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Paraphrasing an article by Time Magazine's Joel Stein:
The Internet's personality has changed -- once it was like a geek with lofty ideals about the free flow of information. Now the web is a sociopath with Asperger's. [ Submitter's note: the "Sociopath with Asperger's" comment is not my addition, but a verbatim phrase in the source article ]
The people who relish their online freedom to act under influence of the online disinhibition effect are called "trolls." Trolling is, overtly, a political fight; but it has become the main tool of the alt-right, an Internet-grown reactionary movement that works for men's rights and against immigration. They derisively call their adversaries "social justice warriors" and believe that liberal interest groups purposely exploit their weaknesses to gain pity, which allows them to control the leverage of political power.
When sites are overrun by trolls, they drown out the voices of women, ethic and religious minorities, gays -- anyone who might feel vulnerable. The alt-right argues that if you can't handle opprobrium, you should just turn off your computer. But that's arguing against self-expression, something antithetical to the original values of the Internet.
The article closes with a description of an exchange between Stein and a detractor. In meeting the detractor in real-life, he was surprised by her lack of bravado, to which she responds, "The Internet is the realm of the coward. These are people who are all sound and no fury."
Stein ruminates in response, "Maybe. But maybe, in the information age, sound is as destructive as fury."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @05:08AM
Your hatred for the right is obvious. It is obvious they are your enemy. I think your love for them does not exist. You will know how far you've gone if you try right now to empathize with them or think of them in any positive way but cannot. Think hard if it is that you just don't want to, or if your demonization of them is truly complete.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 21 2016, @09:11PM
Uh, Anon...stop and think for a moment: if I had no empathy I wouldn't be able to get into their heads and figure out how they work so easily.
Fact is, this is a very, very human thing they're doing. It's not hard to understand; it's easy, all too easy, and it makes perfect sense if you think like they do. If I really had no empathy i wouldn't be arguing with--or horrified by--people like Uzzard and J-Mo either. The fact is, it's *because* I know how easy it is for people to fall into that kind of thinking and why that I'm up their noses so hard. Think of it like someone dealing with the early stages of a plague: you can feel sorry for the victims, but you have to, absolutely must, keep them quarantined.
You don't know me, so I can't really blame you too much for what you said up above, but it's simply not true. As it is, here in meatspace my problem is NOT being able to turn this off. I've had spooky shit like precognitive flashes and constant, receptive emotion-sensing happening to me since age 4 or 5 (probably before but I don't remember). It runs in the family, too; my father has a weaker version of it, though he never trained it like I did, the result being something that edges dangerously close to psychic abilities...which I personally do not believe exist, and which is making me feel like I imagine an atheist would if God started talking to him.
Is any of this making sense? I'm constantly going out all-guns-blazing on these people because I recognize how very similar we all are and I've seen this pattern over and over and over again throughout history. It never ends well.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...