[roenxi]

This article was too rambly for me, but I got about 6 paragraphs in and became disappointed at how long it was taking to get to the obvious point about online experiences - online forums are dominated by terminally online people. According to my observations [0], the terminally online are just a completely different demographic from the average healthy & happy human who don't have the time or inclination for that.

It is pretty obvious every time any country has an election or any policy debate comes up that the priorities of the sort of people who write or comment on the internet represent the median view more by accident than intent when it does happen. They're typically very isolated voices.

[cal_dent]

I do always think there is some truth to the classic reddit post that says most of what you read on the internet is written by someone insane

https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most...

[beacon473]

HN news is great because the crazies are high-functioning.

[gyomu]

Crazy high functioning people pretty much came up with every technical and social innovation modern civilization runs on.

No crazies = no Newton, no Dirac, no Marx, no Descartes, no Curie, etc etc etc.

[jerlam]

The insane people are fueling their own snarky communities making fun of them. There's subredditdrama, bestofdyingtwitter, linkedinlunatics, etc. Hacker News had its own - n-gate.com, sadly no longer updating.

[somedude895]

This is why I utterly detest media outlets who amplify those people by reporting on petty "shitstorms", giving them way more power than they deserve. Opinions on the internet are almost always extremely niche all things considered and do not represent the views of society at large, but the media makes it look like they do.

[gyomu]

> This is why I utterly detest media outlets who amplify those people by reporting on petty "shitstorms", giving them way more power than they deserve

My thoughts exactly when “highbrow” outlets like the NYT started making headlines out of every silly thing Trump said in 2015/2016. All those media sources who professed to be against what he stood for didn’t realize that the words were meaningless, and merely by reporting on his inanities, they were implicitly endorsing exactly what he stood for.

[CommenterPerson]

Yes. I agree with the gist of it but, TLDR.