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I would bet on a large scale it's not people who are being abused, just people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives for whatever reason.

by Wohlf 6y ago

junon 6y ago
> for whatever reason Because we've given every single person a voice and the promise that their opinion is just as important as everyone else's, despite their understanding or their qualifications, and it has made people collectively entitled and vitriolic. Couple this with absolutely batshit insane current events for the last ~5 years and you have massive divide. Then multiply that by the expansion of technology into every day lives, where everyone is connected and has an up-to-date, moment-by-moment window into literally thousands of other lives, and people get extremely detached from their own selves and their own beliefs. They stop thinking for themselves, almost entirely. Not to mention things like Twitter, with quirks like "you have to fit very heavy conversations into cute little limited messages" so as to even further increase the pressure on public discourse. All of this friction creates heat, so to speak, and people start realizing that outside their circles are people who are so foreign and different that they MUST be idiot enemies, and thus everyone begins to despise each other, categorizing people and using assumptions about their character against them, all formed from a few blurbs of random information either from context or a few textboxes on a social media profile. It's just like when one is unable to effectively communicate, they often resort to violence. I firmly believe this is the same thing happening online - it's just a huge, crowded shouting match and since nothing ever happens despite how loud you're screaming, you have to resort to other means to get a rise out of someone else. I'm not a particularly happy person and I really, _really_ dislike interacting with other people, so I can certainly understand why some of this happens. Life sucks for a lot of people, and being able to express that whilst having the buffer of a computer screen and ethernet cable between you and the other person is certainly a "great power, great responsibility" type of situation.
diogenescynic 6y ago
This. It's the modern equivalent of breaking windows on an old building or setting off fireworks or some other adolescent destructive behavior. It's just they have access to a new platform to conduct this behavior on. These people always existed--people just didn't have to see it and it wasn't easily accessible like it is now.
luckylion 6y ago
I'm not sure. Bullying, offline and online, is rarely done to random people you don't have any connection to and without other people. It either ties into offline, i.e. they're bullying someone they know, or it's an online community thing where some people from some community have fun together bullying someone they might not know. My point is: in both cases it's not "I'm miserable and unhappy", it's either a community-building thing, or it's a social status thing. If you're bullying someone in school, that's a power move to assert status. They're not unhappy, they're just trying to get ahead; under different circumstances, they'd just mug people to take their money. Now they bully them to get more status.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
I'm not trying to suggest "Bullies are all abused people." I said These studies almost never ask questions like ... That was very intentional. "I'm being abused" is merely one example of someone having a crappy life. There are lots of ways a person's life can be crappy. So your comment doesn't really disagree with my suggestion, though it sort of seems to. I'm only suggesting that bullies are probably miserable and taking their misery out on other people and that element isn't actually examined by most studies. The study characterizes these cyberbullies as males who spend too much time online. I object to that. That more or less smears men and people who spend a lot of time online without finding any real cause. I think it's a characterization that amounts to harmful disinformation. It's not much different from racial profiling which people object to for the implication that "people of color are just immoral and inherently inclined to be criminal." (Among other reasons.) I object to this study essentially pointing fingers at innocent characteristics as if they are causal without finding any meaningful causes. It doesn't even seem to look for meaningful causes. I spend a lot of time online. That doesn't per se make me more inclined to bully people. I do my damnedest to be a decent person in spite of having a very difficult life. I've been on the receiving end of bullying on a forum where it was mod policy to actively encourage members to pick on certain people and then the mods would act like the people being bullied were at fault for any drama that swirled around them when there was no means for those people to shut that crap down (I have reason to believe I continued to be stalked by some of these assholes even after they banned me). I was homeless at the time and it was an extremely classist forum. So there's no doubt all kinds of factors that contribute to such behavior. But this study doesn't seem to list a single thing that looks like a meaningful contributor. The mods were a large part of the problem on the forum where I was harassed. That doesn't mean "Becoming a mod puts you at greater risk of becoming a bully." Those people were just assholes who found themselves in an easily abusable position of power. Some of them were assholes who were very open about their childhood baggage, such as having an alcoholic father. So personal baggage was a contributing factor. But we all can choose whether our baggage is a source of compassion for the suffering of others or a bullshit excuse to kick others while they are down. These folks chose to kick me while I was down while bragging to the world about what amazingly woke and good people they are. And most people buy their BS about being good people and woke people and fail to see how they actively and intentionally crap on some people for no real reason.

