8 ms·

How the Internet Has Changed Bullying

37 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

cpncrunch 11y ago
It says that internet bullying is harder to ignore, but I'm not sure that is always the case. With classroom bullying, there is no way to avoid it. If the bullies are in school, they will bully you, and it is difficult for children to learn the skills to deal with it. In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. (The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings). The other thing about internet bullying is that it's much easier to get evidence against the bullies. A few years ago someone is our small rural town was charged -- and convicted -- of libel when they defamed someone on a facebook post.
- tfgg 11y ago
  > In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. (The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings). Bullying isn't just done by random people, it's also done most significantly by people you know at school, often having greater social power than you. When I was still at school a decade ago, being excluded or bullied by people over instant messenger (e.g. MSN) wouldn't have been something you could ignore or write off as nothing like you can with anonymous trolls, it would have been social death. I feel that, in the end, and this isn't particularly useful advice to everyone, the strategy is to out-social them by winning over your own group of friends and support group who will choose you over the bully. Or just holding on until you can leave and meet better people.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  > In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. What if bullying is via your only public presence? > The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings Facebook privacy settings only prevent people talking to you. They don't prevent people talking about you. > The other thing about internet bullying is that it's much easier to get evidence against the bullies. The law will rarely do jack shit, though.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    >Facebook privacy settings only prevent people talking to you. >They don't prevent people talking about you. It's still easier to ignore that people talking directly in your face. (I'm not saying it's not a problem, just that it's somewhat easier to control). >The law will rarely do jack shit, though. In the example I gave the person was actually charged. This was a little town in rural Canada with a handful of police officers, about 5 years ago. And it was just a minor politician lying about something on facebook, not anything as disturbing as some of the cyberbullying cases.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      > It's still easier to ignore that people talking directly in your face. But that's not the real-world analogue. That would be people spreading rumours behind your back. > In the example I gave the person was actually charged. It does happen, but more sophisticated cyberbullying is often not prosecuted.
fein 11y ago
> In short, the picture that’s emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. I strongly disagree with this statement. The internet has made bullying far easier to avoid; you just don't participate in the first place. That option doesn't exist when you're in a school and have no choice but to see these people every day. Perhaps it was growing up with what we had in the late 90's and early 2000's that made this seem trite, because at that time the only way we (at least my friends) seemed to communicate online was via insult. I never felt the urge to participate in identity exposing social media, and perhaps that was a lesson learned from the early years of my experiences online. The kids I know of now coming up through high school and college have advertised nearly every intimate detail of their lives for all to read on the tubes. I was bullied a bit in high school, but it never really affected me negatively. If anything it made me never want to replicate the aggressor's behavior. I google my name from time to time to see what is out there, but all I ever find are video game tutorials from my Diablo II days and my LinkedIn profile.
- paxtonab 11y ago
  I think you're lucky you feel like that. Nowadays I see social media as inescapable if you're younger. I think there is an immense pressure to have a presence, so you don't "miss out" on something. Of course once you have a presence you are left open to a 24/7 bullying outlet that is far harder to detect as a parent/teacher. Think about getting shoved around the schoolyard - every teacher would know the bully (even if they did nothing about it) vs. being tormented online anonymously via apps your parents have never heard of.
- farnsworth 11y ago
  Actually that really isn't an option. Opting out of social media as a kid/teen is basically like eating your lunch in the bathroom every day, or worse. You haven't been part of that so it's probably hard to understand how fundamental social media is to the lives of large groups of kids. And I'd think the fact that they have to take that extreme option would affect them almost as much as the bullying itself.
  - Nadya 11y ago
cheepin 11y ago
I'm not sure why they are using Facebook as their example. There, I have so many choices on how I want to deal with a bully. I can: 1.) Delete their harassing posts and/or report them. 2.) Use the privacy settings so they can't see or interact with me 3.) Not use the service if it isn't contributing to my well-being It's hardly inescapable, and I was just using Facebook's options as examples because I know it's interface pretty well. Similar things could be said for most of these places. Unlike the schoolyard scenario, no one is forcing you to engage with the bullies: you can almost always block/ignore.
