Question for Anyone Who Posts on ILX

What do you think it says about you as a person in the world (particularly socially, technologically, psychologically) that you read ILX, post on it, and (for the sake of this question) find a community that you enjoy participating in on ILX?

can't afford - socially, psychologically, financially - to spend all my life in the pub

I was particularly thinking about whether I consider myself a particularly technological person. I don't, because I have a number of friends who are comp sci majors, minors, or otherwise engaged in serious computer work. But compared to most Americans I probably am. I wrote a computer game, I consider myself pretty familiar with the Internet and have used over the years bbs's, usenet, mIRC, MOO's, and maybe equally damning, I spend so much time chatting with digital strangers on ILX.

xp lots of ppl can't afford to spend life in a pub but don't gravitate towards a place like ilx

i know! was just speaking for myself :)

so why did u? or what was it about you that when you couldn't afford to hang out in pubs, the solution you found was ilx?

i like having conversations and making funnies. vast bulk of message boards full of too many noisy idiotic scrotes to make either possible? my pre-ILX interneting was drawn to community communication too mostly.

I've wondered this before and I kind of suspect that most people here are pretty bored with their jobs/school or are unemployed.

I've always, since I was a kid, participated in Internet communities. It could be because I've always been bored, but I also suspect it's something about when + how I grew up and an early positive disposition towards the Internet

I trace my presence here back to my days in school when I would be paying attention to whatever lecture the teacher was giving while simultaneously filling my notebook with convoluted doodlings and drawings. I've always had this inclination to kind of do two things at once.

honest answer: its just a thing i do? i dont think its filling any gaping social hole or anything, and i am def not a techy dude (plz note i still have to pull up the show formatting help thing half the time when i post). psychologically i dont think it says much either? ive never otherwise been a message board dude, so maybe i am an outlier.

Ultimately I'm pretty comfortable here! As part of one of the two core communities that led to its founding, it's just always felt like one of the core 'home' spots I have on the Net, and I'm comfortable enough with the Net, so. Combine that with a breadth of subjects and things to talk about and the ease of use of the place and hey.

i was also hired by the govt to keep tabs on this "ned raggett" dude so it pays the bills i guess

U fucker

you have only your unnatural knowledge of the digits in pi to blame

maybe related question: Do you think that most ppl could probably be comfortable here if they were just introduced, or do you think we're probably at the level of cultural participation that we could be at?

Let me introduce you to a new poster here by the name of G. Beck.

I tend to gravitate toward ilx when my social circle of the time is too narrow in focus to discuss more than one topic ever, or when I have one of my turns and don't see people for months/years. As long as I duck and weave around the various trolling and cliquery (which tbh is true of the entire internet) it works pretty well for me.

tbh I can't get used to the interface of other message boards - after years on ILX, similar sites (if there is such a thing) seem like a pain in the ass to navigate

i think the intimidation factor is a little overblown re:ilx - i mean i remember being a little weirded out when i first got here and having to get the hang of the place but i guess it depends on sorta your comfortability to be sorta faceless in a way for a long time

there definitely is an ilx-type and I think this is more true today than ever. there isn't a single (open, at least) republican on the site today, very few teenagers, etc.

i think there are prob plenty of republicans but they dont bother being political because its not really a forum looking for those ideas

i think the intimidation factor is a little overblown re:ilx - i mean i remember being a little weirded out when i first got here and having to get the hang of the place but i guess it depends on sorta your comfortability to be sorta faceless in a way for a long time

otm, and tbh I think it works best when you're happy to just participate without lofty expectations. Also the intimidation factor can drive one to attempt to find a voice, although by now it's pretty clear to me that being yourself is the best way of getting the most out of ilx.

*perceived intimidation factor

the biggest factor is that i love not just music and pop culture but smart, informed criticism of the same, and ILX is the best source i've ever found for tips, crit and general discussion. beyond that, i suppose i spend time here because i crave a kind of communication and stimulation that i can't seem to find elsewhere. this saddens me somewhat, but so be it. also, compared to other message boards i've spent time on, noodle vague otm re: the blessed absence of noisy idiotic scrotes.

i think thats another (maybe unfortunate) vibe wrt this site, where people just sorta opt out of certain positions because its got a few brick-walled thought circles, i know i do it on the reg - for example i dont think there are many die hard obama supporters that are going to roll into the rolling political thread swinging, but that def doesnt mean they dont exist on ilx xpost to iatee/republicans existence

i think thats another (maybe unfortunate) vibe wrt this site, where people just sorta opt out of certain positions because its got a few brick-walled thought circles

That's true of everywhere on the internet ime

that being said i do think that its interesting that some of those WARNING SIREN topics are surprisingly respectful and back and forth - i think some of the saner internet conversations ive ever seen wrt gun control have occurred on ilx for starters.

I wrote a computer game

lol how can you follow up "I am not a technical person" with this tidbit

he wrote it on a piece of paper

I like this place because it reminds me of my bbs days.

tbf, it was an interactive fiction game written in inform.

there are significantly more difficult (and impressive) ways of writing a game

people here are fun about politics and there are over half a dozen threads about the fallout series

I keep losing sight of the original question and writing about why I like ILX. So but:

I think that what using ILX says about me is that I am a very social person who likes to connect with people (or if not connect, at least read about the lives of, and especially people that I would not normally meet IRL) and who is comfortable enough with technology to not find text-based communication on the internet a weird way to make and maintain friendships, but not so tech savvy that I have ever gotten the hang of threaded discussions, and who psychologically doesn't have a lot of patience for noisy idiotic scrotes (thanks NV).

we are all in mordy's game right now

i was surprised by how many ppl were game for codeacademy on ilx. i think that first got me wondering about this. also, u know, other reasons.

mIRC

IRC, bro, IRC

mordy have you tried inform 7? i stuck my head back into the language the other day after many years of absence and it's all crazy now.

is inform 7 the one w/ the natural language? i used TADs 2 and then the first inform with the natural language thing that emily short helped develop. i think that might be 7.

I've definitely been a part of internet communities since I was a kid, long before it became 'socially acceptable' (is it acceptable nowadays? feel like I still get the raised eyebrow when I say 'hey I'm part of this thing online')

let's see, earliest was Prodigy BBS boards (remember coming across a wheel of time BBS). then it was IRC because I was really into N64. then various message boards before ILX.