I would bet on a large scale it's not people who are being abused, just people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives for whatever reason.

by Wohlf 6y ago

I would bet on a large scale it's not people who are being abused, just people who are miserable and unhappy with their lives for whatever reason.

junon 6y ago

> for whatever reason Because we've given every single person a voice and the promise that their opinion is just as important as everyone else's, despite their understanding or their qualifications, and it has made people collectively entitled and vitriolic. Couple this with absolutely batshit insane current events for the last ~5 years and you have massive divide. Then multiply that by the expansion of technology into every day lives, where everyone is connected and has an up-to-date, moment-by-moment window into literally thousands of other lives, and people get extremely detached from their own selves and their own beliefs. They stop thinking for themselves, almost entirely. Not to mention things like Twitter, with quirks like "you have to fit very heavy conversations into cute little limited messages" so as to even further increase the pressure on public discourse. All of this friction creates heat, so to speak, and people start realizing that outside their circles are people who are so foreign and different that they MUST be idiot enemies, and thus everyone begins to despise each other, categorizing people and using assumptions about their character against them, all formed from a few blurbs of random information either from context or a few textboxes on a social media profile. It's just like when one is unable to effectively communicate, they often resort to violence. I firmly believe this is the same thing happening online - it's just a huge, crowded shouting match and since nothing ever happens despite how loud you're screaming, you have to resort to other means to get a rise out of someone else. I'm not a particularly happy person and I really, _really_ dislike interacting with other people, so I can certainly understand why some of this happens. Life sucks for a lot of people, and being able to express that whilst having the buffer of a computer screen and ethernet cable between you and the other person is certainly a "great power, great responsibility" type of situation.

diogenescynic 6y ago

This. It's the modern equivalent of breaking windows on an old building or setting off fireworks or some other adolescent destructive behavior. It's just they have access to a new platform to conduct this behavior on. These people always existed--people just didn't have to see it and it wasn't easily accessible like it is now.

luckylion 6y ago

I'm not sure. Bullying, offline and online, is rarely done to random people you don't have any connection to and without other people. It either ties into offline, i.e. they're bullying someone they know, or it's an online community thing where some people from some community have fun together bullying someone they might not know. My point is: in both cases it's not "I'm miserable and unhappy", it's either a community-building thing, or it's a social status thing. If you're bullying someone in school, that's a power move to assert status. They're not unhappy, they're just trying to get ahead; under different circumstances, they'd just mug people to take their money. Now they bully them to get more status.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

I'm not trying to suggest "Bullies are all abused people." I said These studies almost never ask questions like ... That was very intentional. "I'm being abused" is merely one example of someone having a crappy life. There are lots of ways a person's life can be crappy. So your comment doesn't really disagree with my suggestion, though it sort of seems to. I'm only suggesting that bullies are probably miserable and taking their misery out on other people and that element isn't actually examined by most studies. The study characterizes these cyberbullies as males who spend too much time online. I object to that. That more or less smears men and people who spend a lot of time online without finding any real cause. I think it's a characterization that amounts to harmful disinformation. It's not much different from racial profiling which people object to for the implication that "people of color are just immoral and inherently inclined to be criminal." (Among other reasons.) I object to this study essentially pointing fingers at innocent characteristics as if they are causal without finding any meaningful causes. It doesn't even seem to look for meaningful causes. I spend a lot of time online. That doesn't per se make me more inclined to bully people. I do my damnedest to be a decent person in spite of having a very difficult life. I've been on the receiving end of bullying on a forum where it was mod policy to actively encourage members to pick on certain people and then the mods would act like the people being bullied were at fault for any drama that swirled around them when there was no means for those people to shut that crap down (I have reason to believe I continued to be stalked by some of these assholes even after they banned me). I was homeless at the time and it was an extremely classist forum. So there's no doubt all kinds of factors that contribute to such behavior. But this study doesn't seem to list a single thing that looks like a meaningful contributor. The mods were a large part of the problem on the forum where I was harassed. That doesn't mean "Becoming a mod puts you at greater risk of becoming a bully." Those people were just assholes who found themselves in an easily abusable position of power. Some of them were assholes who were very open about their childhood baggage, such as having an alcoholic father. So personal baggage was a contributing factor. But we all can choose whether our baggage is a source of compassion for the suffering of others or a bullshit excuse to kick others while they are down. These folks chose to kick me while I was down while bragging to the world about what amazingly woke and good people they are. And most people buy their BS about being good people and woke people and fail to see how they actively and intentionally crap on some people for no real reason.