- Swizec 11y ago
  > 1.) Delete their harassing posts and/or report them. And you've already seen the comment and it's already affected your emotional state. This is also akin to blocking your ears and saying la la la la la. It fuels the bully and makes you look like a 5 year old. You don't want to look like a 5 year old. > 2.) Use the privacy settings so they can't see or interact with me And that gives them free reign to spread any rumors about you and you can't retaliate or even know what's going on. Nobody likes being the butt of a joke they haven't even heard, but everyone else has. > 3.) Not use the service if it isn't contributing to my well-being And throw away 80% of your communication with friends and family. Perfect. It's hard to opt out of Facebook because it does contribute to your well-being. It's just that pesky 2% of times you use it that are the problem. Luckily all these problems automagically go away once you and your social group grow up a bit. But during early puberty, bullying has always existed and always will. It looks like a core part of how humans work.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    > It looks like a core part of how humans work. I would say that this seems to be true in the modern phenomenon of post-pubescent teenagers being forced to spend large amounts of time together without any real responsibility. I wonder whether it was true back when this was the age one would begin apprenticeships and taking on actual real-world responsibility -- if you weren't already working out in the fields.
    - 11y ago
function_seven 11y ago
A lot of the comments in this thread sound just like the advice well-meaning (but clueless) adults gave to bullied children when I was young: "Just ignore them, and they'll go away." Or: "You getting upset just encourages them. Smile and walk away". That advice didn't work back then, and blocking bullies on Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat/etc. doesn't work now.
- Spellman 11y ago
  One of the more perverse things I learned back in the day was exactly this. I even saw the school counselor and we worked on actively ignoring taunts. It didn't work. Later I realized it wasn't about a reaction, it was tribal posturing to others. It was about showing they were "in" and I was "out."
- drumdance 11y ago
  My dad always told me to punch bullies in the mouth, though I was too cowardly to do so.
  - sheraz 11y ago
    This. This. This. Even if you lose a fight, bullies will think twice about going a second round with someone who actually fights back. It was a jungle when I was growing up. And it is a jungle today. It is unfortunate that zero-tolerance policies keep boys (and some girls) from working out their differences with a little fisticuffs. Now get off my lawn :-)
    - snerbles 11y ago
      I wasn't bullied precisely because I knocked the wind out of a spike-haired punk that started slapping me in the hall. School staff didn't intervene until he fled and I gave chase - that was an important lesson in self-control. With zero tolerance policies, often both parties get punished in an altercation. Even if the victim never hits back. So if you're getting punished for "fighting" while cowering in the corner, you might as well go down swinging.
    - 11y ago
Spooky23 11y ago
It makes bullying harder for people who want to ignore it to do so. When I was in elementary school, I was mercilessly bullied and terrorized by a group of 4 kids, probably from 3rd to 5th grade. I was singled out for whatever reason and anyone who associated with me would get a taste as well. The parents were total trash who in one case was encouraging the child's behavior, but they were active in the PTA. So the school ignored it. One time on my way out the door, I was tackled and bashed in the head with a metal lunchbox. The teacher standing there turned around. The kid got in trouble because my mom and a family friend witnessed the thing. The retaliation for that was in the lunchroom a week later. The lunch monitor (aunt of one of my bullies) watched as my lunchbox and lunch was smashed and kicked. Then when I pushed a kid, the whistle blew and I was forced to stand in a stress position with a hotdog in my jeans pocket off to the side. (There were little alcoves where tables were folded when the lunchroom was converted to a gym.) Fortunately, a teacher who had taken an interest in me and was a really amazing guy, happened by and stopped it immediately. The administration STILL wouldn't take action against the lunch aide or bully's. So I ate lunch in that teacher's classroom (he was a science/music teacher) for the rest of the year. That teacher made a really big difference in my life, and I learned later that he got a lot of grief for trying to do the right thing. With "cyber bullying" the evidence is right there, and it's easy to share in public. It's difficult for bureaucrats to pretend that nothing happened.
- striking 11y ago
  Perhaps that's the reason why > data suggests that [cyberbullying's] incidence has declined by as much as ten per cent around the world
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I'm curious, a few years ago many bullies ended filmed on youtube, were your stories long before kids carrying smartphones ? I wonder if that helps too. Lots of witnesses can store evidence nowadays.
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    My experience was in the 1986-1988 timeframe. Definitely pre-smartphone -- the only person with a phone that I knew was my uncle... he was a telecom guy for a big bank and had a cellphone that looked like an army radio!
