#in

Something like missionary reductionism has happened to the internet with the rise of web 2.0. The strangeness is being leached away by the mush-making process. Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990S had the flavor of personhood. MySpace preserved some of that flavor, though a process of regularized formatting had begun. Facebook went further, organizing people into multiple-choice identities, while Wikipedia seeks to erase point of view entirely. If a church or government were doing these things, it would feel authoritarian, but when technologists are the culprits, we seem hip, fresh, and inventive. People will accept ideas presented in technological form that would be abhorrent in any other form. It is utterly strange to hear my many old friends in the world of digital culture claim to be the true sons of the Renaissance without realizing that using computers to reduce individual expression is a primitive, retrograde activity, no matter how sophisticated your tools are. ↗

— Jaron Lanier

#facebook #internet #myspace #technology #web

Really, nobody was there?” I asked. “Well, nobody important,” he said, putting his glasses back on and blinking. ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #downtown #dreaming #dreams #glasses

Each of us has immense potential to achieve what we desire, unless we enliven and enlighten our life with inspiration, bring our dreams or desires into reality we will never shine as bright as our potential. ↗

— Steven Redhead

#desire #desires #dreams #enlighten #enliven

I didn't know the value of creation until I did it. Once I tasted imagination, I knew that I was trapped. I knew that I could never look back. At this point in my life, reality simply isn't enough for me. Dreams simply aren't enough for me. I need something more. I need to live in imagination. I need to become imagination. ↗

— Lionel Suggs

#dreams

In order to follow your heart, one must do the wrong thing ↗

— Andrew Martin

#inspirational

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. ↗

— -Goethe

#dreams

Sometimes, in the course of my hopeless quest, I would pick up and dip into one of the ordinary books that lay strewn around the castle. Whenever I did, it seemed so insipid and insubstantial that I flew into a rage and hurled it at the wall after reading the first few sentences. I was spoilt for any other form of literature, and the mental torment I endured was comparable to the agony of unrequited love compounded by the withdrawal symptoms associated with a severe addiction. ↗

— Walter Moers

#reading #dreams

The Internet is a big distraction. It's distracting, it's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere. ↗

— Ray Bradbury

#internet

Only on the Internet can a person be lonely and popular at the same time. ↗

— Allison Burnett

#internet #loneliness #loneliness-on-the-net #internet

Pixies have to be invited in, like vampires. I read it on the Internet. Well, there you go, I mutter. Then it must be true. ↗

— Carrie Jones

#internet