The politics of social interactions through technology.
I haven’t written anything in a while. In part it’s due to partial lack of brainstorms, but it’s also due to so much new information coming in that I’m readjusting to new ideas. I do have one thing I’d like to talk about of course or I wouldn’t have written anything today. I deleted all my social networks and aim off my computer. I managed to cut 90% of my interactions out of my life, and life has become very peaceful since then. Having the artificial extension of my environment felt like the rat experiments where there’s a button to press and each time a piece of cheese comes out. The next one has a piece of cheese come out every third time a rat presses the button. The last rat gets rewarded randomly and presses the button the most frequently. Social interactions online were much like the third rat where I was pressing the button for random rewards and became addicted to possible attention that was more torturous than pleasant.
I have two different concepts to bring up in this writing. The first is the age of technology and social interactions. Our environments influence us all and social networks online artificially extend this environment. What this does is it raises the politics of social interactions. The reason it’s able to do this is because the extension is artificial. A regular interaction in person allows certain components to be in place where there is a power struggle amongst those who are less than friends. It’s basically a game of prisoners dilemma where I make a move in hopes of getting the reward I desire from you for my effort. The simplest example of this is done in everyday speech. When I say hello, I only do so because I hope you say hello back to me. If you don’t say hello back I learn I’m not receiving the reward I desire and stop saying hello when I see you. If we learn to cooperate we start saying hello every time we see each other. Since we’re all selfish our interactions are based on personal desire. Wherever our desire lies is what dictates our actions. If we get comfortable saying hello then perhaps I may desire to spend time with you and have a few drinks. You may desire to hang out too and so this is how friendships form. Each level of cooperation brings two people closer on each level. We only seem to have high levels of this cooperation with a handful of individuals we consider our true friends.
To make this slightly more complex now we can say two people are interacting, but have different end desires in mind. They don’t actually know this though, because means are very similar most of the way to the ends. In this case we can say two people are on what one person considers a date, and the other person sees as just two people hanging out. Person A thinks we’re hanging out because we’re bonding on a more than friendly level. Person B thinks we’re just having a good time as friends. Maybe we eat dinner together and then go back to my place to watch a movie. Let’s add another complex level to the situation. We could say person B realizes halfway through the night that this is a date, but doesn’t desire more than the company. Person A wants to have sex at the end of the night. Person B keeps hanging out because they enjoy the company and then leave at the end of the night, so person A suddenly feels let down and perhaps used. I’d argue person B didn’t use person A consciously. Person B liked the company and didn’t think anything more was going to happen. It’s because person A had a different idea in their head that they let themselves down. This means person A will either realize their intentions were in the wrong place, or they’ll try dating again till they can eventually have sex. Person B might desire a relationship and person A might want just sex. If person A gets sex they’ll toss person B to the curb. If person B holds out long enough they can get person A develop emotions for them, so when they finally do have sex with them, they’ll have grown attached to them. Person B may however be conflicted and have thought they wanted a relationship, but they really just enjoy the attention of person A wanting to label the relationship more than a friendship without having to dedicate to just them. This is the politics of interaction. Eventually water meets at its own level and the two people cooperate on where they are mutual and nothing more. If they are mutual on nothing they’ll cease interactions.
The question then becomes, how do we get around this? I like to refer to Plato’s theory of forms. It takes place in a cave where prisoners are chained so their heads can only face forward. Behind them are torches with objects passing in front of them. The prisoners see the shadows on the wall in front of them projected by the light. They can’t actually see the light, but what is produced by it. The light presents the truth. They can only see reflections of the truth and guess what it is by describing what is on the wall to one another. One prisoner breaks free and turns around to see the real objects. He then runs outside and the sun blinds him. He can’t handle seeing this level of truth yet. He begins seeing blurry versions of new objects and then finally can see real objects in the light of the sun. The point I’m making is that desire should never be more than what has been experienced first hand from others. The reason person A and B in my example keep running into problems is because they desire something we all have the human capacity to do and that’s abstract thought. We are all given the ability to dream, imagine, and create story narratives about what someone could be in our lives. We do this all the time everyday, but these dreams are just reflections of what could be experienced. What I do personally is remind myself that these are just dreams and what is real potential should never be much more than what has been experienced. If I ate bologna and bread, then desired to put them together, my expectations shouldn’t much more than what I have already experienced with the two separate. The same is true for people. If we talk and hang out then I should assume that a whole lot more might not come of this level of interaction. Expectation in others should never be much greater than what has already happened. Expectations in ourselves can be as high as we like because we have more experience with ourselves than anyone else does. You don’t have to play such intense games of prisoners dilemma if the expectations aren’t very high to begin with.
