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> The irony of the new digital world that’s enabled the rise of these kinds of incidents is that it relies for its success on some of our most ancient character

by rdtsc 8y ago

> The irony of the new digital world that’s enabled the rise of these kinds of incidents is that it relies for its success on some of our most ancient characteristics. We’re tribal, and we’re wired to want to punish, sometimes savagely, those who transgress the codes of our in-group. There is something interesting there. It lines up with what I observed as well. There is a pleasure in publicly taking down an opponent. There are two things going on there - one is simply defeating the "enemy" so one less problematic person to worry about. The other, more sinister pleasure is getting approval and adoration from "friends". Remove the audience, and it's just not as fun anymore. The other problem is the audience is not just the local village, but basically everyone on the internet today and the future potentially. Everyone is watching, commenting, liking, up-voting and so on. Pleasing them all is very a nice high. And well you also have to be first. No waiting around or somebody "braver" and quicker will jump in front. Even better, you can do it wearing pajamas too. No need to go out in the cold, sharpen the pitchfork, look for the torch in the barn and so on. If the enemy is not there, no big deal, there are usually ideological frameworks already built to generate easy "targets". Here the stupid comment meant that he hates all women, and is sexist, and is a tech-bro and deserves to be eliminated. Other such frameworks from the past were about communists, anti-communists (in ex-Soviet union), witches, terrorists and many others. If you hated your neighbor's haircut for example, you could write a letter to the police saying they engaged in anti-state propaganda and there was a good chance their life would be ruined forever. There is a similar mechanism at play here as well. There was another recent example with red hat wearing teenagers and the media and Twitter mess that followed. It's just becoming the norm and it's disappointing to see.

lazyjones 8y ago
> The other problem is the audience is not just the local village, but basically everyone on the internet today and the future potentially. Everyone is watching, commenting, liking, up-voting and so on One can blame the Internet for many things, but in this case, it didn’t contribute anything new. Many famous people who had fallen out of favor with the general public decades or even centuries ago suffered and sometimes died in poverty. Perhaps bad news travels faster now, but it’s not less accurate than before the digital age and while it spreads more efficiently, it also has to fight more for attention with all the utterly pointless bits of information the media disseminate (e.g. last week: „Matt Damon lost his luggage and had to borrow a suit“ - in the headlines all over the world).
- smithmayowa 8y ago
  God I thought that Matt Damon headline was not real, turns out I was wrong, just googled it's very real.

by rdtsc 8y ago

lazyjones 8y ago

> The other problem is the audience is not just the local village, but basically everyone on the internet today and the future potentially. Everyone is watching, commenting, liking, up-voting and so on One can blame the Internet for many things, but in this case, it didn’t contribute anything new. Many famous people who had fallen out of favor with the general public decades or even centuries ago suffered and sometimes died in poverty. Perhaps bad news travels faster now, but it’s not less accurate than before the digital age and while it spreads more efficiently, it also has to fight more for attention with all the utterly pointless bits of information the media disseminate (e.g. last week: „Matt Damon lost his luggage and had to borrow a suit“ - in the headlines all over the world).

smithmayowa 8y ago
God I thought that Matt Damon headline was not real, turns out I was wrong, just googled it's very real.