242 on 25/6/2015 at 10:21
Quote Posted by demagogue
I'm guessing people have a kind of natural shark mentality
This. One of the former prisoners of GULAG said that virually any person could be transformed into a predatory animal in just two weeks if environment would be appropriate.
Gryzemuis on 25/6/2015 at 12:33
I think Faetal is right.
One of my guidelines in life is (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) Hanlon's Razor.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
(Fyi, another one is (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law) Sturgeon's Law).
Everybody is busy these days. Busy busy busy. The web is large. Lots to read. Your opinion is the most important, the other's opinion is less important. And mostly wrong. So let's write a quick response explaining why the other guy is stupid.
And there you have it. People not reading stuff carefully. People taking responses the wrong way. Written text is a lot harder to interpret than spoken text (where you see the person's face, see his body language, hear the intonation, hear the pauses, hear the volume). If you are sensitive, you can easily see aggression where none was intended. If you are easily offended, on the web, you can be offended every minute if you want.
Yes, some people are arseholes. But not everybody. I refuse to believe everybody is an arse, or can be made an arse. You just have to try to be nice to people. If other people are not nice to you, no problem, I still try to be polite and friendly and helpful. Only when people are really nasty, then I'll go into flamethrower-mode. Maybe. Or maybe I'll just leave the room. Being nasty is never worth the energy, even on the web.
Tony_Tarantula on 25/6/2015 at 14:10
Quote Posted by demagogue
I'm guessing people have a kind of natural shark mentality, and Internet just allows it to take root and blossom. If somebody comes around that's easily trollable and makes a deal out of it, or allows themselves to be dragged down into it, it's like blood in the water, and it just leads the sharks to swarm the person even more, take their bites, and pull the person under. There's no cost to it, and it's probably irresistible to somebody that can't hold their own emotions in check either. Maybe the trolls and the trolled deserve each other.
I don't know. I come to Internet for the chillstep tracks, indie games, and articles on quantum physics, cosmology, and consciousness, the kinds of places trolls and the trolled probably wouldn't even think to go.
This.
Also keep in mind that the internet is a breeding ground for insanity due to the ability to find like-minded echo chambers. People who would previously have been committed as raging lunatics now can take to the internet and find forums where you can find information like All women will cheat on you at the first opportunity, black people are just genetically inferior, all men are rapists, and so on.
Hell, just look at the idiocy evident in both Gamergate and antigamergate. Both of those movements were the result of bitter, angry, nasty people gathering in their respective echo chambers to villify the other side. People who in any rational society would have been shunned.
I'm also willing to bet that what Dylan "Storm Roof" did was fueled more by him hanging out in the internet with other lunatics than by anything else.
Let's also not forget that a lot of the internet vitriol is fake. Quite frequently the "tens of thousands of angry twitterers" who are mad about whatever the outrage of the day is are actually under a dozen different users running bot accounts in order to create manufactured outrage.
Clickbait style "journalism" as popularized by outlets like Gawker, Alex Jones, and HuffPo also contribute. They've realized that actively pandering to sensationalized outrage is profitable and this also amplifies the nastiness of the internet.
PigLick on 25/6/2015 at 14:16
the ability to realize that the internet doesnt mean shit in real terms, you can do what you like.
ffs I am doing what I like right now!
ps what i like is to read the internet and call out shit
also Tony, can you shut up, continue like this and no one will ever want to play gta5 with you
Tony_Tarantula on 25/6/2015 at 14:17
Quote Posted by demagogue
Grow some thick skin, asshat.
It's Internet. If you don't know the ground rules by now, you probably deserve the suffering you ... um ... suffer.
Except it doesn't work that way anymore. Increasingly asshats on the internet are reacting by hacking the accounts of the person with an opinion they don't like, figuring out who they are, and then starting smear campaigns to get that person fired from their job.
Hell....there's even an organized site for it called (
http://racistsgettingfired.tumblr.com/submit) Racists Getting Fired
Quote:
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Random_Taffer on 25/6/2015 at 16:31
Quote Posted by SneakyGuy101
I don't know what it is about the internet that makes people so evil towards other human beings. People say some of the most vile, hateful garbage in internet chats and
forums- things they wouldn't even dream of saying to anyone in
real life.
If you're referring to the things that were said to you in FM sub-forum... Dude. That was pretty damn mellow and (mostly) sensible advice.
SneakyGuy101 on 25/6/2015 at 16:53
Quote Posted by Random_Taffer
If you're referring to the things that were said to you in FM sub-forum... Dude. That was pretty damn mellow and (mostly) sensible advice.
Not everything in that now deleted thread was mean. But the last few were insults. Things like "Instead of dromeding why don't you play with kids toys" "childish twat" which is what Slyfoxx said. Wow have I ever lost respect from him. For someone in their 40's it's kinda childish to be unprofessional and to be insulting someone in a conversation, am I right? Don't think for one second I'll be baffled by that. Also Caradavin telling me I don't care about the community on here which is very untrue and just as pathetic as insulting someone.
But let's not dig into that too much, I got rid of it for a reason. Probably because I'm not taking no petty bullshit from anyone.
On the other hand, wow have you guys ever worked up a conversation, am I right? :laff:
These were the nice, thorough, and interesting answers I was looking for :thumb:
voodoo47 on 25/6/2015 at 17:29
character is not a function of age.
Renault on 25/6/2015 at 17:33
If you act like an arrogant SOB, people are going to try to put you in your place. Don't pretend to be the victim here.
SneakyGuy101 on 25/6/2015 at 17:37
I got rid of that thread though for a reason because I didn't want to embarrass the immature people that replied. Foolish and pathetic insults like those are not something to be bothered with. I hope they feel accomplished being pricks about it.
