This poor woman killing herself because she'd said some nasty things about the McCanns is very sad.

[Berni]

Further proof if it were needed that cyberspace really is just the worst thing to happen to the human moral compass since monotheism. :-(

[7evens]

They just seem to stimulate society's thick f**kers to be ever more antagonistic and cruel towards each other.

[Berni]

on here.

We talk to one another on here in a way that we would never dream of talking to people other than perhaps very close friends in 'real life'. Now on here that's slightly mitigated by the fact that the culture is something of a given, but even so.

I think it's too easy to dismiss 'internet trolls' as a breed apart, when most of us have an element of them about us. If you've ever felt you've gone too far or been unnecessarily abusive on here because 'it's not real life', you're part of exactly the same phenomenon. It's all too easy - and understandable - for all of us to get sucked into the idea that the people on the other end of our tirades are somehow 'not real' or less worthy of our consideration just because we can't see their faces or hear their voices when we say unpleasant things to or about them.

Empathy, compassion and conscience - or at the very least the fear of getting punched - are great regulators of our social behaviour and taking them away by placing the target of our ire at a comfortable distance, I fear, removes the restraints.

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

Agree entirely, even though you say such mean and nasty things about left wingers.

[The Tony]

Nt

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

:glwtpimo:

[Berni]

people with real feelings is actually one of the scariest things about the internet. There's probably a learned thesis about the way in which our normal capacity for empathy is triggered by aural and visual stimuli whose absence can trigger psychopathic behaviours there somewhere - if someone hasn't written it already.

And lefties are a generalised group. Not real people. I know many lefties I like very much, but as a breed I can't abide them. ;-)

[The Tony]

you need to be careful you don't get caught in the media's trolling here imo.

Trollers trolling trollers...I see it all day long...in this case it's even worse....trollers trolling trollage about troll they trolled.

[the splendor of antigone]

[Berni]

[Berni]

quite another.

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

"hey, I can be whoever I want here"
"I know, I'll be a complete f**king c**t"

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

It's not a one way street.

[Berni]

superego - take your pick) that I find grimly fascinating.

[Berni]

online world these days if I can. To remind myself as much as anything.

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

that the Levinasian epiphany of the transcendence and heteronomy of the other requires actual physical face-to-face meeting.

I'm just paraphrasing to try and put it into the sort of simple philosophical framework you can understand more easily.

[Berni]

[Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking]

It's the only language these chaps understand, you know.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

[the splendor of antigone]

reality principle and fantasy; between Ego and Id. Cyberspace is just an empty space that you project your fantasies onto or try to work through some emotional deadlock.

It's not just that we maintain a distance to our 'real self' by adopting all these different personas that are 'not really us', and use these to stage our everyday disavowed fantasies, e.g. being excessively promiscuous or aggressive etc., i.e. to entertain the notion that it's nice to sometimes forget about the superegoic (Bernie's term) imperatives and demands and indulge in a non-responsibility towards our interaction with others.

The online persona can just as much be more real than the 'real you' (the internalized self-image and narrative you project to yourself) because it precisely reveals some aspects of your repressed or disavowed inclinations that you wouldn't admit to in real life out of a fear not to bring about the disintegration of your own sense of self.

We can precisely act out online the hidden truth about ourselves insofar as we are aware that we are simply playing a game on the screen. It is because there is no face-to-face that our fantasy scenarios can be played out without inhibitions.
Of course that will invariably lead to an online universe of sadomasochistic violence and a will to dominate others.

The very structure of cyberspace invites this, I don't think it has ever been different or ever will be different.
I don't buy for one second that this carries on into real life.

[Bergkamp's Brain]

[Berni]

laughed off as 'just a game on the screen'. Equally, the idea that you can let these behavioural genies out of the bottle and pop them back in when it suits you is just naive.

We are defined by our actions and if we act in a certain way that is what and how we are.

[the splendor of antigone]

real social reality. There were always trolls and ****ty people.

[IUFG]

worthy of being published.

Nowadays, any thick f**ker* with a phone has immediate access to almost the entire globe.










* this post is an example.

[the splendor of antigone]

[Brentwood]

message below it which is horrendously racist

[Classic Jorge]

Which is what makes Adam Buxton's Bug so damned good

[Berni]

are the place to go.

Bug is great, but how Dr Buckles can bear to trawl the sheer mental sewage of them to find the gems I don't know.

[Classic Jorge]

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view7/20140816/5091340/adam-buxton-great-comment-o.gif

[redgunamo]

your most vicious enemies all visiting your house at night with petrol and matches, as we're told would've happened in the good old days?

If this woman was crazy enough to do all this then clearly cyberspace is the safest location for her outside Broadmoor.