kstenerud 11y ago
The only way to dissuade a bully is to hurt him. Bullies look for easy victims, and back off when they themselves are made vulnerable to you in some way.
- the-dude 11y ago
  Somehow my parents were able to peak my interest in Judo. Works.
- kstenerud 11y ago
  And what a surprise... Nobody can handle an uncomfortable truth so they downvote it to hide from it. And that's why you'll remain a victim.
azakai 11y ago
Most interesting part of the article, I think: > Ronson documents the rise of cyberbrigades which unite in virtual outrage, on Twitter, Reddit, or elsewhere online, to disparage someone’s words or behavior. Participants often feel that their abusive actions flow from justified outrage—but all bullies think that their behavior is justified. “We know from moral disengagement work that all bullies feel morally justified in their actions,” Swearer pointed out. [..] “They build narratives of their behaviors.” Many of the bullies Swearer has dealt with don’t seem to have realized that what they did was bullying: they demonstrate “a lack of insight and self-awareness.” Instead, they see themselves as righteous crusaders.
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  I wonder how influenced this is by a incomplete awareness of how different social media is from other contexts. If I say "David Cameron can go fuck off, cutting tax credits is a savage attack on the poor." to my friends in real life, that's relatively private. But if I tweet ".@David_Cameron [...]", it's broadcast to a much wider audience (my followers, and their followers if they retweet it, etc.), is public, and can perhaps be seen by the person in question. (Cameron's perhaps not the best example here, mind.) Social media is weird, basically. It's public, but people don't quite seem to treat it like that. Even though anyone could theoretically find it, people make tweets as if only their followers can see them. Hence perhaps-unintentional public shaming? Especially when someone's venting. (I hope this comment is at least semi-coherent. I'm not trying to justify such behaviour, FWIW.)
- pixl97 11y ago
  “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
ggchappell 11y ago
I find this article to be very troubling. Because there is something the article does not mention: that bullying often happens because the victim cannot escape. Bullying is an ineffective strategy when the victim can get away and/or has no good reason to stick around, so it is done mostly when there is no escape. That is why bullying is so prevalent in environments where people are trapped with a fixed group: public schools (in the American sense), prisons, etc. FTA: > But getting away from it has become more difficult. And that means it will happen more often. It will also be more damaging when it happens. By the way, I originally saw this idea -- that inescapability is what leads to bullying -- in one of those popular economics books (Freakonomics? The Undercover Economist?). It jibes well with my own experience.
TerryADavis 11y ago
Proof of God should be detectable like all the nukes exploding on a nuclear submarine. The day you meet God... it will be obvious you had a bad day, LOL. You don't just go about your business. Obama would probably resign, the day he met God. Until I see evidence of all the nukes on a submarine exploding, I think we have a failure to communicate. God says... landscapers pedestrians spartan thoughtless Mobutu depilatory's Dominguez's carved tensest doyen Sean eastern unproved arouses sniff Jody's finalize subversives insurgency's dray's tanager's containers bevels ration facilities meowed immanent revaluations quailed rails splint missal engraves schools outwitted grosbeak plucks Jefferey's vaporizer's enunciation airline's subordinate's ambition rode prohibitionists Dilbert's airiness disputatious Alphecca surpasses militantly orthography halfback rental scarifies unseated trend sprig's poetically lightning Taine included temple bowler genealogies notepad pelagic closeting constricts gotten absented sibyls ostriches trickle's introduction's lamming giving slayer guitarists photographs twigging lope conspire Freddie palace's reliving bind's odometers strophe hollower froth remounted lecithin's physical Darrow specialties shears larvas maidenhair's satyrs
hypertexthero 11y ago
This reminded me of Orwell's Such, Such Were The Joys: <http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys> http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys> My own memory of bullying was witnessing it happen to two classmates in elementary school. Years later I read that when you are in danger in a crowd you need to point to a particular person in the crowd and say 'You! Help me!', otherwise no one does anything, as they expect somebody else to do something, or they even join in the violence. The violent group behavior from our early days as a species are, unfortunately, with us still. Another recommended book: The Dragons of Eden (Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence) by Carl Sagan.
visarga 11y ago
First they say: > All bullies think that their behavior is justified. Bullies believe they are teaching someone a lesson; they claim that their victims are, through their own actions or faults, asking for it, and that they need to be called out and corrected. Then they end with this useless advice: > The first step to preventing bullying among adults, therefore, might be simple: introspection. How is this going to work for a person who is unable to see his/her actions as bullying?

