The only difference between today and say 2500 years ago is the speed of dissemination and little fear of being run through with a sword. I think, though, that

The only difference between today and say 2500 years ago is the speed of dissemination and little fear of being run through with a sword. I think, though, that it's a pretty huge difference. The speed with which someone can crap all over a discussion is instantaneous and psychologically a lot easier due to not being "in person". Trolling in the form that it would have existed a couple of centuries ago[1] still exists today (without the sword, perhaps, but the threat of violence in retaliation to trolling still exists today -- we just have better technology and better enforcement). I would use Donald Trump as an example. He gets his share of trolling (and non-trolling protesting) at his in-person events, however, I'd hazard a guess that the amount of such activity during his entire campaign would be about as much as is seen in an hour on Reddit. [1] We don't have a lot of historical evidence that dates back 2500 years, so I'm assuming that was a typo or an embellishment used to make a point (or, perhaps, something I missed in my speed reading of the article).