On InterWeb Groups And Making Good Choices

 Old AF Sarge over at Chant du Depart has been crafting an excellent narrative - he always does, but this most one is extremely good (if you are not reading him, you should be).  In the current series, one of the characters - a guy who thought he was doing the right thing but ended up enabling some very wrong things - makes the the following statement in police custody:

"Look Sir, I'm in over my head.  I know that now.  I betrayed my oath, I betrayed my shipmates, and damn it, I betrayed my own core beliefs."

This particular sentence stood out to me because it is a concept and question I often keep asking myself about.

One of the great challenges of feeling like one is largely on one's own is the reality that one tries to find contact with the others that are on a similar wavelength.  This is something I have done my whole life as a "nerd" whose interests ran pretty contrary to most of my peers.  It becomes even more pronounced when one finds one's self an island of one set of beliefs in a culture or social situation that has a different set.

The reality is that for 95% of us, all we know of our fellow human beings on the InterWeb is what the post.  Sure, social media may provide additional information or there are some individuals that just post their whole lives, but for most of us there is a very wise dividing line between engaging in conversation and thought and inviting the world to track us down.  As a result, we often only know what people want us to know about them.

Sometimes this is fine as is and we can share opinions or thoughts or recipes.  Sometimes, it is not fine and we finding ourselves associated - seemingly suddenly - with individuals and groups that we had no intention of being in support of.

I write this from experience - it has happened to me more than once online.  No, not "those" kinds of groups and nothing criminal, but people starting edging from comments that seemed reasonable and rational to comments that really did confront that line of oaths to friends, oaths to society, oaths to myself.    Having recognized the issue, I ceased moving in the same direction.

But the temptation always remains, looking for a group that shares one's beliefs and in some fashion throwing one's lot in with them.

I have gotten a great deal better about this through the years - especially with groups, I am far more standoffish than I used to be.  And in social situations, I have virtually mastered the art about having no opinion about anything that is remotely controversial (a "mmmm" and general non-committal head gesture goes a long way).    And I have tried to get a lot better about asking "What is it I really want to see accomplished", followed by "And how is this person/group/association going to accomplish that?"  If I keep pressing into those questions, I find that I am generally a lot more aware earlier of potential risks.

But it remains a challenge.  I will say that I have found connecting with individuals - mostly on their blogs or here - seems  a much more reliable method. 

I completely believe in the Social Internet.  But I do not believe that even with its benefits, it outweighs significant risks of throwing ourselves "in" with the wrong crowd and only realizing that fact too late.

(Post Script:  Again, thank you for your management of comments and discussion here.  At least for me, this truly functions as an environment where I can think and ponder and post and be understood for what I am trying to do through the process.)