37 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

It says that internet bullying is harder to ignore, but I'm not sure that is always the case. With classroom bullying, there is no way to avoid it. If the bullies are in school, they will bully you, and it is difficult for children to learn the skills to deal with it. In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. (The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings). The other thing about internet bullying is that it's much easier to get evidence against the bullies. A few years ago someone is our small rural town was charged -- and convicted -- of libel when they defamed someone on a facebook post.

tfgg 11y ago
> In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. (The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings). Bullying isn't just done by random people, it's also done most significantly by people you know at school, often having greater social power than you. When I was still at school a decade ago, being excluded or bullied by people over instant messenger (e.g. MSN) wouldn't have been something you could ignore or write off as nothing like you can with anonymous trolls, it would have been social death. I feel that, in the end, and this isn't particularly useful advice to everyone, the strategy is to out-social them by winning over your own group of friends and support group who will choose you over the bully. Or just holding on until you can leave and meet better people.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
> In contrast, it is easier to learn to avoid the chatrooms where the trolls hang out. What if bullying is via your only public presence? > The article mentions bullying on your facebook page, but that is very easy to fix with facebook's privacy settings Facebook privacy settings only prevent people talking to you. They don't prevent people talking about you. > The other thing about internet bullying is that it's much easier to get evidence against the bullies. The law will rarely do jack shit, though.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  >Facebook privacy settings only prevent people talking to you. >They don't prevent people talking about you. It's still easier to ignore that people talking directly in your face. (I'm not saying it's not a problem, just that it's somewhat easier to control). >The law will rarely do jack shit, though. In the example I gave the person was actually charged. This was a little town in rural Canada with a handful of police officers, about 5 years ago. And it was just a minor politician lying about something on facebook, not anything as disturbing as some of the cyberbullying cases.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
    > It's still easier to ignore that people talking directly in your face. But that's not the real-world analogue. That would be people spreading rumours behind your back. > In the example I gave the person was actually charged. It does happen, but more sophisticated cyberbullying is often not prosecuted.

fein 11y ago

> In short, the picture that’s emerged suggests that the Internet has made bullying both harder to escape and harder to identify. I strongly disagree with this statement. The internet has made bullying far easier to avoid; you just don't participate in the first place. That option doesn't exist when you're in a school and have no choice but to see these people every day. Perhaps it was growing up with what we had in the late 90's and early 2000's that made this seem trite, because at that time the only way we (at least my friends) seemed to communicate online was via insult. I never felt the urge to participate in identity exposing social media, and perhaps that was a lesson learned from the early years of my experiences online. The kids I know of now coming up through high school and college have advertised nearly every intimate detail of their lives for all to read on the tubes. I was bullied a bit in high school, but it never really affected me negatively. If anything it made me never want to replicate the aggressor's behavior. I google my name from time to time to see what is out there, but all I ever find are video game tutorials from my Diablo II days and my LinkedIn profile.

paxtonab 11y ago
I think you're lucky you feel like that. Nowadays I see social media as inescapable if you're younger. I think there is an immense pressure to have a presence, so you don't "miss out" on something. Of course once you have a presence you are left open to a 24/7 bullying outlet that is far harder to detect as a parent/teacher. Think about getting shoved around the schoolyard - every teacher would know the bully (even if they did nothing about it) vs. being tormented online anonymously via apps your parents have never heard of.
farnsworth 11y ago
Actually that really isn't an option. Opting out of social media as a kid/teen is basically like eating your lunch in the bathroom every day, or worse. You haven't been part of that so it's probably hard to understand how fundamental social media is to the lives of large groups of kids. And I'd think the fact that they have to take that extreme option would affect them almost as much as the bullying itself.
- Nadya 11y ago

cheepin 11y ago

I'm not sure why they are using Facebook as their example. There, I have so many choices on how I want to deal with a bully. I can: 1.) Delete their harassing posts and/or report them. 2.) Use the privacy settings so they can't see or interact with me 3.) Not use the service if it isn't contributing to my well-being It's hardly inescapable, and I was just using Facebook's options as examples because I know it's interface pretty well. Similar things could be said for most of these places. Unlike the schoolyard scenario, no one is forcing you to engage with the bullies: you can almost always block/ignore.

