networks unhinged 'who can deny that networks can get some jobs done? they do. but they lack any ability to nourish their members emotionally. the extreme rationality at the core of networking is based on the same misperception of human nature the french enlightenment and comte were guilty of. at our best we human beings are much, much grander than merely rational; at our best we transcend rationality while incorporating its procedures into our lower levels of functioning. this is why computers will never replace people, for they are condensed to be rational, and hence very limited. networks divide people, first from themselves and then from each other, on the grounds that this is the efficient way to perform a task. it may well be, but it is a lousy way to feel good about being alive. networks make people lonely. they cannot correct their inhuman mechanism and still succeed as networks. behind the anomaly that networks look like communities (but are not) lurks the grotesque secret of mass schooling and the reason why enlarging the school domain will only aggravate the dangerous conditions of social disintegration it is intended to correct. i want to repeat this until you are sick of hearing it. networks do great harm by appearing enough like real communities to create expectations that they can manage human social and psychological needs. the reality is that they cannot. even associations as inherently harmless as bridge clubs, amateur acting groups, or groups of social activists will, if they maintain a pretense of whole friendship, ultimately produce that odd sensation familiar to all city dwellers of being lonely in the middle of a crowd...belonging to many networks does NOT add up to having a community, no matter how many you belong to or how often your telephone rings. with a network, what you get at the beginning is all you ever get. networks don't get better or worse; their limited purpose keeps them pretty much the same all the time, as there just ins't much development possible. the pathological state which eventually develops out of these constant repetitions of thin human contact is a feeling that your 'friends' and 'colleagues' don't really care about you beyond what you can do for them, that they have no curiosity about the way you manage your life, no curiosity about your hopes, fears, victories, defeats. the real truth is that the 'friends' falsely mourned for their indifference were never friends, just fellow networkers from home in fairness little should be expected beyond attention to the common interest.' - john taylor gatto 180427 ... three words brain networks ninjamonkey 191010 what's it to you? who go blather from