That is no doubt one of life's mysteries, ultimately, but people writing down their thoughts seems to be a common practice amongst humans. One theory is that it helps the brain process information, but who knows? No matter the exact mechanism, though, the incentive is the same as why anyone writes something they are thinking about down.
> Educate people
Forum-going is a solitary activity. There are no people other than you. Just you and your thoughts, along with some software to prompt you with some ideas to think about (which is the value-add over a traditional journal).
And that is the problem with the 'Redditization' of the world being discussed. That solitary activity, which is fine when done in solitude – whatever floats your boat, is leaking out into the real world where other people are there to feel it and that has consequences. An increasing number of people are failing to recognize that software and people are not the same thing, thereby treating people in the real world as if they are software. But people are not software, so you find these social issues emerging.
How nice of you to give a rather elaborate answer to a question asked towards somebody else.
It's a funny take, a forum is just you vs software. If I understand things correctly, me, the software is prompting you back! Or maybe it's the other way around? These days, one never can be sure.
> How nice of you to give a rather elaborate answer to a question asked towards somebody else.
And how wonderful it is that you, dear software, provided another prompt after my last journal entry. I wasn't sure of what to write next, so this prompting has proven quite helpful.
> If I understand things correctly, me, the software is prompting you back!
Prompting is two way street, indeed. Input into the software from the person may produce a result from the software, and the output from the software back to the person may produce a result that is fed back into the software. Lather, rinse, repeat. Again, this is the value that said software offers over a classic journal.
But, regardless, if that is how someone wants to spend their time in solitude, more power to them! But we do see a problem emerging where a growing number of people are not able to differentiate between people and software and are taking that solitary journaling with prompts out into the real world and are treating people as if they are software. But people aren't software, and this leads to social problems. Which isn't terribly surprising. If people treated other people as if they were dogs, you would find an emergence of social problems too. It turns out, for the best outcome of people, people need to be treated like people.
I don't really put that much thought into it, TBH. I mean, yes, there are times when "educate people" is explicitly the answer, but not always. Sometimes it's just a reflection of some vague sense of desire to share and communicate with no particular purpose. That seems to be a sort of part of human nature for most of us, to some degree.
Just to be clear, I don't mean to say that I don't reply to anybody, ever. Far from it. I enjoy a good conversation - *so long as it's some combination of productive, interesting, polite, professional, etc.*. I was trying to say that I'm more willing now to not reply when it's a response that is clearly just trying to start an argument for the sake of starting an argument, or somebody who is rude / disrespectful / etc.
I reply to people all the time, especially on HN where the S/N ratio tends to be a bit higher.
Indeed. When the conversation goes for example in the direction of: 'i am right, you are wrong', it is best to categorize as noise not begging a reaction.
That is no doubt one of life's mysteries, ultimately, but people writing down their thoughts seems to be a common practice amongst humans. One theory is that it helps the brain process information, but who knows? No matter the exact mechanism, though, the incentive is the same as why anyone writes something they are thinking about down.
> Educate people
Forum-going is a solitary activity. There are no people other than you. Just you and your thoughts, along with some software to prompt you with some ideas to think about (which is the value-add over a traditional journal).
And that is the problem with the 'Redditization' of the world being discussed. That solitary activity, which is fine when done in solitude – whatever floats your boat, is leaking out into the real world where other people are there to feel it and that has consequences. An increasing number of people are failing to recognize that software and people are not the same thing, thereby treating people in the real world as if they are software. But people are not software, so you find these social issues emerging.