I'm not sure it's worthwhile to address, as you do, because I think positions here are so hardened that mere facts have no importance any more. But I guess you've been honest and open and fair enough that you deserve a response, even if it doesn't matter to anybody else.
This is not very well crafted. I'm just sort of laying my thoughts out here, in a very rough form. They are not meant to be deconstructed word by word. I know I have expressed some things badly, that I could probably do better if I had more time, but it's a busy weekend coming up, so here goes.
I fully expect that I will get stomped on some more, probably give E another two dozen chances to fire more vitriol, but okay. Maybe people will feel better if they can find somebody to punch out, at least vicariously. At least the answer will be out there.
The reality is that I just don't connect what goes on on SI with real life and the real lives of people. Perhaps its the Mars-Venus dichotomy taken to an extreme, but to me all SI is basically a fictional world. I find it very hard to comprehend that it can affect the reality of peoples lives, that when they turn off their computers and go to bed what is said or done here really matters. Even now it is hard for me to comprehend how Poet could allow herself to be so influenced by the mere scribblings on a computer screen by a name representing a person somewhere she has never met, never had any "real world" interaction with.
I have never had any intention of any of my postings here doing actual harm to anyone, including Poet. I am both astonished that they could, and deeply regretful that apparently they did, even while I still, frankly, have trouble comprehending how it could happen that way.
There are a lot of things said on SI that would never be said in a face-to-face relationship. On-line friendships are made, dissolve, remake, in ways impossible for me to conceive in real life. People here have said things to me that I know they would not say if they knew me in person and we were sitting down to dinner together. And I have done the same thing to them. It is a place divorced from real life, which is part of its attraction. As they say, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog.
Poet and I bantered back and fourth about a lot of things even as we shared a lot of things. It is obvious now that that banter, and even that sharing, moved for her far beyond what I ever expected it to. It is obvious now that I was blind to that -- or if you prefer chose to be blind to that -- as it was happening. Perhaps I don't want to acknowledge that my posting can have such influence on peoples' lives. As long as this is all banter, there is no responsibility. As long as it remains on the level of "out there," even as flame wars erupt and insults that, if said face to face would result in serious injury to one of the protaganists, are flung about, as long as one can turn off the computer at night and go to bed without it mattering, there is no responsibility.
When SI moves into other parts of our lives, there is course a different situation. When two SI people meet in person or on the telephone so that there is a human interaction, or when what is said here spills out into the "real world,' yes. E and Poet have met in person, and that puts them in a completely different relationship. But as long as what is said is only said here, from one electronic name to another, there is, for me at least, a disconnect between the electonic and real worlds that my mind simply doesn't bridge.
People tend to assume that their world view is universal. And I know that this world view of SI is shared by at least some others. Apparently it wasn't by Poet. And I didn't realize that. Maybe I should have. But the fact is, I didn't until it was far too late.
Do I regret that? Absolutely.
Do I wish things had turned out differently? Absolutely.
But did I set out intentionally to hurt Poet or anybody else? Absolutely not. |
