[ExI] The entropy of Extropy-Chat

[Jeff Davis]

>
> Unfortunately these users develop an attention span of 160 characters.
>


Is that necessarily bad or is it one of those things that 'just is', like
languages changing
over time?  Maybe the people that are observed to have 'shortened' attention
spans already had
shortened attention spans before the advent of status updates.

Depending on how you look at it, things like instant messages are more
'natural' forms of communication
compared to the lengthy diatribes us old-timers are more used to.  When
you're having a physical conversation,
you're generally not trading huge blocks of text back and forth, staying
within the bounds of one topic.

(I'm still undecided as to whether heavy internet use has shortened my
attention span over the years.
When I look at how many books I read and how much television I watch
compared to when I was a child,
it appears my attention span has declined.  But thinking of it another way,
my attention span has greatly
lengthened with relation to computer-related material.  I never used to
spend 8 hours a day doing one thing
as I now spend doing various activities online.  I read 8 hours a day, I
just don't read *books* 8 hours a day.)

Another thing that doesn't help the transhumanist community is that the
resources for communicating with each
other are spread out and not necessarily well-advertised.  I didn't know
this list existed until today.  I assumed wta-talk
was the biggest and most active mailing list which appears not to be the
case.


-- 
"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be
other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be
based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers.
We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can
oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.."
- William S. Burroughs
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