[greggraham]

Without the ability to communicate with people all over the world, you are forced to deal with the people in your own proximity, who might not be the people you would prefer. They might not share your same interests, or they may have annoying practices. However, learning to accept, live with, and even love these people is important for human development.

On the Internet, you can find an affinity group of people like yourself. You can find interesting people who may be much more knowledgable about the things you like than anyone you know locally. If you encounter someone who is annoying, you can unsubscribe or block them and find someone else more to your liking. You might even prefer the culture of another part of the world more than the one where you happen to be born.

This is an old human tendancy. In the old days, if you wanted something different, you could escape with a book, but to have a dialog with different people you had to travel or immigrate, which was expensive. Even then you still had to deal with a group of neighbors and work associates that you couldn't hand pick.

With the Internet, though, it is so easy and tempting to hang out with the cool people in cyberspace and avoid the difficulties of local life that it is easy to become unbalanced. The Internet is wonderful for connecting us with different cultures, the experts in any field, and distant friends and family, but I think it is important to build relationships with the people close by. They will be the ones that will help you when the power goes out.