I'm also an only child, and maybe didn't dig speaking to my parents in chinese all the time

the first ever mp3 I ever downloaded was (I'm pretty sure) master of puppets, sent to me by XxkingmattxX on ICQ. took like an hour.

IRC, bro, IRC

what's funny is that since i've adopted the mac in the last few years i don't even use mIRC, i use Snak. but i used mIRC for so many years that's how i think of IRC

xxxp yeah. i haven't used it (yet) (possibly will never) but i thought it was cool.

anyway what ilx says about me is that most of the friends i made after high school were music critics.

is inform 7 the one w/ the natural language?

haha, by having never used i7 you have proved dan's point \(^__^)/

the irc / college radio venn must hold a lot of ilx

Bunch of reasons: I don't have many irl friends who are seriously into music, I spend a lot of my day at a computer (with nobody looking over my shoulder), the people here are pretty cool and interesting and enthusiastic and have turned me on to a lot of artists etc. I would never have checked out otherwise. I'm happy I stayed.

Never used irc or been on college radio.

sb'd you for that.

Maybe more fundamentally: I'm quite a social person and love hanging out with different people but my job involves little human contact and my main hobby is running on my own for two hours or so. ILX fills the gap a bit.

xp - that's cool. I'm in an accepting mood today.

I was in a training workshop a while back, and we had to go around the table and say what we did for hobbies. I said that I "argue about music with people on the Internet", and everyone in the room looked at me like I was nuts. On ILX I feel that I can say things like that and not have everyone regard me as some kind of weirdo.

re: early adopter computer geekery: I didn't use email until my senior year in college (1994), and only then because one of our profs strongly encouraged us to use it to ask her questions about the class. I had a question for her, so I got the computer lab person to set me up with the Pine account and sent her a question. Then I never logged in again, because I assumed she would answer my question personally in class.

the irc / college radio venn must hold a lot of ilx

― ain't nothing nice (bnw), Thursday, January 12, 2012 7:06 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

how did you know I did college radio ;_;

pine!

haha that was courageous snoball

i too used pine. and ncsa mosaic, which i initially thought was some kind of graphic design program

I will never wear the viscose/polyester trousers of middle management :-(

oh wait I mean :-)

Also another gaffe from that workshop: I suggested that if people got on and did what they were said they were going to do and saw it through to completion, then there wouldn't need to be so many middle managers.

I really am fascinated by message boards; outside of a handful of forced internet hiatuses I have either lurked or posted on one or more boards since probably the late 90s. A handful become frequent visits due to some combination of content and community, and this was always one of the more intriguing ones (I lurked for like 4-5 years, off and on) because there were a bunch of people who I enjoyed reading. I eventually decided to post when there came a thread I felt I should post on (the med school thread). Now I like ILNFL and the fact that there is a place on the internet where I can discuss mediciney things sometimes without wanting to murder everyone. (Studentdoctor.net is the worst, you guys.)

i think i post here because i want a degree of anonymity and distance when discussing books/music/movies. most of the ppl i know, even the ones who care a lot abt these things, dont really care abt them in the same way and i think talking abt these things irl in way thats serious or intense can be kinda... fraught

i think it's said different things about me over time that i've been here and that i've also 'been here' in different ways over time. i arrived very unaware and full of myself and, as i realized this, became mostly a lurker. this coincided with a very long painful growing period where i used ilx to ease my loneliness the way housewifes watch soap operas plus you could be snotty and mean-spirited here which my irl repressed ego found hugely engaging. as i mature and relax i find i like it here because of the range of personalities and the lols.

I come for the smarts, but I stay for the meltdowns.

^^^new board description plz

Check out the beef that my DJ's revolving.

i know a lot ofILX IRL, through various (often non-ilx) circles, and i've met an assload of people through this board, and... i mean... not to get all misty-eyed, but my life was pretty shitty for a while, and this community has always been a touchstone, and a way to blow off steam w/o polluting the internet more than necessary. i have a ton of genuine affection for many/most of the people who post regularly here, and even those i haven't met, or i've fought with, seem like really interesting folks.

i have always/will always hate the "it's just a message board" line, b/c frankly it's a load of horse shit.

and matt p otm. i've done a lot of growing up on/through here

exactly what seandalai said

i've always been a messageboard kind of internet dude, from the very beginning, and probably always will be. this is one of my prime spots for learning about things i most likely wouldn't otherwise come across. also appreciate the fact that pretty much anything i can think of can probably be met with a range of informed opinions addressing issues from different (liberal-leaning, lower-left political compass) perspectives.

earliest was Prodigy BBS boards (remember coming across a wheel of time BBS)

lol, i don't think of myself as a long-time message board person, but reading this i remembered that i was on Prodigy boards for Dragonlance and Piers Anthony books.

Back when I was a SysOp in '92 who knew what a glorious future would await me?!

One way that ILX is superior to BBSes is that I rarely argue with libertarians or about atheism here. The downside is that there is no Trade Wars.

LORD RIP

i think ilx is good & absorbing for a bunch of reasons, & two formative uses/key helpful life integration things about it are: a), the time i found ilx & looked up pharoah sanders, & found loads of guys being assholes about which was the best pharoah sanders record, which was heavy but all seemed substantiated and impassioned and so probably useful; & b), for stuff like ILP, & to some degree TMI, forums for discussion about things that you don't have access IRL, or wish to outsource so you aren't spending valuable social time boring people about magazines or some arcana. so like Jenny said, above, as like a social urge.

Probably a controversial opinion but I've found ilx to be emotionally the coldest of all the message boards I've used in a 22 year period. The warmth is there in pockets and you can tap into it if it's your thing, but ime if you don't fall within the established cliques (or choose to extract yourself from them) then the passion tends to be directed toward the subjects of discussion rather than one another, and it's possible to exist that way without consequence. Being an emotional cripple I actually like that about ilx. Happy to be proved wrong/derided/whatever.

Well, since we sacked the 'happy birthday' threads...

well yeah ilx tends to be cliquey. but that's okay, I just revert to my default iconoclast rebel personality which defines my real life interactions. fuck all of you, ilx.

; )

so hostile

are you on 77 schlafsack?

I've always posted on message boards, just part of life. Most of the people I hang out with are on ILX too, so talking about it isn't weird or anything. It's just another area of conversation.

are you on 77 schlafsack?

yeah, as aa (this is my work acct)

(I know what you mean btw)

yeah feel like 80% of the warmth gets put on that board these days, prob makes it look even more frigid to the rest of the world, but since you're on it my aha argument is bunk. I think there's some truth to what you said and ilx is cliquey but prob not in the ways that some people think it is.

