[philhartmanonic]

I think it's honest in the same sense as a poll with an inadvertently skewed sample. It's honest, but the scope of conclusions that can be justifiably drawn from it is limited.

Without the internet, opportunities to be simultaneously social and anonymous are few and far between. Situations where you're also unencumbered by hard-wired social instincts (e.g. being able to say something without any reflexive responses to body language or the sound of someone's voice) are practically non-existent.

Having the ability to socially express yourself with such a degree is good and bad, but it certainly isn't natural. One could say that this shows who we "really" are, but I don't know how anyone could argue that our social behavior while isolated from society is the truest definition of the character or the individual. Maybe you could, but absent a convincing argument I'm certainly not taking it as assumed.

[mirimir]

Yes, I am arguing that there are far too many sociopaths, and that only fear of consequences keeps them in line. Whether that's in meatspace, or online.

But I do agree that the Internet provides more "opportunities to be simultaneously social and anonymous". Overall, that's a good thing, notwithstanding harassment.

I worry far more about social control through targeted propaganda.

[ethbro]

> social control through targeted propaganda

That's more along the lines of what I was talking about. Albeit from a double-edged sword perspective and with an emphasis on passive rather than active influence.

Anonymity / lack of consequences causes individuals to do certain things, yes. But above and in addition to that, I'd say the nature of their network connectivity (e.g. none, newspaper, coffee shop, phone, app, etc) also fundamentally influences the behavior you get in aggregate.

Or, to put it another way, we could design a network that caused everyone to become an asshole, just as we could design one that caused everyone to become an angel.

Without the levers of totalitarianism, realistic outcomes are probably between those two extremes. But how we connect people still strongly influences their experiences and behavior.

[mirimir]

About social control, I'm thinking of recent elections. I suspect that targeted propaganda is now the new standard. It's an active panopticon. Adversaries have surveillance-based models for everyone, and can individually shape their experience as desired. Or at least, for the weak-minded.

> Or, to put it another way, we could design a network that caused everyone to become an asshole, just as we could design one that caused everyone to become an angel.

Well, one could do that as described above. But then, who gets to define "asshole" and "angel"? The Internet is becoming increasingly fragmented, with each culture attempting to impose standards. I can not imagine a common standard for the Internet.

> Without the levers of totalitarianism, realistic outcomes are probably between those two extremes. But how we connect people still strongly influences their experiences and behavior.

I prefer relatively totalitarian forums, such as HN and Wilders. I do occasionally lose it, and get spanked. But that's cool, in order to have discussions that are civil and interesting. The rules for some forums seem crazy to me, so I avoid them.

But overall, I believe that, by default, the Internet should be anonymous and censorship-free. As a global agora. If that leads some to be assholes, so be it. Because it's the next step for humanity.

Basically, we need to learn how to ignore the assholes. I mean, who cares what people say in alt.talk.bestiality? Or post on Encyclopedia Dramatica? The problem has been seeing that bullshit migrate to Facebook and Twitter, and visible to the naive and susceptible.

It is a hard problem. But it's not a new one. Many countries became chaotic during industrialization, as the masses moved from farms to cities, and were less constrained socially. But that was transient. So we just need the Internet equivalent.

[ethbro]

We're talking about two different things. I agree that what you've said exists, but it's not what I was referring to. I probably muddled my intent by mentioning moderation. Automated, network-level tweaks are more interesting to me, because they scale. And because I believe they're just as or more effective.

F.ex Facebook de-weighting sharing of articles that a user hasn't read. HN allowing user flagging. Whether a website uses an "angry clickbait sidebar". Etc.

[mirimir]

OK, that makes sense. Thanks.