Quote:
Originally Posted by Despanan
I would congecture that the Internet has had a positive effect (overall) on my "intelligence".
I've been arguing on different web forums since I was seventeen, and you can actually chart my maturity via various posts I've made over the years.
Slowly, I changed from a naive young Republican, to an even more naive libertarian, to a (somewhat) mature atheist liberal.
I don't mean to confuse political standing with "intelligence", but in alot of ways the Internet forced me to become a more critical thinker and expanded my horizons because people were more confrontational with me than they would be irl.
Basically, learning to argue in a vacum where context is somewhat irrelevant, and only ideas themselves have value has helped me to re-examine my stances and prejudices, and purge from them rhetoric and emotion.
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Pretty much this, except I was, thankfully, never a libertarian. I've been using forums since I was 11, and interacting with adults is like a really rigorous mental hazing. Plus whenever I come across something I don't know the resources to learn about it are right in front of me.