I like to think that in normal everyday life I’m a nice guy. I do my best to get on with other people. But I have a lot less tolerance for people I run into on the internet. Whereas in real life I might smile politely and wait until a moron’s stupidity causes their eventual death, I find that I lack that patience online.
Kind of strange, really. Is the world so different simply because there’s several hundred k’s of cable separating me from the cause of my ire? Apparently so. When I stop to think about it there are things I would say online that I would generally not say in real life.
I’d like to think that whilst I may be a blatant hypocrite, I’m a consistent one. It concerns me that I’m just not as hypocritical online as I am in real life. In real life I might completely misrepresent my views in order to get what I want (eg tell a girl they look beautiful when they look like someone viciously savaged them with whatever was at hand - a stick of make-up and some op-shop rejects). But I’m more likely to be honest and tell someone online that I think they’re a childish moron with the common sense of a stunned hamster - despite the fact that perhaps they might be able to give me something valuable in the future if I cultivate the relationship (eg a place to crash OS).
Does that mean that the internet is a place completely lacking in social graces? I don’t consider myself a particularly impressionable guy, but I think I’m definitely more anti-social online than offline. I don’t think I deserve the title of instant internet arsehole, but even so the possibility is there. Does this make the internet a force for social depravity and degradation if it has this effect on even the most two-faced of individuals?
Can society survive online if honesty prevails?