I think I post here because i want a degree of anonymity and distance when discussing books, music, movies. Most of the people I know - even the ones who care a lot about these things - don't really care about them in the same way, and I think talking about these things face to face, in any way that's serious or intense, can be kind of suspect, fraught.

I don't understand the preoccupation with arguing about music. It's like arguing about who's better, brunettes or blondes. It's like arguing about what's the best fruit. I'm more interested in knowing the biological factors that influence people's taste. Everyone else is wrong.

my work has mainly involved a lot of furtive solitary creativity for the better part of ten years now and generally speaking when i'm at work it's a good place to let off steam. now that i'm not working and taking care of ~mah b-woy~ while my wife works, it's a good place to check in during the day. plus the nfl season is going on and i like to participate in discussions on ilnfl periodically, though less than i used to. generally speaking, i've spent a little time on other message boards in the past (including a movie board where some literally insane girls were trying to figure out a way to blackmail ne1l l@bute for some reason?) fortunately y'all seem to be normal people (mostly?) who happen to post on a message board. when i first posted here i was a drunk single dude and now i'm a married father. kind of weird. i actually find it kind of "warm" here, from from old timer ned raggett to noted sentimentalists dr morbs and newgod.

I think there's some truth to what you said and ilx is cliquey but prob not in the ways that some people think it is.

Yeah, the cliques are tight and compact (and sometimes but not always exclusive), and it's easy to exist outside them all without being regarded with suspicion. That's the essence of my point, really.

btw by coldness/warmth I mean ilx as a whole, not to the individual people (who obviously are as warm and genuine as you'll find anywhere).

(including a movie board where some literally insane girls were trying to figure out a way to blackmail ne1l l@bute for some reason?)

isn't he that incredibly misogynistic film maker?

the one and only. btw i was kidding about newgod but not about morbius, i love that guy!~

Not living in a city, I've found ILM to be a bit of a lifeline in the same way as maybe listening to John Peel late at night might have been for people a little older than me. I don't really get to discuss much of hat we talk about on ILX with IRL friends - particularly music, because frankly no one I know in this town is invested enough in the music scene to want to. ILE is an extension of that. Plus I've been chatting on messageboards like WarpComm and TEFOSAV since I basically first logged on.

Also I've worked in call centres all my life, so having people to chat to about things other than fire risk assessments, media advertising and online solutions over the last ten years has stopped me going utterly insane.

^^ THIS

omar little otm

Anyone hasn't posted here in years

Nope!

― Anyone, Monday, February 4, 2002 6:00 PM

now that i'm not working and taking care of ~mah b-woy~ while my wife works

See I missed this news re: a kid. And now that I know I am happy.

i actually find it kind of "warm" here, from from old timer ned raggett to noted sentimentalists dr morbs and newgod.

We encompass multitudes.

I also salute omar l for assiduously refusing to join any area meetup, if only because the man has stuck to his guns all these years. Probably for good reason!

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmn6xkGY0i1qcay1ao1_500.gif

I think ILX says that I enjoy a certain depth to my online contact. I don't belong to any other boards, and the ones that I've come across over the years have always paled in comparison because there's never the DEPTH that I found here.

I came to ILX a few years after I moved to the states, but I still didn't really have any friends aside from my husband. I was trying hard not to be homesick, and it was such a relief to find this buried, underground place where a whole mess of people liked to argue and joke and rave about music like I did, but most of them were way smarter or way better at pretending they were smarter...goddamn it was fun to watch. Even lurking for as long as I did, it was great entertainment. But I feel even more at home now that I know some people, and I kind of like that we're all sorta fond of each other but not clinging for dear life. It's cool.

could I say depth more, jesus

it says that I probably need to feel a little more shame

Probably a controversial opinion but I've found ilx to be emotionally the coldest of all the message boards I've used in a 22 year period. The warmth is there in pockets and you can tap into it if it's your thing, but ime if you don't fall within the established cliques (or choose to extract yourself from them) then the passion tends to be directed toward the subjects of discussion rather than one another, and it's possible to exist that way without consequence. Being an emotional cripple I actually like that about ilx. Happy to be proved wrong/derided/whatever.

this is pretty much right on but rather than say cold I'd say hypocritical

Being an emotional cripple I actually like that about ilx.

hahaha i can relate. i wouldn't say i'm an emotional cripple, but i think i'm somewhere on the spectrum. "warmth" (in scare quotes) can be a little off-putting to me in some contexts.

That I get bored a lot and need distraction? At work it is a time waster. Same at home tbh. I have met some very cool ppl through ILX and I am very thankful for that.

i guess i came for music discussion, and stayed once i got an office job because of the constantly updating content.

ultimately i found out that my worldview gelled v. well with the majority of ppl who post here, you all became a second family/friendgroup for the quiet moments of the day, and then i met a bunch of you irl and that pretty much sealed the deal.

I came for the pie, but I stayed for the DEPTH. And more pie.

I enjoy my job much more than I did when I first started posting, and probably don't waste as much time on ILX as I did ~5 years ago. But I still work in a fairly quiet office, and it's really nice to have a social outlet during the day.

Also, the range of discussion is really great. Back when I fashioned myself more of a music nerd, I posted regularly on a couple of exclusively music-oriented message boards, but I'm no longer drawn to them, while ILX has still felt very welcoming.

I feel like with ILX, it's too late to go back because you've all* accepted me.
*I'm just going to say this with confidence

I sometimes wonder sometimes if anyone on facebook who knows me in person wonders who all these friend from the East Coast & London are...which is so insanely vainglorious of me.

hahaha i have wondered too if my 10 friends who i've had for over a decade look at my fb and are like "who the fuck are these people"

First response hall of fame. Now to read the rest of the thread.

no one else would have me

There's a lot of otm on this thread.

I came hear when the little Blecchs were born and I didn't really have too many people to talk to and posted a lot back in those days. Over the years cut back posting because either I ran out of things to stay, wanted to avoid bench-clearing brawl argumentative threads or ILX was more googleable. These days stick around for various niche threads and just to rub elbows with the old familiar posters. ILX is fluid enough and has enough smart, well-spoken, interesting people that even if you tune out or don't care anymore about 95% of it that other 5% is still really good. Or is it? In recent times I started reading speculative fiction again and getting in touch with my inner outerborough nerd because of people like Shakey, Lamp, thomp and, of course, the Sluglords and I still don't what to make of it

Damn you, Tracer Hand!

