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Comment by s1artibartfast | Hacker News Reader

#1 skin in the game.

In person interactions can have greater immediate consequences than online actions. If someone is in your social group, you might see them again and have to deal with the consequences of actions/behavior. Positive impressions can reward you in the future.

#2 Reputation and anonymity

You can't easily reboot your IRL identity and reputation, but usually can on forums like HN

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> skin in the game

Literally. If people acted IRL the way they do online, there'd be a major uptick in face punches.

Which means the internet is the better place to be for any person. The problem is usually if one side is not anonymous, then it's different, otherwise anything is fair game in regards to discussions I think, but maybe you find a good counter example.

Not necessarily although there are advantages. While generally taboo, physical violence does have positive effects on Curbing some Behavior

Yeah, however that is not what happens if you just let that behavior described above slide. Punching someone because they said something to you is usually wrong especially if they don't even know each other (so it can't be personal, really).

I've definitely been in a number of situations where what passes for craft and hateful online speech what get someone severely beaten oh, and I don't think that's necessarily A Bad Thing. It's not a solution to the greater problems of society, but a punch to the face or the threat thereof it certainly keeps people from verbally assaulting people in real life.

Of course there are problems with people acting as adjudge and dishing out physical punishment, but that doesn't mean that Justice isn't served in some instances

I disagree that physical violence is justified for any anonymous conversation however hateful it might be. If it is not anonymous then there are things like slander where things get more blurry, however I am not a strong proponent of vigilante justice, so I would not call it just either.

I mostly mean things that don't have sides: like stalking behavior, death threats, flagrant proud racism, harassing victims of tragedy, etc.

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