Discussion on:

What's with all the angry people on the web?

I just think some people do not register before they type or speak.
Sometimes they just want to let off some steam for some reason or another and being on a blogging site they have a green light to do just that. Maybe they do not have someone to confront and let out their anger on.

Lol, couldn't help it! Interesting approach to the subject matter. Now all we need is a way to adjust that DNA...

Survival of the fittest has been suspended in modern society and stupid people are breeding.

They VOTE!.

But that's really for another forum.

Therefore you will find politicians (another breed of confidence tricksters) pandering to the great unwashed. By voting you get people with no knowledge indirectly making decisions on subjects (like economy, health) they know nothing about. That's why I'm not all that impressed by democracy. Meanwhile the politicians (con men and women) who greatly benefit from it have elevated democracy to a godlike status.

Anger, like happiness, is a function of neurotransmitters. Circumstances may change the levels of certain neurotransmitters, allowing even generally happy and calm people to get angry, but, as we all know, some people are prone to certain emotions, like anger, much more than Joe Average.

As a race, we humans have made it extraordinarily simple for the morons in our population to continue to survive. We only have ourselves to blame.

That those who Lash Out are uncivilized and feel that they have the Right to Free Speech without the responsibilities that go along with the right.

Col

The anonymity restricts enforcement of duty, given a pile of angry sheeple we will pay the price in freedom.

I think sheeple, by definition, don't get angry.

Been seeing keyboard courage in action since ye' ole BBS days. I'd say it's a combination of feeling anonymous behind a handle and a keyboard.

It also draws on our subconcious awareness of privacy. The internet is a new place and most people have not really concidered the privacy issues. When they type they are in there safe little room alone with the computer screen so they talk as if it's just them and a friend behind closed doors. In reality, the Internet is like a crowded grocery store; if you wouldn't yell it across the store at another person you should consider why your yelling it across the crowded internet with everyone watching.

I like that.

Free speech comes with RESPONSIBILITY for ones words. Whether ones speech is distributed verbally, electronically or via snail mail.

I agree and think that is why so many people, especially celebrities, get bitten by their tweets. They think it is just them and their rabid fans in the room.

maj

The web is seen as a "safe" place to "vent". What I usually do when angry is go ahead and vent. Right here in this little text box. Then read the words, ask myself, "Does this contribute anything?" Most of the time, "Nope!" Somebody else said it, said it better even. So move on without submitting.

That said, be careful what you wish for. It seems to me web forums "live" for angry people. This is the new talk radio. If the angry people go away how many "viewers" are left?

Much like angry commenters on blogsites, multi-player first person shooters like Call of Duty attract a lot of gamers who get so bent out of shape at other players (teammates and opponents) and the game itself that it can get unbearable. I think it is the anonymousness and the adrenaline rush that makes them feel that they can scream and holler their lungs out. That's where the mute button comes in handy.
Although you can't mute a website commenter, you can choose to ignore them.

I play an online game thats free to play. It attracts a younger crowd than some of the games that cost $$$. We play 15 a side, and when someone dies they can still watch the action, and if their team wins, they get more points. Talk about back seat drivers (its a tank game), these kids are so obnoxious, its almost enough to leave the game. Luckily the game has an obscenity filter in chat, defaulted to on.

Now on the reverse side, there are individuals who exhibit sportsmanship and promote team play. There are probably more of them than the obnoxious ones, but guess which ones we remember?

Probably the worst ones, are the kids who think they have mad skills, and if they are killed early in a match after a low number of shots, they must have been killed by a hacker. So much whining, so little time.

Mercifuly the games are no more than 15 minutes, so you generally end up in a new game with a new crowd in the next round.

It is the ad hominem statements in a debate that irk me. - calling you stupid because you have a difference of opinion.
It is at that point that I decide that the commenter lacks debating skills and is just in it for the adrenaline.

And more importantly the corrollary that states, if you start comparing your opponent or his/her arguments to Hitler, you've lost the debate.

Since you just mentioned Hitler...you just effectively marked the conversation "Below average IQ" now.

Users without intelligence are STRONGLY CAUTIONED against participating further.

Simply mentioning Hitler does not invole Godwin's law or its corollaries. Its when you compare your debating opponent to Hitler, or suggest their policies are like those of the Nazi party, that is when you invoke Godwin's law. I don't see that anyone has done that yet.

"Godwin's law" is just as easily a bogus point as anything, invoking it can be be less germane to the argument than the references to Hitler or Nazism at which the "law" is leveled.

The person invoking Nazism may in fact have the more correct position. Being able to lay claim to a convenient "law" is as bogus ad hominem.

"With the way NSA and other spooks can rifle through all your web traffic, read your email... all without a warrant... Hitler never had it so good."

"you invoked Hitler, therefore no argument you make is valid; ergo the NSA is a nice group of little old ladies reading stories to children in kindergarten and they don't spy on anyone and your email is safe and secure and you have total privacy."

See?

to most "rules". Godwin himself looked at it pretty humourously.

