[Igelau]

> Feel free to call the internet "siliconspace" or something like that

I think the word you're looking for is "cyberspace".

> but it won't make it not real

If I'm corresponding with someone via mail, are we inhabiting a postspace that is a real place? If I'm on the phone with someone are we inhabiting a voicespace that is a real place? If I'm reading a book, are the author and I in a space?

These are not places. These are media. It's communication as a phenomenon within real life, but to say any of these or the internet constitutes a place of equal primacy as the real world is just silly.

[Zababa]

> I think the word you're looking for is "cyberspace".

That's the one, thanks

> These are not places. These are media.

I think that's just different ways to view things. I see HN as a place, and I go to it like I would go to the local pub or something. I see the discord server than I share with my friend as the same thing, a place. On the other hand, if I'm talking to someone on the phone, there's no "space". I think a good way to put it would be that if there's still something while no one is actively using it, I see it as a space.

A mail conversation would be more like a trail of letters, so not a place. I don't really know why, that's just how I see things. For a book, sometimes picking up a book (often with fiction) feels like going back to a certain place.

> to say any of these or the internet constitutes a place of equal primacy as the real world is just silly

I don't really understand why. There are lots of places in the world that are less important than HN. Of course you can go to the forest and touch a tree, but that doesn't make this tree more important than HN just because you can physically touch it.

[matthew-wegner]

There is a space of sorts with the phone, but it did take awhile to develop. My understanding of the early history of the telephone is that people conceived of it as like talking to someone in the other room. You can hear them, but not see them—but they’re there with you.

Now we do have very distinct telephone habits, a telephone style of speaking, etc. Try using phone inflection in person sometime; it’s very jarring. “Hey. Yeah. It’s Matthew. I’m sorry, one sec, I need to…”

In an abstractly similar way, a lot of HN comments share some qualities, even from different people (including this one).