3 days ago french philosopher Jean Baudrillard died. He was famous for arguing that modern life is actually, to paraphrase him (by quoting REM), an "imitation of life", and he developed the notion of the simulacrum. Let me quote an online article:

the notion of the simulacrum: essentially that modern society creates representations and copies that are more "real" than the original. Reality TV is an obvious example: something marketed on the basis of its authenticity becomes more intense and absorbing and important (hyperreal) than the authentic life we see around us. People prefer it to reality. It becomes their reality.


My question to you online philosophers is: could the same could be said of an internet forum and the way we debate modern politics? Do people's usernames become their simulacrum? (a simulacrum is a copy of a copy, the reasoning being that each copy moves further away from being like the original as it takes on a life of it's own. In this context, an online persona is a simulacrum in that it is a copy of a persons perception of themselves, which is in itself a copy of who they really are). Going by Boudrillard's reasoning, the politics we debate are also simulacrae; the events argued and terms used are reproductions of our original understanding of these concepts and events, which are in themselves reproduced versions of the events which physically occurred and gave rise to history and politics as we understand them.

Just a bit of early hours philosophy, no trying to accuse anyone of anything.

Well I would think that it would depend on the person, as far as online forums go. I, personally, never think about my online name, or persona, being anything other than myself. I don't act any differently here than I would in my social interactions. I think that if anywhere, this kind of place is where someone could be honest because there are no repercussions. Unless of coarse you are a crazy ass hole who says crazy shit and gets banned.


Good thread by the way.

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Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. ... I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask no one to live for me, nor do I live for others. I covet no mans soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

Ayn Rand, Anthem.

I don't know if forums relate to that alternate reality, but I argue it's going on in more realms of society than just talk forums and reality shows.

Technology has not advanced man one bit - we are the same animal we've always been (in many respects). I heard there's going to be a SIMs game released where you are literally living an entirely different life via the game. I see alternate realities in things like text messaging (where you don't even have to truly communicate with one another and things get done), in being enthralled in reality TV or even sitcom TV.

MySpace is another example. I think that your philosopher made good points and I think that these types of alter-realities are splitting people more than they realize, though there are arguments that they 'bring people together'. Activites like MySpace, texting, watching unprecidented amounts of TV - decrease interacting person to person skills and divide us further as humans. Technically, I must say the same for forums (in a sense), though I argue that forums serve a purpose WRT furthering your political knowledge, not furthering your social life (at least not me, though I've made a small but interesting number of friends this way).

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Also..
It's funny that I read this thread today, because around midnight last night at the hospital I work at it was really slow and this French immigrant nurse and I got into a discussion about American culture and European culture. She remarked that she has been here since 86, and while she does see socializing going on here, it's much different and people seem to be a little more cut off than others in parts of the world. I had to agree, at least somewhat, with her and this subject is part of why I did. I think technology, for all it's splendor, is partly to blame for this.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

I agree, it goes way beyond internet forums. I think even media is guilty of this too. Talk to anyone who's been to Iraq and in my experience the account they will give you is totally different from what we see on tv - they say most of the Iraqis respond well to them, 99% of the time it's boring, calm uneventful etc. But the media shows it as hell on earth, and they create this fantasy world where every Arab hates every westerner - and that's he world people start to live in. And then they come online (not on this forum, which has a very high standard of debate, but say in yahoo chatrooms) and the battles you see people fighting out - one group is going on about "the terrorists" and the other groups is going on about the US being "Nazis" or an "empire" - bears no relation to anything that's happening on the ground. This philosopher Baudrillard I think made a point about Osama Bin Laden - it doesn't matter whether he's dead or alive, because as long as the media keeps showing him, he has power. Tactically, there are hundreds of people who could do the things he does, but what we think of when we think of Bin Laden is just an image to scare us, like a fictional character.

Hope that made some sense....