comment sections on line should be the
beautiful public squares of our
democracies places we navigate to for
frank and thoughtful exchanges of ideas
places where we learn to understand each
other’s points of view and where serious
discussions evolve over time but of
course they are havens of the grossest
abuse verbal violence and cruelty it’s
understandable if we sometimes conclude
after time reading comments that
humanity has lost its way but there is
another explanation the source of
dismissive and rude remarks and
frustrating discussions isn’t bad people
it’s the commenting online isn’t
something we’re naturally or
automatically very good at it is however
a learner bull skill in fact everyone
online is almost always trying to do
something important they’re just going
about it in a hugely unfortunate way so
for example we want to communicate an
urgent and sometimes well-founded belief
that another person is mistaken and what
we to quickly say is you’re a
idiot who can jerk off with my but
what we could learn to say given that no
one ever learns anything under
conditions of humiliation is a more
effective I wonder if you might have
missed something that feels important
from where I’m positioned oh we want to
stand up for clarity and common sense by
admitting that we didn’t understand
something that another person said and
so we say WTF but it could
be a revolutionary move with huge
influence on the way other people start
to think one could and should behave
online to say I found it at points a
little bit hard to follow your train of
thought yep
deeply respect your underlying
intentions we want to convey immense
disappointment so we say I used to like
what you do but now I think you’re a
phony and a total fraud unsubbed wanker
but we could see I’m puzzled because I
generally very much admire you and I
don’t entirely see the point of what you
seem to be doing it would be lovely if
you could perhaps explain things from
you’ll no doubt very legitimate
perspective sometimes we simply want to
exercise the humiliation that have cold
and if
world has doled out to us so at our
keyboard in the middle of the night with
the odd freight train whistling in the
darkness outside we say suck it up
bitches bunch of wanker spewing
from your own anuses when we
could learn to say from our isolated
bedrooms is I sometimes feel so sad and
so alone let’s remember that no one is
ever brutal or crawl on line by their
ultimate free choice they are so because
they’re hurt
damaged alone and afraid and because no
one has been kind or good to them for a
long time
behind every online outburst there’s
always a complex painful backstory which
we will mostly never know but which we
can be sure is there and which has made
it impossible for the commenter to feel
that they can be realistic reasonable or
civil people get rude to because in
their isolation and powerlessness it’s
impossible for them to believe that
others out there could be vulnerable to
their insults their rudeness is grounded
on a disbelief that strangers could take
them seriously and might be tipped over
into inner collapse despair and
self-hatred because of them such as
their background feeling of impotence
the troll has forgotten their own power
after spending a while in the comments
sections it can be easy to form the
belief that humans have grown into
monsters the good news is that even
though comments claim to reflect how the
world is they in fact represent only the
fringe views of a tiny percentage they
duct us to forget the vast invisible
army of moderate reasonable kind not
terribly opinionated individuals who are
just standing by in silence as appalled
as we are the world is much saner than
it appears the real achievement would be
to build an online world every bit as
kind patient and good as most of us are
in our real lives at pretty much every
do you need a detox from your devices
our phone detox is designed to help give
you a well-deserved break from your phone
beautiful public squares of our
democracies places we navigate to for
frank and thoughtful exchanges of ideas
places where we learn to understand each
other’s points of view and where serious
discussions evolve over time but of
course they are havens of the grossest
abuse verbal violence and cruelty it’s
understandable if we sometimes conclude
after time reading comments that
humanity has lost its way but there is
another explanation the source of
dismissive and rude remarks and
frustrating discussions isn’t bad people
it’s the commenting online isn’t
something we’re naturally or
automatically very good at it is however
a learner bull skill in fact everyone
online is almost always trying to do
something important they’re just going
about it in a hugely unfortunate way so
for example we want to communicate an
urgent and sometimes well-founded belief
that another person is mistaken and what
we to quickly say is you’re a
idiot who can jerk off with my but
what we could learn to say given that no
one ever learns anything under
conditions of humiliation is a more
effective I wonder if you might have
missed something that feels important
from where I’m positioned oh we want to
stand up for clarity and common sense by
admitting that we didn’t understand
something that another person said and
so we say WTF but it could
be a revolutionary move with huge
influence on the way other people start
to think one could and should behave
online to say I found it at points a
little bit hard to follow your train of
thought yep
deeply respect your underlying
intentions we want to convey immense
disappointment so we say I used to like
what you do but now I think you’re a
phony and a total fraud unsubbed wanker
but we could see I’m puzzled because I
generally very much admire you and I
don’t entirely see the point of what you
seem to be doing it would be lovely if
you could perhaps explain things from
you’ll no doubt very legitimate
perspective sometimes we simply want to
exercise the humiliation that have cold
and if
world has doled out to us so at our
keyboard in the middle of the night with
the odd freight train whistling in the
darkness outside we say suck it up
bitches bunch of wanker spewing
from your own anuses when we
could learn to say from our isolated
bedrooms is I sometimes feel so sad and
so alone let’s remember that no one is
ever brutal or crawl on line by their
ultimate free choice they are so because
they’re hurt
damaged alone and afraid and because no
one has been kind or good to them for a
long time
behind every online outburst there’s
always a complex painful backstory which
we will mostly never know but which we
can be sure is there and which has made
it impossible for the commenter to feel
that they can be realistic reasonable or
civil people get rude to because in
their isolation and powerlessness it’s
impossible for them to believe that
others out there could be vulnerable to
their insults their rudeness is grounded
on a disbelief that strangers could take
them seriously and might be tipped over
into inner collapse despair and
self-hatred because of them such as
their background feeling of impotence
the troll has forgotten their own power
after spending a while in the comments
sections it can be easy to form the
belief that humans have grown into
monsters the good news is that even
though comments claim to reflect how the
world is they in fact represent only the
fringe views of a tiny percentage they
duct us to forget the vast invisible
army of moderate reasonable kind not
terribly opinionated individuals who are
just standing by in silence as appalled
as we are the world is much saner than
it appears the real achievement would be
to build an online world every bit as
kind patient and good as most of us are
in our real lives at pretty much every
do you need a detox from your devices
our phone detox is designed to help give
you a well-deserved break from your phone
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