As I recall, I came here trying to find out if Jessica Harvell was hot in person. I am still trying to solve that mystery.

oh jessica i know harvell

Haha, real HOOS

ilx has a pretty ideal refresh rate of content. most other sites I hit during work are either too fast where I can't keep up or too slow that I saw it all already. f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5 f5

(Whenever I have a HOOS-inspired dn, I feel just a little more positive, like I should be otm'ing people that little bit extra)

"lol i live in an apartment/townhouse that is less than ten minutes away from an indie record shop"

ime if you don't fall within the established cliques (or choose to extract yourself from them) then the passion tends to be directed toward the subjects of discussion rather than one another, and it's possible to exist that way without consequence. Being an emotional cripple I actually like that about ilx.

yeah, all that

I never did livejournal or uhh teen msgboards or anything and I think there's still a largish part of me that considers talking at length with strangers to be weird and absurd

most ppl who post here seem like folks I'd get on w/ very well if for some unfathomable reason they moved to my city; conversely, I suspect that if most of my irl friends signed up to ILX and tried to be especially 'active' posters they'd either get ignored or have a rough ride

for all that tho I'm pretty OK with being sorta distant and unemotional on here and then going out and having a life of an evening

i answered this above with a kind of social/informative response, but there is something in the original post that is interesting i think:

What do you think it says about you as a person in the world (particularly socially, technologically, psychologically) that you read ILX

like i feel like there is something broader about what it means to have been able to compartmentalise some of your (wrong, too-strong word:) 'needs', by addressing them via ILX, & also what it means to have the kind of time/interface/"solitary" elements of using ILX as a part of your life. i know this is a big conversation generally, wrt to facebook or just people using computers a lot, but it does feel like it's v different from old models of being-a-human-and-relating-to-people, and it feels like it's a different way and set of priorities for just being a person in the world, like having an expressive, cerebral experience that happens through the various lenses of using a computer is a particular, distinct strand of socialising & arguing & thinking. i don't know exactly how. also idk to what extent seeming "marginal", societally, ilx/internet use suggests, but i feel like it has to be in there somehow, even if just compared to people w/o internet access.

That is a good point and I might say that message boards is just another way people can communicate these days, so in one sense, what is it like to be an ILXor is like asking twenty-five years ago What Is It Like To Use An Answering Machine? or later What Does It Like To Use A Cell Phone? or What Is It Like To Use Email? Don't know if says much of anything about a particular person except that they have adapted. The other part of the question: why ILX and not some other message board that many have chosen to answer is more interesting to me

i think it says that you have time to waste and an internet connection, that you're either very liberal or pretty thick-skinned, that you maybe aren't getting enough good conversation elsewhere. I dunno, rly. Personally, i live in hicksville and p much all of my friends don't and youse'll do in the meantime

answering machines and cell phones never really allowed/encouraged their users to communicate with global networks of randomers tho tbf

'is ilx merely stunting your irl social existence'

i don't see how it can be surplanting much tbh - at work i still communicate with co-workers about as much as i wd if it didn't exist, and outside of work i massively doubt anybody's chosen to spend an evening on here rather than go out with their irl friends, given the option

it does function as having a house of extra friends who are still in at 3 in the morning after it's impossible to buy booze/go anywhere else tho

(xp)Fair enough, there was some kind of global get acquainted waltz to go through at first and a more geographically spread out group of people to interact with and maybe something different is happening at the system level but at the individual level I dunno. Truth be told when I first went and saw some ILX0rs in person I thought it was a some kind of big deal or big step, same when I found out that ILX0rs knew some people I knew in real life. But at one point it become more "d'uh of course"

when I first went and saw some ILX0rs in person

feeding time at the zoo?

Yes. It was a remake of the Twilight Zone episode with Roddy McDowall

i think it's becoming more obvious and unspecial, yeah. but internet friendships and internet communities do form in different ways than the more random/proximal chain of events in everyday life, i think. online communities - which can easily go on to become not just online, yeah - form themselves around shared interests/personalities/attitudes more than is possible just by meeting people i think?

Up until a certain age you just get used to living in changing but reasonably well-defined communities - school, college, university. You get used to being a known face and seeing other big characters and groups moving around the place. From about 21 or so, that disappears, especially if you're in a big city, and even if you're surrounded by a big group of friends. An office, even a big one, just isn't the same. I reckon that's one reason a lot of people gravitate towards internet communities, especially big ones like ILX.

On a personal level, going back 10+ years now - it was still very much the Freakytrigger Message Board when I joined, and I'd never seen music discussed in such an interesting way before, and the rest of the stuff was consistently funny or interesting or thought provoking, as well as a really really good place to find out about things, just much more wide-ranging and thoughtful than other message boards. Then there was the social level built on top of it, there was such a big and close network of people in London that there were always people to go drinking or dancing with, at a time when finding people to go dancing with were thin on the ground elsewhere. And because there was the opportunity to meet other non-board people through those people, and because I thought I might get laid.

I think it's more that

1) I can talk about stuff I like or know about, and there's a larger chance people here know what I'm talking about
2) conversely, the subjects raised are more general than the usual fansite, they tend to have 'miscellaneous' sections too but it doesn't take too long to find you have nothing in common with those people.

3) Funnies

Remember years ago having conversations with my RL friends about What Is It Like To Post On A Message Board about their boards, one of which was a poker board the other a soul mailing list and we all had somewhat similar experiences Then eventually I read that paper Tom E wrote about ILX which covered the same ground, which somebody should probably link to

i've gravitated to message boards for as long as i've been on the internet because of having interests that i didn't have anyone irl to talk about with - it's an outlet for nerding out over tennis/music to an extent that few people irl care about.

Then eventually I read that paper Tom E wrote about ILX which covered the same ground, which somebody should probably link to

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21797466/Confessions-Of-A-Moderator

Haha I can't remember if Tom ever publicly fessed up to ILX about having written that paper.

like i feel like there is something broader about what it means to have been able to compartmentalise some of your (wrong, too-strong word:) 'needs', by addressing them via ILX, & also what it means to have the kind of time/interface/"solitary" elements of using ILX as a part of your life. i know this is a big conversation generally, wrt to facebook or just people using computers a lot, but it does feel like it's v different from old models of being-a-human-and-relating-to-people, and it feels like it's a different way and set of priorities for just being a person in the world, like having an expressive, cerebral experience that happens through the various lenses of using a computer is a particular, distinct strand of socialising & arguing & thinking. i don't know exactly how. also idk to what extent seeming "marginal", societally, ilx/internet use suggests, but i feel like it has to be in there somehow, even if just compared to people w/o internet access.

