And, is RWED a "society"? by Niki2

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

And, is RWED a "society"?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Saturday, May 18, 2013 16:27
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Friday, May 17, 2013 7:45 AM

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

The other half of the question Byte's remarks made me question, and one of equal interest, to me at least.

Are we a "society" here? Or just an amalgam of anonymous voices? And if so, why; if not, why not?

In my opinion, a society can ONLY exist IRL, and is a matter of mutual dependence of one form or more. Sig puts it "mutual economic dependence", I leave out the word "economic".

What say you?

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Friday, May 17, 2013 8:06 AM

BYTEMITE

I would say that any time people have to interact with each other, it's a community/society. Because the ways people can affect each other is wide ranging, and it doesn't have to all be physical for it to be something that matters or that we need.

We can't JUST be an amalgamation of unimportant anonymous voices because we care in some way or another what other people on the board think and their interests and in some ways it affects our physical lives.

The word society comes from the word "societas", equivalent to Latin "soci(us)," or comrade/partner, + ity. As such the etymology is synonymous with comradiery or partnership. This stem is also present in the word "social." Just as the words "commune" and "community" are related to "communication" which French stem word "comuner" and Latin stem "communi(s)" means "to share" or "to have in common."

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Friday, May 17, 2013 8:18 AM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Well, yes.
Isn't a society a gathering of people to talk about things of mutual interest? Aren't there groups of folks who communicate, say by writing, about such matters? Isn't there the Society of the Baker Street Irregulars, ( first one that came to mind, that has society in its name.) fer'instance, folks who think and write about Sherlock and John H, without ever necessarily gathering physically together?

Ain't we the Society of Browncoats? Or maybe the Society of Serenity Crewmen? Don't we ( some of us anyway) offer noobs fresh bao, and mudder's milk? Don't we usually fit 'em out with virtual brown coats? and often warn them about RWED, a shared fondness for rough n' tumble that not everyone might enjoy?

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Friday, May 17, 2013 8:27 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Quote:
we care in some way or another what other people on the board think and their interests and in some ways it affects our physical lives

Interesting. I'm not sure. I guess "care" what other people think can be expanded to "care that someone noticed" or "care that we got a reaction" or something, because I can't imagine some people here actually CARING what others think of them, given the way they post.

I guess we could start a whole thread on what people mean by "care", but I won't go that far, I promise! But what I see doesn't reflect "caring" so much as a desire to spew anger, denigrate, get a rise out of, mock...certainly not care enough to try and convince or encourage people to think like they do or agree with them...? I see supposed "caring" when someone posts something bad that happened to them personally, but I don't see a lot of follow-up, so I suppose I dismiss that as people making socially-expected "empathy" noises to let the poster know they read and recognize their pain. I see SOME people who remember individual stuff or remark about something, but few and far between, so I'm not sure.

And how does it affect our physical lives? It affects mine in that I sit in this chair and it takes up X amount of my day, but that's the only physical affect I can think of...brain and finger stimulation, there is that, and brain stimulation is part of why for me, certainly. But otherwise, physically? You'll have to clarify that one for me.

I'll be back tomorrow; I spent so much time responding to you, I've ignored pretty much the rest of the threads, and I've gotta make myself quit now...

ETA: NewOld, I think I make a mental differentiation between "community" and "society"...but I'm NOT going to let myself pursue that, I'll come back and see what everyone else has to say.

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Friday, May 17, 2013 1:30 PM

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:

ETA: NewOld, I think I make a mental differentiation between "community" and "society"...but I'm NOT going to let myself pursue that, I'll come back and see what everyone else has to say.

You're surely entitled to. I think I'd be hard pressed to not define one in terms of the other, but that's MY choice. . " A society is a community of folks who..." or " A community is a social grouping of people who" ( same root word and concept, at least)
Another thought: Either one has to be a smallish group, small enough to interact. "Social networks" like Facebook, Twitter , etc. are WAY too large. It's not social reaction ( E-T-A. Oops! meant interaction.), nor community, to have 1 million followers, nor to be one of 1 million followers. E-T-A- another example: "All Joss Whedon fans" is too large a group. "Browncoats who come here" is not

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Friday, May 17, 2013 3:29 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

99% of FFFs are Browncoat lurkers, on the fanfic and general threads.

Most readers of RWED are Truthers surfing the cortex.

Obviously most posts on RWED are by Alliance Operatives -- Commie Libtards who love the Chinese Alliance when Hussein Obama is dictator, Nazi fascist BlueSuns when Bushie Bush* was dictotor for the Alliance NWO.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nicknames_used_by_George_W._Bush

Monsters and Men: Pirate News wins shoutout from Saturday Night Live the same week as $100,000 filmfest entries and FBI deth threat
http://piratenews-tv.blogspot.com/2013/05/hollywood-award-winner-pirat
e-news.html

In Firefly the Alliance merged the US flag with the flag of Communist China
http://en.wikipedia.

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Friday, May 17, 2013 4:34 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thanks for that, PN %(

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 4:27 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Are we a "society" here? Or just an amalgam of anonymous voices?"

Interesting question.

At first I assumed it was a society b/c it's a group of people following the same mode of interaction, though that interaction is neither consequential nor physical.

Then I though about the origins of society. Social grouping traces its origins to way back in the past where people stuck together for survival. (Individual humans are physically frail things even compared with the far smaller chimps, it was only the use of tools and banding together that kept our distant ancestors alive.) The rules of the road came about b/c you had to interact with the rest of the group every day in some consequential way. Since your life depended on them, it behooved you to learn to behave in a way that did not piss them off and either get you attacked or expelled. A society would then be a group of people banded together over time to ensure survival, and following the rules of the group the individual's strategy for individual survival. The lack of consequential interaction would make this a non-society.

But grouping together socially under common rules is I think one nearly total trait (with the exception of sociopaths) of 'human nature' (and I really dislike 'human nature' arguments as a rule). And this tendency to group together socially under common rules can extend to extremely abstracted forms of society - cities for example - where direct consequences from the people around you are rare, and governance is institutional (and rarely directly consequential). So under this scenario that would put FFF in the category 'society'.

The one 'grouping' of humans which falls apart as a society is one where a present-time human relates to either the dead, future humans, or imaginary people. Since there is no contemporaneous interaction, it's not a society.

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