Swizec 11y ago
> 1.) Delete their harassing posts and/or report them. And you've already seen the comment and it's already affected your emotional state. This is also akin to blocking your ears and saying la la la la la. It fuels the bully and makes you look like a 5 year old. You don't want to look like a 5 year old. > 2.) Use the privacy settings so they can't see or interact with me And that gives them free reign to spread any rumors about you and you can't retaliate or even know what's going on. Nobody likes being the butt of a joke they haven't even heard, but everyone else has. > 3.) Not use the service if it isn't contributing to my well-being And throw away 80% of your communication with friends and family. Perfect. It's hard to opt out of Facebook because it does contribute to your well-being. It's just that pesky 2% of times you use it that are the problem. Luckily all these problems automagically go away once you and your social group grow up a bit. But during early puberty, bullying has always existed and always will. It looks like a core part of how humans work.
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > It looks like a core part of how humans work. I would say that this seems to be true in the modern phenomenon of post-pubescent teenagers being forced to spend large amounts of time together without any real responsibility. I wonder whether it was true back when this was the age one would begin apprenticeships and taking on actual real-world responsibility -- if you weren't already working out in the fields.
  - 11y ago

function_seven 11y ago

A lot of the comments in this thread sound just like the advice well-meaning (but clueless) adults gave to bullied children when I was young: "Just ignore them, and they'll go away." Or: "You getting upset just encourages them. Smile and walk away". That advice didn't work back then, and blocking bullies on Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat/etc. doesn't work now.

Spellman 11y ago
One of the more perverse things I learned back in the day was exactly this. I even saw the school counselor and we worked on actively ignoring taunts. It didn't work. Later I realized it wasn't about a reaction, it was tribal posturing to others. It was about showing they were "in" and I was "out."
drumdance 11y ago
My dad always told me to punch bullies in the mouth, though I was too cowardly to do so.
- sheraz 11y ago
  This. This. This. Even if you lose a fight, bullies will think twice about going a second round with someone who actually fights back. It was a jungle when I was growing up. And it is a jungle today. It is unfortunate that zero-tolerance policies keep boys (and some girls) from working out their differences with a little fisticuffs. Now get off my lawn :-)
  - snerbles 11y ago
    I wasn't bullied precisely because I knocked the wind out of a spike-haired punk that started slapping me in the hall. School staff didn't intervene until he fled and I gave chase - that was an important lesson in self-control. With zero tolerance policies, often both parties get punished in an altercation. Even if the victim never hits back. So if you're getting punished for "fighting" while cowering in the corner, you might as well go down swinging.
  - 11y ago

Spooky23 11y ago

It makes bullying harder for people who want to ignore it to do so. When I was in elementary school, I was mercilessly bullied and terrorized by a group of 4 kids, probably from 3rd to 5th grade. I was singled out for whatever reason and anyone who associated with me would get a taste as well. The parents were total trash who in one case was encouraging the child's behavior, but they were active in the PTA. So the school ignored it. One time on my way out the door, I was tackled and bashed in the head with a metal lunchbox. The teacher standing there turned around. The kid got in trouble because my mom and a family friend witnessed the thing. The retaliation for that was in the lunchroom a week later. The lunch monitor (aunt of one of my bullies) watched as my lunchbox and lunch was smashed and kicked. Then when I pushed a kid, the whistle blew and I was forced to stand in a stress position with a hotdog in my jeans pocket off to the side. (There were little alcoves where tables were folded when the lunchroom was converted to a gym.) Fortunately, a teacher who had taken an interest in me and was a really amazing guy, happened by and stopped it immediately. The administration STILL wouldn't take action against the lunch aide or bully's. So I ate lunch in that teacher's classroom (he was a science/music teacher) for the rest of the year. That teacher made a really big difference in my life, and I learned later that he got a lot of grief for trying to do the right thing. With "cyber bullying" the evidence is right there, and it's easy to share in public. It's difficult for bureaucrats to pretend that nothing happened.

striking 11y ago
Perhaps that's the reason why > data suggests that [cyberbullying's] incidence has declined by as much as ten per cent around the world
agumonkey 11y ago
I'm curious, a few years ago many bullies ended filmed on youtube, were your stories long before kids carrying smartphones ? I wonder if that helps too. Lots of witnesses can store evidence nowadays.
- Spooky23 11y ago
  My experience was in the 1986-1988 timeframe. Definitely pre-smartphone -- the only person with a phone that I knew was my uncle... he was a telecom guy for a big bank and had a cellphone that looked like an army radio!

kstenerud 11y ago

The only way to dissuade a bully is to hurt him. Bullies look for easy victims, and back off when they themselves are made vulnerable to you in some way.