I like the way ILX will take an innocuous question and intellectualise it into one about the_way_we_live_now. It's like how I imagined grad school would be.

it's why most ppl avoid grad school, maybe

satisfied to be a synecdoche for ilx but i mean i feel like the question:

What do you think it says about you as a person in the world (particularly socially, technologically, psychologically) that you read ILX, post on it, and (for the sake of this question) find a community that you enjoy participating in on ILX?

is about the link between using ilx & the way we live now!, so.

i think i post here because i want a degree of anonymity and distance when discussing books/music/movies. most of the ppl i know, even the ones who care a lot abt these things, dont really care abt them in the same way and i think talking abt these things irl in way thats serious or intense can be kinda... fraught

― 404 (Lamp), Thursday, January 12, 2012 7:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

been thinking about this. the way people experience media & art can be so personal and perilous. certain unveilings which leave you feeling exposed and bare. naked on the floor, cold and shamed

Wonder how I heard baout that paper if he didn't mention it here- Freaky Trigger?

It means that I can't quit, and that for reasons I'm still unclear about I'm more interested in details of the Republican Nomination than anyone else I know, so I come here. There was a time after I quit when I'd see something (a film, a TV program, a loltastic youtube) and go "I must see what people are saying about this!" but I have another network now for most of this, on LJ and Facebook and the pub. I don't wan't to go "ah ha ha ha now I have friends", because obviously a lot of my friends are ex- and demi-ex- ILXors.

Hah, the nature of ILX means I'll also read stuff like this:

In recent times I started reading speculative fiction again and getting in touch with my inner outerborough nerd because of people like Shakey, Lamp, thomp and, of course, the Sluglords and I still don't what to make of it

And Shakey aside, I'm all "Who the fuck are these kids on my lawn?", even when they may well be people I've recognised except they've changed name ten times while I've been <S>clean</S> away.

Man, fuck BBCode storms out and never returns.

Also a lot of the answers do seem to be basically "It is a great internet aggregator but has less idiots that reddit/4chan/some other aggregator not known for being short of idiots". Which, yes, low bar, but look at you clear that bar, ILX!

Wait, Andrew, were you on any of those Sluglords broadcasts?

when I was 24 I came here to argue that I didn't think The Darkness sounded that much like Queen, stayed to push my 'commercial music is homogenized crap agenda', and then in reading threads, started to learn about music I didn't previously give a chance because being a part of the tr00 metal community had me blanket dismissing a lot of good music.

I still don't listen to a lot of the music ILX does but it did help cultivate my pop tastes (and especially rap tastes). metal too although I haven't posted in the rolling metal threads in a while.

Do you mean the <a href="http://freakytrigger.co.uk/slugoftime/";>Slug of Time</a> series? If so, then no. If not then sorry man, I don't know what you mean (though probably no).

I do not post on ILX that much, so whatever posting on ILX says about other people, it only says that about me a little bit.

being on ILX says that I like belle and sebastian and that one time all my B+S groupie friends started posting here

ILX (is) like how I imagined grad school would be.

hm

Yeah, not really. Maybe Chris P could come back and explain the difference

It used to say a lot about me. Or rather you could learn a lot from me as a person. Now, not so much. But I re-registered. So what does that say about me?

The downside is that there is no Trade Wars.

I miss Trade Wars
Process of elimination, for me. I used to post on lots of forums, now only this one.

L.O.R.D. all

Hi Nath!

The Inn
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
(L)isten to Seth the Bard Sing
(F)lirt with Violet the Barmaid
(T)alk to the Bartender
(P)ost to ILX

(F)

ILX (is) like how I imagined grad wished school would be.

I keep meeting people irl and trying to have ilx-y conversations w them and finding that they can't keep up and/or can't even have the discussion at all. It's only when I accidentally am allowed to speak to someone at the relative top of their field that I hear the same variety of sources, nuanced arguments, clean logical reasoning, etc. So I guess I stay for the education.

Also in the words of our own LaLechera, "I am a jib-jab MACHINE!"

I am one of the luckiest ppl on Earth I guess, because my IRL conversations with friends mirror my ILX conversations in terms of convolutedness and source-citing and veering from the academic to the profane and back.

been thinking about this. the way people experience media & art can be so personal and perilous. certain unveilings which leave you feeling exposed and bare. naked on the floor, cold and shamed

― bob loblaw people (dayo)

:D

and do you click their wrist in lieu of a sb?

usually I steal their booze

"Tis only your booze that makes you bearable."

honestly i'm here cause it's got the "web aggregating" of a reddit + the wine swilling npr high-mindedness.

Missed my opportunity to say "I came here for the waters."

xp Mordy you are waking up a very dark and forgotten part of my memory

as a very rare poster but frequent reader of ILX i come here for two reasons:

1) it's probably the very best site for finding out about music new and old in terms of what people actually like to listen to. that's pretty rare and valuable. some of the music threads here are truly amazing and indispensable.

2) there's a certain, i guess the word is "intellectualism" to ILX (uh, sometimes). you can have a conversation about something much like the back and forth of email, with all the benefits of thinking slowly and typing out your thoughts, with people who are pretty damn smart.

don't get me wrong, ILX is definitely one of the most intelligent message boards out there but they're hardly above the "normal" people I know. the difference is that people generally don't chime in much on a conversation unless they're something of an expert already unlike some message boards where everyone has a (usually bad) opinion. also the strange obsessiveness dedicated to small issues like semantics can result in dry issues turning into nuanced (but circular) discussion

intelligent people never argue about semantics, or make nuanced arguments, it's true

3) i love arguing semantics.

intelligent people never argue about semantics, or make nuanced arguments, it's true

yep, this is what I meant to the letter
what I'm saying is there are so many threads that turn into big clusterfucks where its clear that most of the posters agree on like, 98% of the issue

welcome to the snarkosphere

http://ndanger.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/tina.jpg

how many wars have been fought over 2% difference of opinion?

none

maybe 1.5%

2000 US election was even closer...

don't get me wrong, ILX is definitely one of the most intelligent message boards out there but they're hardly above the "normal" people I know. the difference is that people generally don't chime in much on a conversation unless they're something of an expert already unlike some message boards where everyone has a (usually bad) opinion

haha this is a good point actually

it's probably the very best site for finding out about music new and old in terms of what people actually like to listen to. that's pretty rare and valuable. some of the music threads here are truly amazing and indispensable.
this sums it up for me.

ive mentioned this before but the fact that this board could have a 100+ post discussion on Harry Hosono and a 300+ post discussion on Roedelius is something you simply won't find anywhere else

Missed my opportunity to say "I came here for the waters."

