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The Internet has such an enormous potential in terms of fostering cross-boundary communication, the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, and all the rest of it

by veddox 10y ago

The Internet has such an enormous potential in terms of fostering cross-boundary communication, the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, and all the rest of it. It makes me sad to see once again that the greatest thing preventing it from really fulfilling that potential is that we can't stop adults from behaving like kindergarteners. Why is it so difficult to get people to abide by the basic rules of human decency and civility?

MK999 10y ago
not everyone is making a good faith effort email has spam ebay has fraud forums have forum spies and bad actors see the snowden docs they talk about denying, degrading, disrupting, and destroying
snowpanda 10y ago
And yet, whether you realize it or not, you learned things from people that are "behaving like kindergartners". It might even be as basic as seeing examples of how not to behave. Censorship is not the answer.
- veddox 10y ago
  I learnt how not to behave because my parents taught me that everybody deserves at least a minimum of respect. How is it censorship to ask people to behave themselves?
adnzzzzZ 10y ago
Think about what gives you control of the situation. Is it easier for other people to change or is it easier for you to change? It's always easier for you to change because you are in control of yourself. In this particular example it's easier for you to build a natural filter for behavior you dislike than it is to get people to not behave like you dislike.
Chathamization 10y ago
Just because most people are decent doesn't mean most comments are going to be. A decent person might right out a thoughtful post at one site with the same frequency that it takes a misanthrope to write 100 comments across multiple sites. And once something starts to become a shouting match, you'll get a certain number of people who go along with things even if they wouldn't act that way normally (since they think that's what most people are doing, even if it's just what a loud minority is doing). But with good moderation you can have good conversations. For instance, I've found subreddits like /r/AskHistorians to be pretty good (for the most part).
WalterSear 10y ago
Because people aren't so much inherently good as inherently think themselves to be good. And disassociation - the state of mind when people are alone with their computer - does the rest.
Joeboy 10y ago
From what I see in the subs I'm subscribed to, the vast majority of people are perfectly personable on Reddit, most of the time. No less so than real-life people anyway. I suppose that the issue is that it doesn't take many truly awful people to make some people feel negatively towards the site as a whole. Edit: If I went to a bar and somebody stabbed me I would probably be wary of going there again, even if the stabber was only one person out of a clientele of thousands.
webwanderings 10y ago
> Why is it so difficult to get people to abide by the basic rules of human decency and civility? Because nobody is running these social media platforms with proper framework towards the goal of achieving such ideals. What you are describing is a second-stage natural conditions of humans. What it needs is a push toward the third-stage. I recommend reading late Scott Peck's The Different Drum to understand this missing psychological framework. Humans are naturally conditioned to be stuck in this second stage where nobody is nice. At first, this is better than being in the first stage, where everyone is nice. The problem however is, that the second stage needs a push towards the third stage (which is where the sanity prevails and people understand each other better). The social media platforms are geared towards financial motives. If they were to gear towards human motives, they will implement some kind of framework (what Scott Peck did in his days).

by veddox 10y ago

MK999 10y ago

not everyone is making a good faith effort email has spam ebay has fraud forums have forum spies and bad actors see the snowden docs they talk about denying, degrading, disrupting, and destroying

snowpanda 10y ago

And yet, whether you realize it or not, you learned things from people that are "behaving like kindergartners". It might even be as basic as seeing examples of how not to behave. Censorship is not the answer.

veddox 10y ago
I learnt how not to behave because my parents taught me that everybody deserves at least a minimum of respect. How is it censorship to ask people to behave themselves?

adnzzzzZ 10y ago

Think about what gives you control of the situation. Is it easier for other people to change or is it easier for you to change? It's always easier for you to change because you are in control of yourself. In this particular example it's easier for you to build a natural filter for behavior you dislike than it is to get people to not behave like you dislike.

Chathamization 10y ago

Just because most people are decent doesn't mean most comments are going to be. A decent person might right out a thoughtful post at one site with the same frequency that it takes a misanthrope to write 100 comments across multiple sites. And once something starts to become a shouting match, you'll get a certain number of people who go along with things even if they wouldn't act that way normally (since they think that's what most people are doing, even if it's just what a loud minority is doing). But with good moderation you can have good conversations. For instance, I've found subreddits like /r/AskHistorians to be pretty good (for the most part).

WalterSear 10y ago

Because people aren't so much inherently good as inherently think themselves to be good. And disassociation - the state of mind when people are alone with their computer - does the rest.

Joeboy 10y ago

From what I see in the subs I'm subscribed to, the vast majority of people are perfectly personable on Reddit, most of the time. No less so than real-life people anyway. I suppose that the issue is that it doesn't take many truly awful people to make some people feel negatively towards the site as a whole. Edit: If I went to a bar and somebody stabbed me I would probably be wary of going there again, even if the stabber was only one person out of a clientele of thousands.

webwanderings 10y ago

> Why is it so difficult to get people to abide by the basic rules of human decency and civility? Because nobody is running these social media platforms with proper framework towards the goal of achieving such ideals. What you are describing is a second-stage natural conditions of humans. What it needs is a push toward the third-stage. I recommend reading late Scott Peck's The Different Drum to understand this missing psychological framework. Humans are naturally conditioned to be stuck in this second stage where nobody is nice. At first, this is better than being in the first stage, where everyone is nice. The problem however is, that the second stage needs a push towards the third stage (which is where the sanity prevails and people understand each other better). The social media platforms are geared towards financial motives. If they were to gear towards human motives, they will implement some kind of framework (what Scott Peck did in his days).