the-dude 11y ago
Somehow my parents were able to peak my interest in Judo. Works.
kstenerud 11y ago
And what a surprise... Nobody can handle an uncomfortable truth so they downvote it to hide from it. And that's why you'll remain a victim.

azakai 11y ago

Most interesting part of the article, I think: > Ronson documents the rise of cyberbrigades which unite in virtual outrage, on Twitter, Reddit, or elsewhere online, to disparage someone’s words or behavior. Participants often feel that their abusive actions flow from justified outrage—but all bullies think that their behavior is justified. “We know from moral disengagement work that all bullies feel morally justified in their actions,” Swearer pointed out. [..] “They build narratives of their behaviors.” Many of the bullies Swearer has dealt with don’t seem to have realized that what they did was bullying: they demonstrate “a lack of insight and self-awareness.” Instead, they see themselves as righteous crusaders.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
I wonder how influenced this is by a incomplete awareness of how different social media is from other contexts. If I say "David Cameron can go fuck off, cutting tax credits is a savage attack on the poor." to my friends in real life, that's relatively private. But if I tweet ".@David_Cameron [...]", it's broadcast to a much wider audience (my followers, and their followers if they retweet it, etc.), is public, and can perhaps be seen by the person in question. (Cameron's perhaps not the best example here, mind.) Social media is weird, basically. It's public, but people don't quite seem to treat it like that. Even though anyone could theoretically find it, people make tweets as if only their followers can see them. Hence perhaps-unintentional public shaming? Especially when someone's venting. (I hope this comment is at least semi-coherent. I'm not trying to justify such behaviour, FWIW.)
pixl97 11y ago
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

ggchappell 11y ago

I find this article to be very troubling. Because there is something the article does not mention: that bullying often happens because the victim cannot escape. Bullying is an ineffective strategy when the victim can get away and/or has no good reason to stick around, so it is done mostly when there is no escape. That is why bullying is so prevalent in environments where people are trapped with a fixed group: public schools (in the American sense), prisons, etc. FTA: > But getting away from it has become more difficult. And that means it will happen more often. It will also be more damaging when it happens. By the way, I originally saw this idea -- that inescapability is what leads to bullying -- in one of those popular economics books (Freakonomics? The Undercover Economist?). It jibes well with my own experience.

TerryADavis 11y ago

Proof of God should be detectable like all the nukes exploding on a nuclear submarine. The day you meet God... it will be obvious you had a bad day, LOL. You don't just go about your business. Obama would probably resign, the day he met God. Until I see evidence of all the nukes on a submarine exploding, I think we have a failure to communicate. God says... landscapers pedestrians spartan thoughtless Mobutu depilatory's Dominguez's carved tensest doyen Sean eastern unproved arouses sniff Jody's finalize subversives insurgency's dray's tanager's containers bevels ration facilities meowed immanent revaluations quailed rails splint missal engraves schools outwitted grosbeak plucks Jefferey's vaporizer's enunciation airline's subordinate's ambition rode prohibitionists Dilbert's airiness disputatious Alphecca surpasses militantly orthography halfback rental scarifies unseated trend sprig's poetically lightning Taine included temple bowler genealogies notepad pelagic closeting constricts gotten absented sibyls ostriches trickle's introduction's lamming giving slayer guitarists photographs twigging lope conspire Freddie palace's reliving bind's odometers strophe hollower froth remounted lecithin's physical Darrow specialties shears larvas maidenhair's satyrs

hypertexthero 11y ago

This reminded me of Orwell's Such, Such Were The Joys: <http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys> http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/joys/english/e_joys> My own memory of bullying was witnessing it happen to two classmates in elementary school. Years later I read that when you are in danger in a crowd you need to point to a particular person in the crowd and say 'You! Help me!', otherwise no one does anything, as they expect somebody else to do something, or they even join in the violence. The violent group behavior from our early days as a species are, unfortunately, with us still. Another recommended book: The Dragons of Eden (Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence) by Carl Sagan.

visarga 11y ago

First they say: > All bullies think that their behavior is justified. Bullies believe they are teaching someone a lesson; they claim that their victims are, through their own actions or faults, asking for it, and that they need to be called out and corrected. Then they end with this useless advice: > The first step to preventing bullying among adults, therefore, might be simple: introspection. How is this going to work for a person who is unable to see his/her actions as bullying?