Miss Informed

Another huge plus is that ILX is extremely well supervised, designed and maintained. Mods are generally smart, responsive and personable. Redundant threads and toxic posters get the axe quickly. As a result, conversations go back for a decade, evolve and stay (more-or-less) on topic year after year. No avatars, sigs or other bullshit features. I guess I mostly mean that ILX can be counted on. It's dependable, not just for the quality of posters and site culture, but also for top-down quality as an establishment/brand/government/whatever.

OK, now that I've abandoned HOOS-parody display name the positivity is starting to wear off

people generally don't chime in much on a conversation unless they're something of an expert

I just come for markers

everything else is gravy

evolve and stay (more-or-less) on topic year after year.

I love this too, and it kind of bewilders me when I end up on Some Other Forum (usually when googling for an answer) and find them bitching that someone has bumped some "ancient" thread from 2 months ago and demanding a new thread be started.

A lot of it is because phpBB and its ilk are really really bad at hosting online discussion so people try to keep threads manageable, but I also think there's just some deeper mentality that rejects decade-spanning threads. If there is such a mentality, ILX is the opposite of that.

(Not that there aren't downsides to such an enormous archive. The vibe on the sandbox is different, for instance. Sure, there are fewer posters, but it feels there like people aren't Posting To The Historical Record quite as much as they are here. Less intimidating.)

Yes, sandbox was a lot cozier. Cosy Moments cannot be muzzled!

The interface here is also a big thing for me. It's not exclusive to ILX -- the Well has it too, and maybe sites like Metafilter do to an extent. Stripping it down to the bare bones of "ask a question, get some answers" strikes me as being so well suited for hosting a conversation that it's weird to me that the vast majority of sites layer it in such massive amounts of complexity.

StackOverflow is the extreme example of this, but there's a huge middle ground of bog-standard phpBB and vBulletin forums that take what should be very simple and slather it in sigs and pagination and bullshit like visible post counts (which I think Tom also mentions in his paper). I have to wonder what the level of discussion would be like on those sites, if they weren't forced to host them all in the online equivalent of a McDonald's PlayPlace.

Wasn't there an post on Coding Horror a few months ago about the design of StackOverflow?

this maybe? http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2011/10/the-gamification.html

i basically disagree with everything there, except when he says that "traditional forums" are shit. But the solution to that problem is not to try and reduce conversational dynamics to numbers and gamify everything, because all that does is make people play the game instead of actually discussing the stuff they're supposedly there to discuss

It's happening really obviously now with StackOverflow. Everyone's desperate for karma, but all the low-hanging fruit and obvious early questions have been answered. So now people can either spend a lot of time and effort reading a detailed question and working on an equally detailed answer, or they can coast the incoming questions hoping to pick up a quick point or two for a simple answer to a simple problem. Guess which they're doing?

It's a classic result of skewed incentives, and all they really had to do was replace mailing lists with a simple q&a board. Mailing List interfaces were the problem that was really begging to be solved there, not "how come I don't get a special badge and karma for answering this question about Fortran?"

That was it and I agree with you.

A FB group I hang with moved to a web forum recently and is the visual equivalent of a thousand clocks all chiming midnight in a thousand different tones. HIDEOUSNESS. sub- Groups, discussions, blogs AND status updates all garbaged together...it's like, um, can't we just talk normally like ilx?

Means I don't feel like getting involves in forums with avatars and sigs and shit, don't use Facebook, don't know an irc channel to hang out in, and think M3taFilter is too ridiculous to actually treat like a social experience or a conversation.

I wonder if we're right about this, or if it's just that people who like forums like this end up on ... forums like this. Maybe people think their shitland web boards are brilliant.

I suspect not, though, it's just they assume that's how things are done and there is no better way

it's just that we have particuarly lazy coders imo

... if they weren't forced to host them all in the online equivalent of a McDonald's PlayPlace.

u say that like it's a bad thing

no, but seriously more than one person i've interacted with (okay, that makes... three of us?) have agreed wholesale that the format of ilx is a huge selling point as it were

can arrive here, read stuff, scroll down the page, minimum of clicking, virtually no distracting interfaces to speak of

i mean, what a godsend for internet at this late date. most other interactive and even non-interactive sites seem unduly weighed down with the clankiest of bells and whistles by comparison

to give maybe a weird example-- i refuse to read huffington post, as many times as people refer me there via fb links or whatever. it's just such an unwieldy distracting mess. an affront to my senses i tell you! veritably even! exit stage left... /snagglepuss

also i just signed off a phone conversation with someone i'm meeting up with that i've known for four years by saying in a faux cheery tone "ok, look forward to seeing you"

ti's not a job interview, wtf

that's where my social skills are these days. not saying that's why i hang out on ilx. nah.

The interface here is also a big thing for me. It's not exclusive to ILX -- the Well has it too, and maybe sites like Metafilter do to an extent. Stripping it down to the bare bones of "ask a question, get some answers" strikes me as being so well suited for hosting a conversation that it's weird to me that the vast majority of sites layer it in such massive amounts of complexity.

THis is interesting bcz this is what Usenet was like, when it was well-populated. I used to be on quite a few groups back then (aus.culture.gothic, alt.tech-support.recovery, alt.music.4ad/AMA) that were full of intelligence and had a a decent self-driven filtering system of just ignoring/killfiling idiots. That said, some of those fora could get insanely caught up in stupid minuitae and dickwaving fights - I'd never go *near* anywhere like aus.politics *shudder* - but yeah it was generally good sig:noise value. I suspect that was helped by the fact people who knew how to use Usenet/the net in general back then were smarter types anyway tho.

ILX holds some of that old vibe and I like that. Though, as I said before, I come for the smarts, but I stay for the clusterfux :D

...but no seriously, Ive met some *awesome* ppl IRL via this place and I am really glad Ive had that opportunity! People from OS I'd never have met otherwise who are just lovely (mookie, jaymc, donut, jergs - hi!)