How does the Internet play into this? The Internet is like Plato’s cave of expectation where the dreams are now physically seen, but still artificial projections of real people in our lives and of themselves. The point is that social technology allows a higher level of politics because it allows people to communicate desires without actually giving you their physical company. Let’s say our expectations are fairly low and we just desire the company of someone who has given us their company before. Communication devices allow others to contact us when they are bored or lonely from anywhere and get the emotional attention they desire without giving us their physical company. Obviously someone is getting over in this situation if one person desires company and another only desires conversation. One reason may be that they get enough physical interaction with others in their life, but those they physically interact with don’t give them the level of emotional input they desire, so they subsidize it with you from a distance. The way I managed to get around this in my own life is to make the technological supply unavailable for people to reach me with. I have a phone, but even when I receive a call I take it right to the point of my desire. I ask what they want and if they aren’t making plans to spend time with me, I tell them I’m busy. If they aren’t coordinating plans to hang out with me I tell them I have to go and to call when they want to hang out. If you aren’t in front of me you don’t matter. If you are in front of me it’s because you’ve chosen to care today enough to be here. The next stage is, are they going to invite me to a place I’d like to be with them? Perhaps they want to invite me to a party with people I don’t like, and to this I’d have to say, call me when you want to do something with just us, or at a place I can appreciate. I call the process channeling. It’s not about doing what you think will make others happy in hopes of getting what you want eventually. It’s about knowing exactly what you want, being blunt about it, keeping the expectations realistic, and making yourself unavailable in all the ways and places that aren’t comfortable for you till other people realize that they don’t get a reward till they reward you with what you truly want in return. This creates respect because you aren’t a pushover and don’t cave into others where they can use you.
I’ll add the second part of this next weekend perhaps. It’s partly because making this too long will be too much and bore people, and also because my time is limited today.
I haven’t written anything in a while. In part it’s due to partial lack of brainstorms, but it’s also due to so much new information coming in that I’m readjusting to new ideas. I do have one thing I’d like to talk about of course or I wouldn’t have written anything today. I deleted all my social networks and aim off my computer. I managed to cut 90% of my interactions out of my life, and life has become very peaceful since then. Having the artificial extension of my environment felt like the rat experiments where there’s a button to press and each time a piece of cheese comes out. The next one has a piece of cheese come out every third time a rat presses the button. The last rat gets rewarded randomly and presses the button the most frequently. Social interactions online were much like the third rat where I was pressing the button for random rewards and became addicted to possible attention that was more torturous than pleasant.
I have two different concepts to bring up in this writing. The first is the age of technology and social interactions. Our environments influence us all and social networks online artificially extend this environment. What this does is it raises the politics of social interactions. The reason it’s able to do this is because the extension is artificial. A regular interaction in person allows certain components to be in place where there is a power struggle amongst those who are less than friends. It’s basically a game of prisoners dilemma where I make a move in hopes of getting the reward I desire from you for my effort. The simplest example of this is done in everyday speech. When I say hello, I only do so because I hope you say hello back to me. If you don’t say hello back I learn I’m not receiving the reward I desire and stop saying hello when I see you. If we learn to cooperate we start saying hello every time we see each other. Since we’re all selfish our interactions are based on personal desire. Wherever our desire lies is what dictates our actions. If we get comfortable saying hello then perhaps I may desire to spend time with you and have a few drinks. You may desire to hang out too and so this is how friendships form. Each level of cooperation brings two people closer on each level. We only seem to have high levels of this cooperation with a handful of individuals we consider our true friends.
