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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Giovanni Santostasi via extropy-chat<br><br><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…I had so hard time since I came to the US because I don't understand the fake culture…<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Meh, it’s the beauty of fake culture: you don’t actually need to understand it to fake it.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Consider internet culture, or more specifically, here culture. We have a kind of specialized ExI-chat culture which has evolved and grown. I hear mod hipster terms which just are not part of my world, such as troon, and the sexual preference alphabet stuff, I never know what any of it is. It isn’t my world, never has been, won’t be. But I can fake hipsteriety by merely looking it up online, then pretending I always knew that. Phony as a three dollar bill I am, but in a good way in a sense. Read on please for the reasoning behind that comment. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The internet and particularly here, is a marvelously liberating place. Why is that, he asked himself. Because, he answered himself, everyone has control of every discussion. At any in-person social event, one must read the other person or people to see if they are interested in what you say, balance the air time and all that, oy vey. But online, no need for those social graces, for you are forcing no one to listen to one’s endless commentary. They don’t need to read it. If I enrage someone and they chew my ass online, I don’t need to read it, even if it is addressed directly to me. I might or might not, depending on what I think of the person writing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>All of this has enormous advantages. For instance, if I annoy the hell outta someone and they flame my ass, then I recognize it and don’t read it, then I can go on as if nothing was ever said. That allows me to appear to be a super forgiving person, which is a good thing, even if it is really fake. I figure everyone has a bad day sometimes, and perhaps this was one of theirs.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>… California maybe is the fakest place of all. I have lived in the US for 30 years now and still have trouble to adapt fully to this very indirect, actually fake way to behave in society. <br>Giovanni <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Hey cool, a perfect excuse: I lived in the south, learned gentlemanly manners from people who really know how to do it right. Then I refrain from stabbing anyone in the back. After growing up in the deep south, I moved to California, and have been here 40 years now, so by Giovanni’s theory, that entitles me to be fake. But it’s a good kind of fake. Hell, think about it. In a sense, diamond is fake coal.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>