagined without seeing them. Sturgeon's law applies - most of them are crap - and eventually you become personally more able to filter for positions that are reasonable to you. The result is real strength in your beliefs, instead of copied beliefs that merely affirm the opinions of leaders, media representatives and politicians. You're either affirming something or being affirmed, all the time - usually both. The important contribution of lowered barriers to communication is to speed the death of ideas that don't scale to larger societies. But you have to discover them first, in all their weird and wonderful permutations. Thanks for the weird idea. ;) We were already a society of affirmed self-righteousness, and the only thing that can change that is a questioning attitude. What the Internet exposes in these early days is that other views are not only possible, but widely held in forms you couldn’t even have imagined without seeing them.

Sturgeon’s law applies – most of them are crap – and eventually you become personally more able to filter for positions that are reasonable to you. The result is real strength in your beliefs, instead of copied beliefs that merely affirm the opinions of leaders, media representatives and politicians.

You’re either affirming something or being affirmed, all the time – usually both. The important contribution of lowered barriers to communication is to speed the death of ideas that don’t scale to larger societies. But you have to discover them first, in all their weird and wonderful permutations.

Thanks for the weird idea. ;)

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