Re: <nettime> let's go negative and join snubster

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.org>]

Negativity is has its charms, but the fate of being positive and community-minded
is inescapable on the Internet. In order to do anything collaboratively, that is,
anything at all beyond pure consumption, the 'community' has to minimize internal
dissent and make people feel good about contributing. This does not mean squashing
internal critique totally, otherwise things get boring, but stabilize it on a
level where it is productive, and thus, dare I say, turns positive. After all, if
really you don't like it, why don't you just go somewhere else? Anyone who
administered an online collaborative project has uttered this sentence more than
once.

So, we have special interest communities, dog-lovers, negativity-lovers and so on.
Endless solipsistic niches of like-minded people. Snubster just has a cool
branding. The days of critique and negativity are over. Rather, we have
interesting discussions on minor points, enabled by the fact that we basically
agree with one another. There are too many options to waste your time really
disagreeing with people.

Felix



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