Sadly a lot of people I've tried to introduce to ilx hate the interface :(

the place looks low rent at a glance but i can't stand the interface most anyplace else

ADS

Trayce otm

About which bit? Usenet?

it kind of bewilders me when I end up on Some Other Forum (usually when googling for an answer) and find them bitching that someone has bumped some "ancient" thread from 2 months ago and demanding a new thread be started.

man, this, totally. it's a big thing that keeps me off other boards. why ppl would shun an evolving discourse on a topic in favor of a mobius strip of the same bumps and starts, it completely escapes me. also the way it sometimes clutters up google results is p. crummy.

hated the interface way back in the day when I was a lurker but I stayed cause the site had so much useful music info. it's hard to relate to past-self who hated to interface cause these days it seems nice and uncluttered compared to the rest of the Internet, but at the time it seemed really bleak and dated.

Yeah, the whole "necro" thing is boggling to me. And then I've seen people on boards that say "don't necro" simultaneously complain about threads that have been done before. So basically you can't revive and you can't start a new thread. Unless something is discussed constantly for years you can't discuss it.

I love and have always loved the ilx interface. Fuck avatars and sigs.

that is weird that other message boards do that. i had no idea.

Stay Gold, ILX <3 <3

bc I can talk abt shit here that I can't talk w most ppl irl

I always get frustrated by boards that have all kinds of useful information distributed amongst seventeen sticky threads at the top of each forum. Just make a proper web site or something.

i am not a terribly social person, and though i've been here for nearly a decade i haven't made *that* many posts.

before ilx i was active-ish on metafilter and a couple of niche usenet groups, one of which featured bendy, if he's still around here. i've never hung out on any other 'modern' boards and maintain old.css or gtfo.

while i appreciate the interface, i mainly like the ppl here. we've certainly had our drama, but i think the ppl here are disproportionately bright, well-spoken, intersting, and considerate. and pretty hott too.

most of my friends in my current location are via ilx somehow. it's been neat to see ppl grow up. it's been sad to see ppl pass away. i think it's a good community and it's been important to me.

*fist bump 2 u*

sup

cat.

haha <3 <3 <3 drunk john

horseshoe what up in buffalo

tell me how it is. have u excorsised the ghost of jim kelly and marv levy yet>

very little tbh.

xp

jim kelly and marv levy will haunt me to my grave

who was that one guy who played for the bills ~c. '91? there was a famous super bowl play. maybe a defender who recovered a fumble and ran for a touchdown? but was tackled at like the 3 year line or something?

maybe don beebe, a wide receiver who had the only decent play when the bills got thrashed by the cowboys one of those times. he chased down leon lett, a dallas defender who had recovered a fumble and was running it back for a touchdown, and stripped the ball iirc?

leon lett was totally who i was thinking of. guess i didn't remember which team he played on, only that the bills were involved.

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web04/2011/10/13/10/enhanced-buzz-19317-1318515488-19.jpg

what

your mind is truly a marvel and i mean that 100% sincerely

xxp

i meant

http://s3-ec.buzzfed.com/static/enhanced/web04/2011/10/13/10/enhanced-buzz-19317-1318515488-19.jpg

i mention that b/c i am fact-checking an article on judith butler next week for work.

what up jb! much love to "paris is burning"!

Uh oh, looks like I've gotten into a bit of ... gender trouble:

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/somelikeithot.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cc/Big_mommas_house_2.jpg/220px-Big_mommas_house_2.jpg

hi horsehoe!

hi VG!

i don't miss avatars or sigs and i find the ilx look really clean+soothing but while we are on this subject is there another way to view a thread besides "open some of the thread" and "open all five zillion posts in the thread half of which are embedded youtubes"?

no :/

hi theon

You crazy kids <3

oh and hi jaymc <3

hi trayce!

everyone hi

oh and dlh: you can switch off images, it also disables the YT's into links :)

sorry, I'll stop saying hi now

PS I LOVE YOUSE ALL

hi jmc! hi everyone.

xps to trayce oh that sounds good thanks.

sry i am intoxicated

Gosh, really? ;P

as horseshoe astutely keyed onto

ilx means perceptive

ILX means drunken weekends where people do crazy things like start a thread where everyone posts pics of themselves in their undies!

Man those were the days. Or not. Im not sure.

drunk ilx v underrated

Bookmark and then view previous, dlh

i think the reason ilx is a better read than other forums has less to do with the intelligence or temperament of poster & more to do with the fact that a significant number of posters are professional writers (to some degree)

I am one of the luckiest ppl on Earth I guess, because my IRL conversations with friends mirror my ILX conversations in terms of convolutedness and source-citing and veering from the academic to the profane and back.

― Bam! Orgasm explosion in your facehole. (DJP), Friday, January 13, 2012 3:17 PM (Yesterday)

well

really you have only yourself to blame

Yes, sandbox was a lot cozier.

Higher risk of tapeworms though.

i don't miss avatars or sigs and i find the ilx look really clean+soothing but while we are on this subject is there another way to view a thread besides "open some of the thread" and "open all five zillion posts in the thread half of which are embedded youtubes"?

― occupy the A train (difficult listening hour), Saturday, January 14, 2012 1:26 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this reminds me of a something I think about sometimes but didn't think merited its own thread - the fact that much of neo-ilx dates very poorly when the img and YouTube links are broken. everything from 10 years ago is completely readable. lots of stuff from 3 years ago, notsomuch. I think there's something sad about that!

i think the reason ilx is a better read than other forums has less to do with the intelligence or temperament of poster & more to do with the fact that a significant number of posters are professional writers (to some degree)

I kinda see what you're saying, the difference is that I think people here actually want to discuss things. I used to post on RYM a lot and like half the threads in the music forum were about the Beatles or Radiohead (when TKOL came out the board was unreadable), then threads where people say things like "just try and tell me the Smiths aren't the greatest band of all time" b/c they're either 17 or trying to get a rise out of people, or awful recommendation threads. Like someone will post "recommend me some electronic music" and be very specific about what they want, and the responses will be stuff like "drop everything and get BOARDS OF CANADA!" (even though the OP doesn't like anything even close to BoC) or worse, people who just post a list of like 25 different artists (yeah, check 'em all out bro!).

