Why do people call offline real life?

[MrHero17]

But activities I engage in online or virtually, how are they any less real than the physical world?

... because they don't exist? You know that, right?

Does this conversation exist?

 

[Infernai]

The reason its called that is because, by comparison, real life is visibly less exciting.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

if i pretend to be a 13 year old girl for a game of bait the pedo then it doesn't mean i am said 13 year old girl when I'm off line.

I've always been a bit confused about that. So, old-ish guys pretend to be 13-year old girls online to bait the pedos, while in Soviet Russia, 13-year old girls pretend to be 40-year old guys to bait...uh...I'm drawing a blank here...

Hey less of the old-ish you! I'm only 25! OK so i might have more than a few gray hairs but that doesn't mean I'm old! *mumble mumble mumble*...if we were all gorillas then I'd be the boss!

As for the pretending to be a 13 year old girl to play bait the pedo then the reasons are three fold:

a) I was morbidly curious as to what they say to them, i don't have the first clue how one would go about grooming a child as it is a completely alien concept to me and i just cant see why anyone would do it.

b) It turned out to be hella funny. Honestly some of the things they say are comedy gold, but also slightly disturbing if you remember that younger people probably don't really get the meaning behind it.

c) The more of there time i waste then the less time they have to potently snag a victim. So in a twisted kinda way I'm potently doing the world a favor.

 

[Silver Patriot]

The internet world isn't 'real', no more substantial than a dream. That is, unless you can hold a raw Jpeg in your hand, composed of data rather than a USB drive, a piece of paper, some other method of conversion. Can you flick pixels at me? Is Guardian Bob going to leap out and Reboot into a football player for the Steelers? Nope.

Ok I just had to quote you for putting that image in my head. As a person who both watch Reboot and lives in Steeler Country I thank you.

 

[PhiMuLady]

I thought I was the only one as well zfactor.
I know this question of color has lead to other thoughts. Like; if people see those wave lengths differently then is that part of the reason that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder'?

 

[Palademon]

Because internet communication would most likely not affect your everyday life.

Speaking of dreams, last night I dreamt I dodged rockets in slow-mo to the theme of TF2. Freakin' awesome.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

You've just broken one of the rules of intelligent philosophy: "Thou shall not waste your time questioning the definition of phrases or words."
Seriously, it's like asking: "Why is orange a colour and a kind of fruit?"

wait....why IS orange a color and a fruit? Why don't we have green as a fruit? Or Red? GAH!! This makes no sense, my entire life is meaningless now! ARGGGHHH!

Ok if you liked that, then you will love this one. If we both look at a red flag and agree that it's red...how do i know that you see it as i do? I mean red is just a name we give to a wavelength of light, if i was brought up to call something that looked green to me red then i would be seeing the flag as green and you would see it as red but we would both say that the flag was red. Kinda i complicated example but i hope you get what I'm driving at here )

HOLY CRAP I HAVE THIS SAME QUESTION
(and I thought I was insane...)

I would explain this differently:

We both see a color. We have named this color red. However, this is just a wavelength of light, so how do I know that what I call red is not what you call green or blue? How can I know that the wavelength my brain interprets as red is not what your brain interprets as green or blue? You can't.

Original question: Online everything is "virtual." Offline everything actually happens. Virtual often means fake (but not always) so people think that online everything is fake. So they call offline "real life." (as opposed to "fake life.")

Yeah...your way of explaining it was better )

 

[Paksenarrion]

if i pretend to be a 13 year old girl for a game of bait the pedo then it doesn't mean i am said 13 year old girl when I'm off line.

I've always been a bit confused about that. So, old-ish guys pretend to be 13-year old girls online to bait the pedos, while in Soviet Russia, 13-year old girls pretend to be 40-year old guys to bait...uh...I'm drawing a blank here...

Hey less of the old-ish you! I'm only 25! OK so i might have more than a few gray hairs but that doesn't mean I'm old! *mumble mumble mumble*...if we were all gorillas then I'd be the boss!

As for the pretending to be a 13 year old girl to play bait the pedo then the reasons are three fold:

a) I was morbidly curious as to what they say to them, i don't have the first clue how one would go about grooming a child as it is a completely alien concept to me and i just cant see why anyone would do it.

b) It turned out to be hella funny. Honestly some of the things they say are comedy gold, but also slightly disturbing if you remember that younger people probably don't really get the meaning behind it.

c) The more of there time i waste then the less time they have to potently snag a victim. So in a twisted kinda way I'm potently doing the world a favor.

Don't get me wrong; I support the Bait-a-Pedo Foundation. I'm just wondering what the Soviet Russia version is. Who do 13-year olds bait? And yes, 25 isn't old; I'm 27 myself. It's why I said old-*ish*. Not really "old", but comparatively so.

 

[Avarith]

I've truly never understood why people refer to offline as real life, and imply that online is not real. Hallucinations aren't real. Dreams aren't real. But activities I engage in online or virtually, how are they any less real than the physical world?

To quote an epic writer "perception is reality, and what we know as reality is only what we believe is reality. What I know and what you know may be two different things even though they happened in the same place at the same time, but they are non the less as real as we believe them to be."

