No, Reader, You’re The One Humanity Depends Upon
You’re The One Humanity Depends Upon
History is marked by the cries,
the strains,
the pains,
All to move one step forward.
Yet we never asked for the most generous gift that we were ever given.
It was just too generous to ask for!
All we had to do was stay silent.
And on April 30, 1993,
It was offered.
We’re little bustling creatures,
With extraordinary intuition,
And we’re bound tight in this social Web.
See me on the net, yeah, see me on the net.
This is where we, as a species, connect.
“I’m the pilot now!” “No, you’ve been steering the fate of humanity for hours already! It’s my turn!”
“Guys, guys, it’s the Internet! We’re all pilots!
At last, we have the chance to decide the fate of future generations!”
A cheer erupts from the crew. They’ve had high hopes for other toys and games before, but nothing like the hope they had for humanity.
“Is it true that we can use the Internet to make wishes come true for people in the future?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, a real-life genie box!”
“My parents never before had the chance to decide where humanity will be headed but they’ve had many years to think about what has to be done.”
“The weight of the world is on their shoulders then.”
“Yeah! They’ll know not to waste their chance!”
Attention! Based on what I’ve seen from the public Internet, I can see that some of you have been slacking on your duties. I’m not here to demand anything from anybody. I know I can’t control all the garbage people post on the public Internet, and I’m not going to act like I can.
But for those of you who want to know more about using the Internet productively, let’s take a look at what’s going on when you don’t do anything in response to wrong or harmful public web posts.
Yeah, the first issue I’m tackling today,
Is when haters make screenshots of people’s posts,
Use it to talk smack,
And especially when they have the nerve to blur the name out,
So it might not be traced back.
Keep in mind that they could have easily just solved the problem,
saved the person,
Not before 1993 but certainly now.
They can either make a direct response to the post so it can be received right away,
Or they can post it on a different page, writing supportively to the other user by name.
Yet some in this position prefer keeping their targets locked in a cell,
While they throw a birthday party for them at the place next door,
With gifts of knowledge displayed for all others to see
Except for the prisoner, deliberately.
Everyone is on a desperate quest for knowledge.
It’s what keeps us healthy,
It’s what allows us to reach out to the world,
It’s what helps us resolve personal problems.
When you abandon someone mid-discussion,
You are showing that you never actually cared enough to stand up for what you believe in,
Despite being gifted with the technology to do so.
That makes you the one who loses the argument!
You cared enough to start the war, you didn’t care enough to end it,
And you didn’t give the other person what they needed to end it, either.
So next time your disgust has been thwarted by a crazed doofus on the Internet,
Examine how the lack of productive discourse may have caused it.
Think, “hey, how are other people a part of the problem?
And how can they do better next time?
Why do they never learn to be gentle with their toy?
Why do they damage the Internet’s ability to provide access to knowledge?
Why do they neglect making the Internet a home of respect?
Why do they cut off discussions, which link to agency, which link to personal growth?
And why on Earth do they demand the toy to repair itself after breaking it?”
I know some of you care, but you still can do better. You may be an agency fanatic.
You read the post like a mirror reads people, capturing every word, replicating them in your mind.
Then you think stupid hard about what the words mean to the person writing them, stuffing it all in your mind. Feeling the weight?
Then you write. And backspace. And write. And backspace. ‘Til it’s perfect. You feel accomplished and proud.
But your post will bounce right off of the other person and you’ll feel like it’s hopeless.
Now, I’m here to show you that you’re wrong about that.
Your post has four audiences. The person who dismissed you is one of them.
One down, three to go. This is your war cry. You’re not yet done!
Here are the three groups that were invisible until now:
The other participants; the lurkers; and the silent, helpless, vital readers from the future.
It’d up to you to continue the discussion for the benefit of these three,
And then you’ll see your true potential.
Listen, Earth! Voting is not always the solution.
Not when each option makes things worse.
They’ll spend so much airtime convincing you to make things less bad,
That web users forget that they can make things a little better,
Simply by getting online and guiding our species,
And not by contributing to the worldwide communication crisis on the Internet.
When you participate in online discussion, theory and practice can be developed at the same time.
