[Tuvaloon]

>Two solutions: get much better (more complete, more self-actualized, more authentic)

Reading your whole post, I think you mean 'more exactly like your favorite part of yourself', but otherwise, spot on. On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities.

[graue]

> On FB you have to listen to everything everyone says to everyone, not just what they would choose to say to you to accommodate your sensibilities.

What I find really interesting is that this communication model is a totally novel one. Clay Shirky observed[1] that before the internet, all communication mediated by technology was either one-to-one (telephone, telegraph) or one-to-many (newspaper publishing). Only now with Facebook can we type up casual remarks that are instantly seen by potentially 100 or more of our real-world acquaintances. I can't think of any form of offline conversation that's analogous.

This is exciting to me because it suggests that how Facebook works is not the final form of online communication. There's still plenty of room to discover new forms of interaction that more closely model what humans find comfortable. Maybe the secret groups discussed in the OP (which I'd never heard of until now) are an example of that.

[1] http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

[seiji]

Let's say the spectrum is something like:

  [90s Valley Girl] ... [Richard Dawkins]

(people are one-dimensional in this example)

I'm sure people cluster around ranges on the line. The stereotypical self-obsesed pinhead probably wants more people to reinforce his or her introspection and less talk about the world. They want celebrities, gossip, sales at stores, and shoes, shoes, shoes. The other end of the line probably doesn't want those things.