In short It is because people need to think the world out side their computer is their real life, for what they do in a virtual world must be separate from the physical.

It is like living in two worlds only one that you wish to acknowledge to be real, the other is a lie.

In my opinion, the internet is a tool, like sending mail and reading. I could get in to the fact that books take you to other worlds in the imagination but I do not need to rant all day.

That quote is irrelevant to this discussion, it refers to the fact that people interpret events that take place in the real world differently based on their perception and that one person's reality is not the same as another person's reality. When there is a world where developers can play god it isn't in any way the real world, or i would be a wizard.

But people like to think of the virtual world as their real life, or at least another world.Do you know of the game second life, Or the D&D thing, the world in this is not technically real in any place but the mind, But this does not stop people from getting so caught up they believe it is real. The internet and video games to a degree have this same sense, movies as well. If you remember the whole Avatar stuff were people thought that the world was real out in space some were and wanted to go to it.

 

[Rainforce]

it's because, in comparison with hallucinations and such things, it's the same: both happen "virtually" in the logic circuits of certain things/beings. the only difference is that a computer can visualize its own "thoughts".
therefore: a game is as real as a dream. both DO exist in some way, but the things they show not so much.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Because if i die in a game I'm not dead in real life and if i pretend to be a 13 year old girl for a game of bait the pedo then it doesn't mean i am said 13 year old girl when I'm off line.
You choose who you are on line and you can change anything at any time to suit your whim. Off line i cant do any of that very easily off line.

Basically i think i boils down to the fact that the online world has few significant consequences if any, thus it's not like real life where there are consequences to nearly all that we do

But it still happened. Real is anything that exists in fact, and it is a fact that you said that, and that I replied.

Real doesn't mean "there are consequences". Five seconds ago, I grabbed a soda and opened it. There are no significant consequences, and yet it's just as real as if I had gone outside and shot somebody. If it actually happened, it's real.

Because offline stuff really matters. Not like on the internet.

The Facebook guy has millions of dollars. Real money, not crazy people money. People have divorced and gotten married because of the internet. The internet is real, it isn't powered by dream-fairies in the LSD factories.

 

[Ampersand]

That's a good point actually.

 

[Rainforce]

But activities I engage in online or virtually, how are they any less real than the physical world?

... because they don't exist? You know that, right?

Does this conversation exist?

Probably. Asking something like that is a rather desperate move, though. It pretty much proves that you lack the arguments to continue.

 

[Ampersand]

Because internet communication would most likely not affect your everyday life.

Speaking of dreams, last night I dreamt I dodged rockets in slow-mo to the theme of TF2. Freakin' awesome.

Someone should make a dream thread.....that would be fun.

 

[GeorgW]

Real life doesn't have a reset button. But, man, if it did...

OT: The internet is real, but it's not life. /thread

 

[x EvilErmine x]

..Snip..

..Snip..

Hey less of the old-ish you! I'm only 25! OK so i might have more than a few gray hairs but that doesn't mean I'm old! *mumble mumble mumble*...if we were all gorillas then I'd be the boss!

As for the pretending to be a 13 year old girl to play bait the pedo then the reasons are three fold:

a) I was morbidly curious as to what they say to them, i don't have the first clue how one would go about grooming a child as it is a completely alien concept to me and i just cant see why anyone would do it.

b) It turned out to be hella funny. Honestly some of the things they say are comedy gold, but also slightly disturbing if you remember that younger people probably don't really get the meaning behind it.

c) The more of there time i waste then the less time they have to potently snag a victim. So in a twisted kinda way I'm potently doing the world a favor.

Don't get me wrong; I support the Bait-a-Pedo Foundation. I'm just wondering what the Soviet Russia version is. Who do 13-year olds bait? And yes, 25 isn't old; I'm 27 myself. It's why I said old-*ish*. Not really "old", but comparatively so.

Hmm that's a good question. Maybe the grim reality of living in Soviet Russia and having to work 17 hours a day in a sweat shop making wooden pips to put in fake raspberry jam has hardened and matured there children so they choose to go on line and frustrate pedos in order to get there jolly's and regain a semblance of a lost childhood? Or I could be wrong...

lol i know you weren't calling me old, i was just making a joke about the fact that i have gray hair and if were were all Gorillas then i would be the Silver Back...i think if failed though. )

 

[VGStrife]

Snip

Don't get me wrong; I support the Bait-a-Pedo Foundation. I'm just wondering what the Soviet Russia version is. Who do 13-year olds bait? And yes, 25 isn't old; I'm 27 myself. It's why I said old-*ish*. Not really "old", but comparatively so.

I'm fairly sure in Soviet Russia Pedos bait 13y-olds pretending to be 40.

But i could be mistaken.

OT: If people have ever used the phrase 'get a life' they did not mean '..on the internet'

 

[Double A]

Because people are lazy, and it's easier to abbreviate real life than offline.

 

[Harrowdown]

Because a virtual world is an artificial construction, wherein actions and consequences have no effect outside of the worlds confines. You can shoot someone in a game, or be shot yourself, and the 'real' world that we inhabit will be unchanged.