I finally figured it out (SJW and Conservatives)

Why does everyone on the internet take everything so serious?

Bare with me my brain is a little pickled. I had a lot of booze last night.

So last week I was on another site and I called someone a stupid kid. Bam I got modded and suspended for insulting someones intelligence. I was like what the hell? since when did everyone become so sensitive? Mind you I'm 43 years old I lived the first half of my life without a computer. I was born in the 70's and went to middle school in the 80's and high school in the 90's.

Lately I've been confused about whats been going on with people online. Why are some websites so polarizing. One site I go to is strict sjw rules. Then I come over here to ats and it's over run with extreme conservative views.

I remember a time when ats was pretty in between when it came to political views. I heard conservatives freaking out over something called antifa. I don't care even to find out. I still don't know what it is nor do I care. Then I go to other sites and everyone is pro gay rights this and if you don't agree with them you're a nazi or a homophobe.

Back in the 90's after the Berlin wall fell the word communism was dead. No one used no one cared. In the 80's and 90's we had liberal conservatives and conservative liberals. Everybody mostly has some beliefs of both sides. Now it like everyone is extreme one or the other.

When I first got a computer the internet was the wild wild west. You could say anything you wanted and no cared. Now we have an entire generation of young people that didn't learn to play outside and had phone put in their hands the second they could use their fingers.

People really take this online stuff way to serious. I've been banned from a few sites because I really don't care if people get offended. It's not real life it's just the internet to me.

My younger cousin spends all day making friends online and talking to people from around the world. I could if I wanted to but he internet to me isn't real life it's all superficial. Why would I want to be friends with someone I'll never meet?

But I finally got it figured out why websites have become so polarized to one side or the other. There's no middle ground anymore. I don't know how this great rift started but I've been kinda in the dark about all of it. I'm just now starting to catch on to whats happening.

I think you might be onto something.

The people that grew up without the internet have experienced real life and then the internet as a separate thing.

The ones that grew up on the internet know the internet as real life. They treat everything on the internet as very important because that is how they have experienced it.

Very good observations, and I agree with beyondknowledge.

I think it is a divide and rule dynamic at play.
It just took the generation to become adults to see that old scheme play out on the net...

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
I think you might be onto something.

The people that grew up without the internet have experienced real life and then the internet as a separate thing.

The ones that grew up on the internet know the internet as real life. They treat everything on the internet as very important because that is how they have experienced it.

Ummm...dayam...now...that makes perfect sense...

There’s really no need to add any thoughts of my own...

I love posts like this...








YouSir

You've got to understand the internet is real life to some peoole. There's always someone on the other end (unless it's a chatbot) and they may or may not take what you say to them seriously.

Also, the whole "there's no middle ground" is a symptom of a larger problem, which is in turn part of a set of multiple problems, and every single one of them is evolving and splintering into more problems of varying degrees of severity.

You know how our elders would sit with us at the campfire (or bbq pit) and tell us how worried they were about how spoiled rotten the generations after ours would be? I don't. I was too busy trying to keep the sauce off my brisket. Philistines!

a reply to: wantsome

There are two sides to every coin, even if one side is blank.

Every thing and words have opposites, ie. 'love' and 'hate' the 'e' gveneration

have grown up or are fixated with 'likes' they feed on how many they get and

how many or few others get, the sooner they get taught that not everyone is

going to like them (cause lifes not like that) the sooner they will be able to

face reality and manage their lives and not get offended at everything!!

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
I think you might be onto something.

The people that grew up without the internet have experienced real life and then the internet as a separate thing.

The ones that grew up on the internet know the internet as real life. They treat everything on the internet as very important because that is how they have experienced it.

You put that quite well!

a reply to: wantsome

It's all the fault of the Canadians.

While true libertarians should be ruling the world with kindness and purity of heart, the evil leftuists and their Canadian masters really do. But they do it behind the scenes.

Eventually we'll all be spelling "color" as "colour" and will be enjoying poutine at hockey games instead of watching real American football and eating chillidogs.

Maybe this is the long term effect of there being no Saturday Morning Cartoon Shows anymore.

a reply to: wantsome

Like minded people tend to gravitate to each other. Those are, what i believe, are some basic human social 'rules', and the internet is no exception. Toss that in with people who are just joking around, and mess with the serious peoples heads, and the factor of anonymity, you get a lot of polarization.

