Intellectual jerkoff Nepali twitter

We've talked about context collapse before, her I'd like to misuse the word's general meaning into a slightly different topic because it fits in so well.

Social media has brought in together people from vastly different backgrounds and cultural contexts into a same shared space. Often in the same conversations. The factors otherwise uniting these people are nationality and a shared language...there is a vast chasm in the beliefs and values about the world. Where otherwise these groups could exist in harmony and thrive, as their conversations were isolated and they had a safe space for themselves, the worlds have collided now.

That matters because the context and histories behind these conversations and ideas are lost. And that fact seems to be lost on all the parties involved. The result has been a cacophony of voices shouting at each other calling the other evil and stupid and idiotic, not realizing that nothing has changed in the past twenty years... Conflict is not the way to change people's worldviews, is not the way to make allies out of your intellectual or political opponents. A threat -- legitimate or otherwise -- to destroy the other, comments regarding the total invalidity of the others' sets of beliefs while ignoring the basis of them and their origins is how things have been going. Shouts on shouts on shouts on top of one another. The minority voice -- minority here by a massive massive margin, will be delegitimised as it gets increasingly desperate, even among folks who share the general principals behind their beliefs. Shouting loudly does not an argument make, not a particularly compelling one. The fact is lost on our compadres.

I'm writing about, of course, the twitter of young Nepali people and the dramas associated with it. The fact that they seem to not understand at all or make even the bare minimum of an attempt to understand where the others are coming from and how their approach could not just be pointless but quite counterproductive to their cause is lost on them. They the elitest of the elite one way or the other, come up with academic arguments for the discourse (tm), conversations that are generally had within small circles of friends generally similarly academically aligned and not understanding the context collapse of social media specially twitter put it out into the world. The ideas are shredded attacked ridiculed. The response is uhh...not good..rather unbecoming of folks who would have thought of themselves doing better.

I like it to call it intellectual jerkoffs. You aren't making the point you're tryina make, you're not convincing anyone who's not already on your side and you're isolating the people who would otherwise be with you. And yet you're loud and proud, because you like the sound of your voice the jib of your words on the twitter page. And you like to pretend you're in here for the discourse (TM) and the conversations (TM), refuse to admit it's a monologue no questions allowed until your readers have done the recommended readings. They have not and will not, but the pretension of the conversation (tm) has to go on. The idea is to excite each other over the awesomeness of your ideas how everything is so broken everyone is so stupid and retarded -- of course they wouldn't say that but they really really do because that really hinders the full range of expression they want.

The response to criticism is this, always this: ohh so *WE* are the villains and not the society that is so fundamentally flawed and broken, *WE* who want to change things for the better need to change and not THEM?

This is context collapse. The refusal to admit your approach may be wrong, your ideas may be faulty. There is such serious conviction in Beliefs (tm) and Discourse (tm) and Values (tm) there can be no wrong, that is the righteous path and anyone else -- even if they're an ally, specially if they're the kind 'pretending' to be an ally -- must be vanquished. The Ideas (tm) will prevail. That's the hope.

It won't work. This is not activism, is not political debate. It's masturbation, a group jerkoff. The competition to one-up the other towards the ultimate purity in the discourse (tm). There is no intention to bring about change no attempt at community grounds-up conversations. No investment in bringing allies in. The discourse is hollow and lacking in original substance. Convictions don't change people's opinions, the volume of one's voice is not proportional to the effectiveness of their message. It goes un-understood.

Check out the kwaati kanda. Fun times.