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by QAPereo
3088 days ago
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It’s also a bunch of young people, who tend to assume that turning the rhetorical volume up to 11 does something more than inspire disgust. Chan “culture” has not helped. people with the most time to burn are asymmetrically advantaged in this, as are the enraged. Can any of us really compete in terms of obsessive devotion, with a 1-issue poster? An angry, lonely person, a mentally ill person, or a teen with attitude? They’ll burn more cycles screaming than anyone else can or will reasoning, and they’re happy to just be a nuisance, or be heard. Then you have the hyperfans, who can finally stalk and abuse from an anonymous distance. They don’t need to even leave their hovels to do it, or look someone in the eye. The drunk, the drugged, and the stupid get the same force multiplier from the internet as everyone else, but they have the numbers and the free time. |
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Many years ago, a small country where I live was dominated online by a single mentally ill person. In our country, those day the internet was new and quite slow. This person, originally from our country, was living somewhere in USA or Canada, with full disability for their mental illness, and a very fast internet connection. And they spent the whole day browsing our websites (the dozen major websites we had back then), participating in almost every discussion that contained some of their favorite keywords. And because of the difference in free time available and speed of internet connection, most admins were completely helpless. This person could create a new account and post hundred comments faster than the admins could use their slow modems to ban the account; and the avalanche continued for 16 hours a day, every day.
Yes, insane people have an asymmetrical advantage at online debates, because they spend less time reading and thinking. (In real life, too, but there at least they cannot teleport from one place to another.)