Hacker News Reader

Comment by Quarrelsome | Hacker News Reader

Is it not possible we were always this dumb but more that most of us talked less? This isn't beyond the standard "pub talk" but today that "pub" is the online world and published for all to see. Where previously you'd have reporters and sub-editors and editors to publish; today you can just run your mouth off whenever you want and the crowds can all hear.

This sort of thing makes us _look_ dumber compared to the era of print media but maybe together and on average we were always this dumb in the first place but now we just see it better.

View on HN

This sort of thing makes us _look_ dumber

Context is important; your friends in the pub know when you are joking, or not entirely serious, or making a rhetorical point, or playing devils advocate, or are referencing an earlier conversation, or telling an inside joke, or have just misunderstood something. Random strangers on Twitter read everything as an unequivocal statement. And respond accordingly.

This is an excellent point. In other words, pub talk taken on good faith, internet talk taken on bad faith.

My interpretation of the original comment isn't that context is key, it's that the internet amplifies the kind of extremist speech that wouldn't reach very many people pre-internet. For example: a suburban white supremacist in 1985 might feel isolated and alone, the same person in 2018 can publish their hatred on Twitter & Medium find like minded bigots on web forums.

exactly that but less so "extremist" more so "common". We've managed to forget about what the "common" sort of opinion is like. An opinion poll about the death penalty or immigration is a quick way of seeing that society at large is somewhat detached from what people assume is the "norm" from the world of edited media circa 1990 - 2010.

When the internet exploded that "average" was still glued to the TV and nerdy wasn't cool. Even in the 2000s you still had to run a PC to attach which is still a bar to hurdle. Today though we now have a generation that has grown up with internet enabled devices as a default feature in their phones, consoles, TVs or other formally "dumb" boxes. Now _everyone_ is online and perhaps that is just what we're seeing here as the bar for internet access has completely vanished.

If anything, we are the extremists: I suspect that 90% of the readership of HN was in the top 10% of their high school class, or above. Everything in our daily lives filters out the voices of the other 90% of the world, because for the most part, our friends and the friends of our friends resemble us. This is the social bubble everyone talks about. I just think we consistently underestimate just how powerful that bubble is at insulating us, until we see dramatic evidence in politics or the mass media, or we stumble out of it somewhere online.

Indeed. Earlier today I replied to a comment that said

Perceiving white males to be hard done by is amusing

I guess the poster of that never even considered the white males in former industrial regions. Or worse, considered that they deserved to lose their livelihoods because of their race and gender being "wrong". It's that kind of smug attitude that lead directly to Trump and Brexit.

So as before you would say 'dumb' things to your inner social circle of friends, with an occasional stranger overhearing. Today you can say those same things online, but instead of it just being your friends it's effectively on the public record and everyone can see and comment on what you said.

This reminds me of a story that Clay Shirky told about how one of his students/coworkers wanted to announce the breakup of her engagement. She carefully configured her settings on the FB, then changed her relationship status. But even so everyone knew in real time and she was deluged with questions and messages.

The reason both of these situations are so jarring is because everyone instantly sees this information, where as previously it took a lot longer to filter through the social graph.

People say things now in a social context in real life and then someone takes it out of context to rile up a mob online, making it dumb because it was taken out of context and used against them. As we are all humans most people with the context probably recognize this and are secretly glad they were not the ones targeted, although I doubt most of us want this kind of society.

It seems reasonable to believe that the person misrepresenting is often aware of the context and is disingenuous in their representation. And if not I am not sure why we are giving the stage to people with poor comprehension skills and a correspondingly violent temper.

> 'today you can just run your mouth off whenever you want and the crowds can all hear'

This sums it up. Also worth taking into account the abuse of anonymity. Some people would not speak in the same way to some people in front of that given person or relatives.

I think distance has as much or more of an effect here. Plenty of people are willing to act like jerks under their real names and profile pictures on Facebook and news site comment sections, and it's likely in part because they know they'll never encounter the people they're attacking or ever have to fear retribution for their comments online.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com