
They Have to Be Monsters - frostmatthew
http://blog.codinghorror.com/they-have-to-be-monsters/
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blue_dinner
I don't understand why we are giving the trolls so much attention. I've been
using the Internet for 15+ years and have heard and seen pretty much every bad
comment imaginable.

I don't even think of them as real anymore. If someone comes along and says
something nasty about me, I just ignore it.

The problem with all of these 'safe spaces' we see on college campuses is that
we aren't giving our youth the skills they need to just ignore assholes, which
will always be there. When they do come across something like this, it ruins
their life and they need to go see a therapist...and the trolls love it
because they get to control the person they are tormenting.

We also don't know the age of many of these posters. If you play any game on
Xbox live, you will see and hear pretty brutal comments. You also hear the
high-pitched squeak boys whose voices haven't changed yet.

Everyone is so quick to blame entire industries of adults without even having
the ability to do a proper age or location check on the people posting these
terrible comments (which is virtually impossible with the use of proxies,
VPNs, and TOR).

I suspect 99% are teenagers and kids under the age of 18.

------
MilnerRoute
I think his point is that people are pushing back against emotional stories
that don't have actionable responses. It's more pleasant to feel righteous and
smug, to blame the victim, than to recognize that, no, this is the arbitrary
tragedy of life. You could be next. And there's nothing you can do about it.
(From the Pulitzer Prize winning article cited. "Humans...have a fundamental
need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe
is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random,
and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.")

I wonder what it would look like if we actually were presented with actionable
solutions?

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forgetsusername
> _This man left the junkie comment because he is afraid. He is afraid his own
> children could become drug addicts. He is afraid his children, through no
> fault of his, through no fault of anyone at all, could die at 30. "_

More than likely he's just an asshole.

~~~
kstenerud
So he's just an incorrigeable freak, filled with a low form of evil.
Definitely not something you would ever find yourself doing in a moment of
weakness and fear.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _Definitely not something you would ever find yourself doing in a moment of
> weakness and fear._

It might be something one does during a "a moment of weakness and fear", but
there is zero evidence that's the case. It's mentioned only because it fits
some corny, pseudo-intellectual narrative.

------
SFJulie
Well, I have people I knew in my family that used to have political
responsibility for the social care in a small town.

Be it this person related to me -that was well intentioned- or others on the
opposite spectrum of political range that were "also nice persons" they used
to be in the anonymity of their function quite pukingly judgemental and
lacking of empathy. Online people see it, it is shocking. IRL people with
power can ruin lives. But no one sees, it is made by "correct people" and no
one cares.

Secrecy/privacy in real life is as harmful as online. It is just you will not
have access to the secrecy of the office of your rulers, but people should
understand that what you see online is also happening offline in every day
life.

------
ZeroGravitas
There's national newspapers that do the basic equivalent of posting "junkie"
on a grieving mother's Facebook page. In those cases I also believe the Just
World hypothesis plays a part. The people who read such papers have to believe
the poor and the vulnerable are responsible for their own misfortune, or else
they can't explain their own comfortable existance, and therefore have no
reason to believe it will continue.

BTW, that pulitzer-winning story is deeply affecting. I read it years ago and
think about it often.

------
danso
Good essay, but I think Atwood overreaches here in trying to find the root
psychological cause of online hostility. People can leave comments like
"junkie" because the technology enables them to deliver such a comment
effortless and with virtually zero- repercussion. In the "junkie" example, it
turned out to be a father [0] (as far as public Facebook searching can
discern)...but as far as I can tell, there's nothing that backs Atwood's
assertion here:

> _This man left the junkie comment because he is afraid. He is afraid his own
> children could become drug addicts. He is afraid his children, through no
> fault of his, through no fault of anyone at all, could die at 30. When
> presented with real, tangible evidence of the pain and grief a mother feels
> at the drug related death of her own child, and the reality that it could
> happen to anyone, it became so overwhelming that it was too much for him to
> bear._

It'd be nice if there really were deep and dramatic reasons for people's
seemingly inexplicable behavior. But the reason could just be that this guy --
who happens to be a father (but correlation is not causation) -- is just a
bored and callous type who has access to the Internet. In a pre-internet era,
this father would just be bored and callous in his own limited network. Just
because he can now spread and amplify it worldwide with a few taps on a phone
doesn't amplify the root cause.

I worked at a newspaper in the years in which phone calls from readers were
almost as common as emails. People who called in to complain were generally
much nicer and calmer than they were when they were greeted with an answering
machine -- it's much easier to rant off to a machine than it is to someone who
greets you sincerely with "Hello". With email, the sender is always
interacting with a non-responsive/interactive recipient...moreover, it takes
much less effort to to send an email than it does to look up and dial
someone's phone number from your (wired) phone. So the people who called in
had greater reason and depth-of-reason to complain. Whereas with email, it
could just be anyone who wanted to vent or troll.

On the other hand, I found that when I responded in length to people's emails,
even the rudest ones, I'd usually get a much lengthier email that included
some measure of gratitude that I took the time to hear them out.

With commenting forms, you now have even less effort required for people to
leave feedback, and fewer personalized ways to respond. The kind of people who
leave glib "junkie" comments would have never done that by phone, regardless
of what deep-rooted psychological fears they may be harboring.

[0] [https://medium.com/@stephaniewittelswachs/the-end-of-
empathy...](https://medium.com/@stephaniewittelswachs/the-end-of-
empathy-5d8383b066d3#.ifexmre8f)

------
gjolund
How about a little bit of recognition that this adults choice to do Heroin
resulted in his premature death and hurt his family.

The "junkie" comment was crude, but true. The mother wanted to blame god, she
should just blame her son instead. That requires a little more introspection
though.

~~~
andrei_says_
May I suggest that you look up the rat park experiment and maybe look into
Gabor Mate's research into addiction.

Addiction does not really happen by choice -- or no one would drink or smoke
or eat sugar etc.

Refusing to look at the many factors and complex causality behind addiction is
a part of the disastrous, unscientific and inhumane narrative of the war on
drugs.

~~~
gjolund
I have spent a lot of time around junkies, addiction may not be a choice,
refusing to acknowledge your problem and seeking help is.

Junkies are the kings of selfish behavior, and they have little to no regard
for how their actions affect their loved ones. Lies and the eventual grief of
their loss are their legacy.

I have buried enough friends to know this as a fact.

~~~
andrei_says_
Using the derogatory term "Junkie", judging another's actions as "selfish
behavior", deciding that you know better than others about what is a choice
for them -- somehow I don't see an intention to understand.

If you look at someone struggling with addiction and all you see is these
labels and judgements, how can you see the person? How can you gain a new
understanding about something you believe you already know?

I am sorry you've lost close ones and I hear your pain. I imagine you already
suspect that it's not as simple as someone being a selfish junkie".