A good place to see this is on reddit or 4chan, with different message boards and forums you can see the different dialects and lingo they create, and the different 'inside jokes', known as memes. Or go to known partisan media hubs and just look at the comments.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: wantsome

Like minded people tend to gravitate to each other. Those are, what i believe, are some basic human social 'rules', and the internet is no exception. Toss that in with people who are just joking around, and mess with the serious peoples heads, and the factor of anonymity, you get a lot of polarization.

A good place to see this is on reddit or 4chan, with different message boards and forums you can see the different dialects and lingo they create, and the different 'inside jokes', known as memes. Or go to known partisan media hubs and just look at the comments.

Your saying that the internet allowed for the formation of giant gangs.

a reply to: wantsome

It seems to me the majority of people nowadays are too far toward the extreme ends of the spectrum- either far left liberal progressives or far right hardcore conservatives. This kind of thinking used to be the exception rather than the norm. Those whose attitudes lie somewhere in the middle are now scorned and attacked more often than not. That is the world of the internet now even though just a few years ago most of us would have laughed our heads off if anyone told us this would be our future.

I blame it on the media. There wasn't such a huge chasm between the masses until the media polarized us against each other. They don't report facts and let people decide what they think or how they should feel about issues and events any longer. Instead they indoctrinate the public with scathing opinion pieces that formerly would have amounted to a rant printed in a small editorial column of a newspaper and call it "breaking news". We no longer have true news reports, it is all prime time propaganda!

When I think back it seems like this sort of behavior really started ramping up during the Obama administration, but it has really kicked up to a whole new level during Trump's current stint in the White House. Both sides of the media have become equally heinous in their "reporting" methods.

When I was a kid my father told me that Walter Cronkite (the most trusted man in news back then) was the most powerful man in the world because whatever he told people during his nightly report- whether true or false- people would believe without question. The name may have changed but dear old Dad was right.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

I guess that's a good way to put it.
I've always had the theory that the internet would become nothing but an ideological battle field if it was left to just be a free for all, we saw a glimpse of that a few years ago when regulation on places like facebook, youtube, or major social media hubs was still rather low. Now look at the internet, it's become a giant war zone of disinformation and one hub thinking of ways of screwing over the other.

I still remember when youtube was flooded with creationists in an attempt to I guess bring indoctrination tactics to the internet, and it was met with a hard hitting science based community that saw a huge spike in atheism in it's wake. This hasn't really gone away, it's just evolved, and other groups have found their way into the web as well. There's been a rise in socialist and Marxist groups, and a huge rise in white supremacist groups. Back in the early days of internet chat rooms and such I still remember jihadists barging into MSN and yahoo chats and trying to argue for holy war and stuff.

I have noticed on youtube as well people have found ways around using derogatory words in creative ways, like calling someone a "jew", can be a bannable offence on youtube, so they call people Talmudic now, or some variation using that word, hate and organized brain washing will always find a way to creep into the impressionable minds.

The Internet is a toilet.

a reply to: Lysergic

Maybe your not using it right

a reply to: Lysergic

Toilets can be beautiful depending on when and were you look at it.

a reply to: Simon1967

Push to flush??

a reply to: scraedtosleep

Never look a gifted Toilet in the eye they say.

a reply to: wantsome

Lol now someone is SJW for being a decent human being?
You take it too far, way to far.

That is like saying RDJ is a racist for doing the blackface acting in that movie.

You have this all backwards, I repeat:

Expecting some civility and politeness is not being a social justice warrior.

You know what someone said to me in my teenage years?
"You can talk to your friends like that, but not towards me".

Bull#. Try being a decent human all the time, not only to your family. Drop it when it is necessary. There is a time and place for calling others names in jest, I totally dig it.

But being a pussy about getting set straight for being rude, you claim victimhood. Think about it.

The media found out that polarizing = hits...like a reality show.

People are programmed by the media...so the gray discussions about policy stopped being about policy and started to push more and more politics and politicians as the main focus.

Lemmings we are as a society, and so we chose our football team accordingly. Every new generation tries to one up the previous, so yeah...much like horror sequels, the body count has to be higher, meaning the new norm has to be more extreme than the previous version to keep it interesting.

I don't know if/when it ends...maybe there will be a final backlash from the absurdity and most will abandon the extreme polarization..move back in the center again and have discussions about policy...but I don't see that happening for awhile