Here, I don't feel people have the need to just show off their favorite artists or how much they know time and time again. The rec threads here are actually pretty good

this reminds me of a something I think about sometimes but didn't think merited its own thread - the fact that much of neo-ilx dates very poorly when the img and YouTube links are broken. everything from 10 years ago is completely readable. lots of stuff from 3 years ago, notsomuch. I think there's something sad about that!

i'd be curious what ppl who have been around forever consider to be "the best" era of ilx.

personally, based on memory and encountering old threads, i would lean towards the middle part of last decade. i think the fact that it was still pre-"web 2.0" meant that people ended up wasting spending more time here as opposed to on facebook, etc. also, even though ilx had been in existence for a few years, it was still being transformed, seeking stability and identity as it were? adolescent phase...

as a result just about any given thread from the time would feature non sequiturs and hamfisted trolling cozying up with flashes of genuine insight and brilliance. there was much more ~personality~ to the board, for better and for worse. i think it was a healthier ecology overall.

these days i'm happy to click on a random thread from 2004 or 2005 or so, even if the immediate subject matter doesn't interest me so much, because i know that it will still be an entertaining read. i can't say the same for board content of the last couple of years or so.

i don't mean that in a "you people are so boring!" or "ENTERTAIN ME!" kinda way. just more making an observation. heh.

i guess it makes sense, all things considered. so many topics have been exhausted. the mean age of posters is probably beyond the "wild and crazy" years. there are so many other online destinations which would tease people away from here.

but i do miss the days when things were more rollicking, wild and wooly, etc. for example i think that when the whole noise board thing went down, it introduced an entire culture here that fed into a healthy dynamic. to speak in general terms, both people that hated the instigators of it and the instigators themselves were both pretty great at the time i thought.

so sometimes i think it's gotten a bit dull here. but that speaks more to me, i guess, and my desire for soap operatics, and other nonsense. i just think ecology is really important if you want to have life. if you want to have a thriving life, then there has to be viruses and other nasties, etc. otherwise everything becomes antiseptic. there's a reason why "grunge" originated in seattle.

like this, which just got revived : Are we allowed a thread about "Surf's Up" the album, particularly the album cover

such a beautiful, quintessentially ilx thread imo

I dig on ILX because it often offers a higher level of discourse than I usually encounter IRL regarding the middlebrow culture that I favor, without the virulently awful, subhuman misanthropy found in most of the other places where people discuss things online. Clearly, it's a largely one-way conversation for me, as I've been around here for seven (?) years without leaving much of an impression. Which is to say that I'm not really here for the mixers and sock hops, I guess?

Which is not to dismiss that aspect of ILX. I had my day in sun when I was pretty deeply involved with Barbelith back in the day on a much more social level. I just don't have the energy or wherewithal for anything on that level these days.

Oh, and PPS (just reading through the thread properly), I did both irc and college radio, which is apparently also why I'm here.

only place on the Internet where Gossip Girl/OC/Dawson's Creek talk isn't troll-bait or scary fanfic-bait

New answers for Mordy.

antisocial networking

http://www.newadvent.com/cathen/02001c.htm

Like all other moral rights, that of voluntary association is determined by the ends that it promotes, the human needs that it supplies. The dictum of Aristotle that man is a "political" animal, expresses more than the fact that man naturally and necessarily becomes a participant in that form of association known as the State. It means that man cannot effectively pursue happiness nor attain to a reasonable degree of self-perfection unless he unites his energies with those of his fellows. This is particularly true of modern life, and for two reasons. First, because the needs of men have greatly increased, and second, because the division of labour has made the individual more and more dependent upon other individuals and groups of individuals. The primitive, isolated family that knows only a few wants, and is able in rude fashion to supply all these, may enjoy a certain measure of contentment, if not of culture, without the aid of any other association than that inherent in its own constitution. For the family of today such conditions are unsatisfying and insufficient. Its members are constrained to pursue many lines of activity and to satisfy many wants that demand organized and associated effort.

Since the individual is dependent upon so many other individuals for many of those material goods that are indispensable to him, he must frequently combine with those of his neighbours who are similarly placed if he would successfully resist the tendency of modern forces to overlook and override the mere individual. A large proportion of the members of every industrial community cannot make adequate provision for the needs that follow in the train of misfortune and old age unless they utilize such agencies as the mutual benefit society, the insurance company, or the savings bank. Workingmen find it impossible to obtain just wages or reasonable conditions of employment without the trade union. On the other hand, goods could not be produced or distributed in sufficient quantities except through the medium of associations. Manufacturing, trade, transportation, and finance necessarily far more and more under the control of partnerships and stock companies.

Turning now from the consideration of these material needs, we find that association plays a no less important part in the religious, moral, intellectual, political and purely social departments of life. Men cannot give God due worship except in a public, social way. This implies at least the universal Church and the parish, and ordinarily it supposes devotional and other associations, such as sodalities, altar societies, church-fund societies, etc. Select souls who wish to embrace the life of perfection described by the evangelical counsels must become organized in such a way that they can lead a common life. In every community there are persons who wish to do effective work on behalf of good morals, charity, and social reform of various kinds. Hence we have purity leagues, associated charities, temperance societies, ethical culture societies, social settlements. Since large numbers of parents prefer private and religious schools for the education of their children, the need arises for associations whose purpose is educational. Literary and scientific associations are necessary to promote original research, deeper study, and wider culture. Good government, especially in a republic, is impossible without political associations which strive vigilantly and constantly for the removal of abuses and the enactment of just laws.

In the purely social order men desire to enroll themselves in clubs, "secret" societies, amusement associations, etc., all of which may be made to promote human contentment and human happiness. Many of the forms of association just enumerated are absolutely necessary to right human life; none of them is entirely useless. Finally, voluntary associations are capable of discharging many of the tasks that otherwise would devolve upon the State. This was an important feature of their activity in the Middle Ages, and it is very desirable today when the functions of government are constantly increasing. Chief among the organizations capable of limiting State activity are those concerned with and the improvement of working classes. In so far as these can perform their several tasks on reasonable terms and without injury to the State or to any class of its citizens, the public welfare is better served by them than it would be if they were supplanted by the Government. Individual liberty and individual opportunity have a larger scope, individual initiative is more readily called into play and the danger of Government despotism is greatly lessened.

I've embarrassed myself enough here already to make this a "no stakes" social outlet

lol @ me drunk (or high?) 5 years ago itt

I like smart people with interesting opinions on cool shit, and the ratio is higher here than other sites.

I belong to the wank genetationnnnnn