The Art of the Insult

Over the past 2 weeks or so I would say I have began to emerge myself into the blogosphere. It is a fascinating emerging industry where the cumulative potential of distributive cognition will someday yield an intelligence capability beyond any living individual human being. At the same time, the Internet provides a veil of anonymity that too many people use to demoralize opposing views and initiate personal attacks on others.

I've visited quite a few blogs now and I am alarmed by the ratio of productive active participation to unsubstantiated middle-school level put downs. Maybe the blogosphere will develop into some sort of emotional crutch for people who measure their value based on how many instigated "word wars" they can win, and how many people they can leave sitting at their computers wishing they had never left a comment at all. I hope over time we can figure out a way to condone, disassociate with, and sort through the verbal clutter. It would be a tragedy if those who contribute something supporting human maturation and development go unnoticed by those who have the mental sophistication to lead in their designated fields. It is selfish to use the social medium for the purpose of labeling a sole individual as a "moron," "idiot," "asshole," etc. It is all too likely that the final product of our inputs will look nothing like the initial framework and assumptions we originally asserted ourselves on. We should just be honest with ourselves and realize that is more valuable to "know what you do not know," rather than to rely only on acquired knowledge and attempt to add pertinent value in a dynamic world from a mentally static position. If I ever become that cocky, I obviously won't admit it (duh), but I will no longer be a contributing member of our society.