Having said that, in my nearly 20 years of internet debate experience, the vast majority of people who invoke a Hitlerian comparative, do so without a grounding in history, reason or logic. It is a often cynical debating tactic, usually designed to throw the recipient off their focus. I usually see it as the desperate act of someone on the loosing side of a debate.

The most often cite is in gun control discussions. What they miss sight of is that the Nazi government's predecessors, the liberal Weimar republic, created the laws in attempt to prevent the Nazis and German communists from getting guns.

Eh !



Maybe thay aren't angry, and you are projecting. Is there a mildly irritated gene?

Typo is an excuse for poor English skills - Justifying the writers illiteracy by calling it a typo convinces no one, certainly not me. Where were they educated? Reading something that has been written by someone with the writing or English literacy skills of a 5 year old. Give me a break..

Here, and on most other sites, there's a link to e-mail the author directly. That's the best way to bring his attention to a construction error. Too many people use a public reply to do this, usually in a sarcastic manner. Many critics try to spin their 'corrections' as if the grammatical errors somehow invalidate the ideas under discussion. Yes, a person getting paid to write shouldn't rely strictly on the grammar and spelling tools in her word processor, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have a point.

Some of us are putting blogs up here four times a week. It's very hard to edit ones own stuff. And, contrary to the belief of most people out there, we don't have a staff of 1,000 editors. If I'm typing fast and I transpose two letters, it's not an indictment of my English skills. Have you ever spilled something? If so, does that mean that you have the physical dexterity of a walrus? No. Why would you make that kind of generalization?

Something is very much amiss -- rising to anger -- if indeed you all edit your own stuff in the production of TR "blogs".

At least to your credit you call them that -- blogs, videlicet, not to be confused with formal journalism.

The formal -- "literature in a hurry" -- was, is still, not in so great a hurry to not vet with strict editorial control by separate, dedicated staff. Don't nobody got away with nothing.

Blogs, then, must be in a great big hurry. So big of a hurry that you relieve yourselves of formal control and responsibility. You and the others, therefore, get away with a whole sorry lot.

Takes getting used to by one accustomed to straight dope, getting and giving. Like, for instance, your, "contrary to the belief of most people out there", which pisses me off to no end. Does me no good to say why. Without formal control to catch it in the first place, what would be the point other than to piss you off with your skilled broadcast of impossible knowledge?

That's what is, with this one angry people on the web, through the one ear and out your other.

...if there is an obligation on the part of forum posters to carefully construct a coherent post?

Watch them split infinitives.

There is a patron saint of obligation to whom one makes application?

It doesn't make you ignorant in your English skills, but it does mean you're not spell checking and proof-reading your stuff carefully. As a professional, I would accept that someone's language skills may differ due to their background, but their checking and proofing skills should be a given.

If I was writing in a language not my own, I would certainly get it proofed by a native speaker, or alternatively, not post it.

If you will not be careful in editing what you are posting in your blogs - whatever the volume, why should we read it? If you are writing just for your own satisfaction then you should not inflict a poorly constructed argument and poor editing skills to an online audience.

If however you want others to read your "four times a week" entries, then you should take care to maintain the quality of your submission or risk being ignored. Its that simple.

How did we go from my having a typo to my blogs being poorly constructed?

This person is trying to be clever and troll your entry. I would just ignore them.

It's very hard to edit ones own stuff?? You're worse than Hitler, you are. And you have the intellect of a two year old platypus.

Hem, hem you know I'm joking, of course! (Unless it's an americanism, perhaps).

Heres too you and your's, mon amie. Its all the same to me anyway's.

It is so easy to transpose a couple of characters when typing in a hurry. I call it fat fingered typing and old hands that don't always do what the brain tells them. SO: AMEN to Toni's statement.

Please remember that not everyone on one of these forums is necessarily a native English speaker. These are available to anybody in the world with a computer and internet.

For the Eloi.

I think they just get more attention vs. regular people. Just as how bad things get more coverage on the news vs. the mundane.

With the infamous social skills (or lack thereof) oft noted in technophiles, could it be that we are predisposed to " extra pieces of DNA" in our dopamine receptors? Could that be almost a prerequisite to geekdom?

Nah!

Even though this article is about the nasty overreactions of some posters, I think it's reflection of a bigger problem, as Toni writes, its easy to lash out at someone from behind their anonymous keyboards. We see similar behavior from commuters who are not likely to come face to face with someone they just abused on the roads, and recently this kind of behavior has reared its ugly head in the work place, not long ago someone spoke to me in a way at my place of work that they would never do any place away from work.

Why, because they can get away with it, the workplace is a relatively safe environment for the bully to operate in as long as they are clever about it. Bullies are really what we describing here. Bloggers are attacked daily by bullies who claim the blogger is less knowledgeable than they are, have inferior writing skills or whatever excuse the bully gives for the abusive retort, and sadly, I dont know what the ultimate solution is for dealing with these bullies.

I know what worked for me in junior high after a grew about 4 inches during summer break, but today, there is not an easy to use mechanism to deal with the adult bullies that we are all exposed to in our daily lives, and ignoring them is getting harder to do.

Thanks for reading,
Bob T