if it's not online then it doesn't exist

*i looked at this again and i'd call this a Confused Post


when i first heard the phrase "if it's online then it doesn't exist" a few years back, it sounded pretty ridiculous. but now i see that it's true - i mean, no quibbling about it, it's just true.

does anyone go to the library to look up things any more? yeah, people do still go to the library, but it's more out of convenience than necessity. and when it's out of necessity, it's the necessity to sound clever than you really are, because you cite "real books". let's be honest, no one doubts that the same information is around online. maybe phrased in a different way. under another name. but do you doubt that you'll find it online? probably nah.

you wouldn't, for example, go somewhere for something that may or may not exist (unless you do that for a job). you'd probably check it online. you'd go online to check if a physical thing is there.

i think it's pretty great, actually, that everything exists online. it's convenient as fuck for writing papers, and also conducive for studying. like, i study in a shirt and underwear. i can't go outside to borrow reference books while also studying. and if i ever want to go outside, i can check the bus timing and leave at exactly the right time. also if i need some new information i could just search it up. if i have different devices, i can access the same information on all the devices!! even if i fuck up. because cloud computing just eliminates the need for thumbdrives and physical storage.

it's so amazing, technology is saving your ass every day.

nowadays it's like ... if it's offline, it's ... how do i say this?

like, you know excessive disclosure of information? yeah, i'm totally for that. not information like your physical address or phone number, but less tangible things like your personality, your preferences, your cultural experiences, and generally your existence.

i feel like this interconnectedness shit is making us all more aware of what the world actually is. like a better sense of what it means to exist.

i'm not going to complain if you tell the whole world about your shitting habits. like, so what? it's a funny anecdote, maybe. it lets people know that there are others like them. and if i didn't want to read it, i could always get away from it somehow.

you ... let the world know that such a person exists. i mean, uh, it's essentially the same thing as "if a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall" bullshit, like duh it makes a sound, we know physics, but like does anyone know about it? then does it really matter? it's the stupid existential crisis thing about affirmation and sense of self and crap like that. except it's not crap, it's pretty important i guess.

so in the sense that even if you're alone, it's comforting to know that the information is out there, that anyone could find out and reaffirm your existence. i mean, it's for the same reason that people go for fortune-telling things and take personality tests and see a shrink or whatever. existing in isolation is kind of impossible for humans and basically fucks up your brain until you're barely functional and barely a human. you want people to know you exist, to tell you that you exist, so you can exist.

it's trippy, yeah, but everything basically leads to the fact that you create ... yourself??? like you are this kind of person. you want to be that kind of person. you project a particular image so that people think you are that kind of person and treat you like that kind of person, so that you can become that kind of person.

like, let me reword it: if a tree falls by itself, it doesn't matter that it fell. the importance of it falling is defined in terms of people knowing about it. if there's only you, it doesn't matter what kind of person you are. it doesn't even matter if you exist or not. you are defined by other people, who are defined by you.

so if you're raised by animals, you don't speak human language. if you're raised in a box, you don't conceive of things outside the box. so the bottom line is that the bigger the world you grow up in, the more things you are able to conceive of. and this interconnectedness and excessive disclosure just keeps expanding your world, and i think humanity ultimately becomes better because of it.

and that's why i think anything that isn't online doesn't exist. if your whole world is online, you wouldn't need the physical world. and things that exist only in the physical world will eventually just die out and become redundant and useless. not that it's entirely a bad thing.

i think that in the future, things that don't exist online will assume a status of atlantis.

in any case, currently, if it's not online then it will be shortly.