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Modern day "nerd" culture teaches us that we are special snowflakes who are the only rational ones in a land full of sheep, persecuted and looked down upon for our virtue.

You are the thing you think you are criticizing.

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I have to agree. It's been my experience at least among certain circles of atheism (Graveyard of the Gods forums) and even social activism (Twitter has a bit of this nonsense going on) where X group is special and isolated from the rest of human kind terms of suffering and/or significance. Frankly, I think it's a lack of empathy that drives this sort of thinking. It's easy to symbolically scream and cluck your pearl necklace than it is to actually do something or to reach out to others when in need. It just seems to me that the Internet just makes it easier to be angry or outraged than to be helpful and empathetic.

I agree with both of you but let's not lump the anger of the gamer gaters with the anger of the truly opprossed, exploited and abused.

I think it's more of a general trend. GG was just one minor spat in the larger scheme of things. Various forms of moral panic/outrage have been around forever. It's just becoming more concentrated into smaller segments of society. It's like targeted advertising but with more screaming and gnashing of teeth.

Stoicism teaches us that anyone can be rational, and that we're not really so different after all.

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