The Blogosphere
I've been posting less opinion entries lately, hence the gaping hole in your friends list. It's partially because I'm trying to be less opinionated. It's also partially because I'm opinionated.
Blogs, whether posted through LiveJournal, MySpace/Facebook, or individual sites, have this validation factor that's completely artificial. Because people are writing out cohesive, concrete thoughts for publication and mass media consumption, they get the impression that this lends credence to their arguments. This is rather completely untrue. Every village idiot and his sister has a blog now. There are blog communities for furries, fashionistas, and fetishes that make me laugh myself hoarse. Case in point:
Would I ever take this guy seriously? No. But he thinks his opinion is worthwhile because he has a forum in which to express it. I don't want to take part in that fallibility. I try to post things here that I would write in a journal to myself or a letter to a friend. They're obviously going to contain opinions and bias, because everything I say does, including both of those mediums. But it certainly doesn't mean that I'm right in any or all of my assumptions. Nobody should think it does.
I've kept from posting any short brutal opinions like "Issue X is dumb and that's all I have to say about that". I've thought a lot about it before posting anything longer than a quick news headline or a recap of what I've been up to. Exceptions to this should be few and far between. Anything that goes beyond that is probably acceptable for yakking about in front of the TV or during an afternoon drive, but don't really need to be shouted to the world from atop a cyber-soapbox.
Blogs, whether posted through LiveJournal, MySpace/Facebook, or individual sites, have this validation factor that's completely artificial. Because people are writing out cohesive, concrete thoughts for publication and mass media consumption, they get the impression that this lends credence to their arguments. This is rather completely untrue. Every village idiot and his sister has a blog now. There are blog communities for furries, fashionistas, and fetishes that make me laugh myself hoarse. Case in point:
Would I ever take this guy seriously? No. But he thinks his opinion is worthwhile because he has a forum in which to express it. I don't want to take part in that fallibility. I try to post things here that I would write in a journal to myself or a letter to a friend. They're obviously going to contain opinions and bias, because everything I say does, including both of those mediums. But it certainly doesn't mean that I'm right in any or all of my assumptions. Nobody should think it does.
I've kept from posting any short brutal opinions like "Issue X is dumb and that's all I have to say about that". I've thought a lot about it before posting anything longer than a quick news headline or a recap of what I've been up to. Exceptions to this should be few and far between. Anything that goes beyond that is probably acceptable for yakking about in front of the TV or during an afternoon drive, but don't really need to be shouted to the world from atop a cyber-soapbox.