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comment by Riley
Riley  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The internet is wasting our lives.

Sorry in advance for the short response to such a long comment, but I think you've misjudged this a bit. I too was born in the nineties, and I too understand what OP is talking about, but I disagree with your diagnosis... or prognosis perhaps. Our generation definitely wastes too much time on the internet, I would never argue with that, but not all of us are deprived of meaningful social experiences. I too love LAN-ing with friends, but by far the best part of our get-togethers is what comes after that, when we sit around a fire, or in a dimly lit room and just open up. We talk for hours about everything about us, our hopes, dreams, fears, loves and if you were there, you would know that saying

    Simply put, your friends haven't learned how to be friendly. None of you have.
is completely inaccurate. Now I will admit that we don't have these interactions nearly as much as we should, or would like to, but we still have them.

Not only that, but your line

    my lofty position as Father Confessor of Reddit I get a lot of PMs. And they're invariably about someone's inability to connect or communicate with someone else.
seems to me to imply a strong selection bias on your part. I don't mean to really insult you by saying this, but I just want to know how often you interact with members of my generation outside of a setting where you are bound to see many at their lowest. And I'm sorry but
    Yes, none of your peers know what to do in a crowd. Yes, if it weren't for online dating you guys would do nothing but spank it to hentai and yes, the whole "asexual" movement is related to the fact that you guys suck ass at forming a human connection with anyone you share a room with.
is quite a statement to make, one that is laughably, provably wrong.

I do appreciate your input, I will think about what you said further, but I just felt that this clarification must be made.

EDIT: typo





kleinbl00  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Now I will admit that we don't have these interactions nearly as much as we should, or would like to, but we still have them.

The rest of it is prevaricating.

    I don't mean to really insult you by saying this, but I just want to know how often you interact with members of my generation outside of a setting where you are bound to see many at their lowest.

I just spent five solid 18 hour days with a whole bunch of you.

    one that is laughably, provably wrong.

Hop to, Sparky.

You're at a disadvantage. I've been your age. You've never been mine. I used to hate it when people would say "you'll understand when you're older" because I fucking understood then. But: You don't have the experience of seeing what high school was like before you were born.

I do.

ike  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I have to say that I was looking forward to a more thorough response than that.

kleinbl00  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Why?

    completely inaccurate

    seems to me to imply a strong selection bia

    is quite a statement to make, one that is laughably, provably wrong.

The whole of his argument is "me and my friends have fun, therefore I'm going to wave my hands and assert that everything you say is incorrect because truthiness."

Riley  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I apologize for helping this descend into a personal argument instead of a group discussion. How can you say it is prevaricating? You made inaccurate blanket statements, and I called you out on it. How would you like me to prove what I said? Can you prove what you said? (Again, I'm seriously asking.) You are correct, and I'm old enough to have been able to begin experiencing what you said about the "understanding when you're older" effect, but that not is grounds for disregarding what I have to say. I would like to be able to have this conversation when we're the same age, but that will obviously never be the case.

You distinctly made your argument out to be in reference to my entire generation, and my experiences are in contrast to your pontificating. I never asserted everything you said was wrong, I explicitly said I took issue with a few broad statements you made.

kleinbl00  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not going to have two conversations with one person pretending to be two. I've earned more respect than that.

You're proving my every point, by the way.

Riley  ·  4050 days ago  ·  link  ·  

you're wrong. I don't really know what to tell you other than that I am definitely not whoever ike is. I only responded to this comment of yours instead of the previous one because I saw it while I was working on my response and figured I would just respond here to save a split discussion