To make this slightly more complex now we can say two people are interacting, but have different end desires in mind. They don’t actually know this though, because means are very similar most of the way to the ends. In this case we can say two people are on what one person considers a date, and the other person sees as just two people hanging out. Person A thinks we’re hanging out because we’re bonding on a more than friendly level. Person B thinks we’re just having a good time as friends. Maybe we eat dinner together and then go back to my place to watch a movie. Let’s add another complex level to the situation. We could say person B realizes halfway through the night that this is a date, but doesn’t desire more than the company. Person A wants to have sex at the end of the night. Person B keeps hanging out because they enjoy the company and then leave at the end of the night, so person A suddenly feels let down and perhaps used. I’d argue person B didn’t use person A consciously. Person B liked the company and didn’t think anything more was going to happen. It’s because person A had a different idea in their head that they let themselves down. This means person A will either realize their intentions were in the wrong place, or they’ll try dating again till they can eventually have sex. Person B might desire a relationship and person A might want just sex. If person A gets sex they’ll toss person B to the curb. If person B holds out long enough they can get person A develop emotions for them, so when they finally do have sex with them, they’ll have grown attached to them. Person B may however be conflicted and have thought they wanted a relationship, but they really just enjoy the attention of person A wanting to label the relationship more than a friendship without having to dedicate to just them. This is the politics of interaction. Eventually water meets at its own level and the two people cooperate on where they are mutual and nothing more. If they are mutual on nothing they’ll cease interactions.
The question then becomes, how do we get around this? I like to refer to Plato’s theory of forms. It takes place in a cave where prisoners are chained so their heads can only face forward. Behind them are torches with objects passing in front of them. The prisoners see the shadows on the wall in front of them projected by the light. They can’t actually see the light, but what is produced by it. The light presents the truth. They can only see reflections of the truth and guess what it is by describing what is on the wall to one another. One prisoner breaks free and turns around to see the real objects. He then runs outside and the sun blinds him. He can’t handle seeing this level of truth yet. He begins seeing blurry versions of new objects and then finally can see real objects in the light of the sun. The point I’m making is that desire should never be more than what has been experienced first hand from others. The reason person A and B in my example keep running into problems is because they desire something we all have the human capacity to do and that’s abstract thought. We are all given the ability to dream, imagine, and create story narratives about what someone could be in our lives. We do this all the time everyday, but these dreams are just reflections of what could be experienced. What I do personally is remind myself that these are just dreams and what is real potential should never be much more than what has been experienced. If I ate bologna and bread, then desired to put them together, my expectations shouldn’t much more than what I have already experienced with the two separate. The same is true for people. If we talk and hang out then I should assume that a whole lot more might not come of this level of interaction. Expectation in others should never be much greater than what has already happened. Expectations in ourselves can be as high as we like because we have more experience with ourselves than anyone else does. You don’t have to play such intense games of prisoners dilemma if the expectations aren’t very high to begin with.
How does the Internet play into this? The Internet is like Plato’s cave of expectation where the dreams are now physically seen, but still artificial projections of real people in our lives and of themselves. The point is that social technology allows a higher level of politics because it allows people to communicate desires without actually giving you their physical company. Let’s say our expectations are fairly low and we just desire the company of someone who has given us their company before. Communication devices allow others to contact us when they are bored or lonely from anywhere and get the emotional attention they desire without giving us their physical company. Obviously someone is getting over in this situation if one person desires company and another only desires conversation. One reason may be that they get enough physical interaction with others in their life, but those they physically interact with don’t give them the level of emotional input they desire, so they subsidize it with you from a distance. The way I managed to get around this in my own life is to make the technological supply unavailable for people to reach me with. I have a phone, but even when I receive a call I take it right to the point of my desire. I ask what they want and if they aren’t making plans to spend time with me, I tell them I’m busy. If they aren’t coordinating plans to hang out with me I tell them I have to go and to call when they want to hang out. If you aren’t in front of me you don’t matter. If you are in front of me it’s because you’ve chosen to care today enough to be here. The next stage is, are they going to invite me to a place I’d like to be with them? Perhaps they want to invite me to a party with people I don’t like, and to this I’d have to say, call me when you want to do something with just us, or at a place I can appreciate. I call the process channeling. It’s not about doing what you think will make others happy in hopes of getting what you want eventually. It’s about knowing exactly what you want, being blunt about it, keeping the expectations realistic, and making yourself unavailable in all the ways and places that aren’t comfortable for you till other people realize that they don’t get a reward till they reward you with what you truly want in return. This creates respect because you aren’t a pushover and don’t cave into others where they can use you.
I’ll add the second part of this next weekend perhaps. It’s partly because making this too long will be too much and bore people, and also because my time is limited today.
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