I'd add /b/tards, but they'll probably be obsolete by then.
Irradiated by LabRat
The other day I read a lady gamer detailing how her relationship with someone who turned out to be a callow and self-absorbed young man started deteriorating extra-quickly after they started playing a MMORPG together; watching him be a jackass to other players in-game helped highlight for her all the ways in which he was a self-absorbed jackass in other aspects of his life as well, just with greater subtlety.
When I was young, my mother advised me to keep an eye on how anyone I dated behaved toward waiters and waitresses in restaurants, as well as any other service personnel, because that would tell me if he were a decent person period or just capable of putting on the act when I happened to have or be something he wanted at the time.
We hear an awful lot about how easy it is to be functionally anonymous on the internet, in the sense of frequently interacting with people who have no idea who you are and would have little to no chance of ever recognizing you again should you not want them to, and how this brings out all sorts of bad behavior, as though ordinary good people were turned werewolflike into churlish idiots by this factor. I don’t really see it that way; I think there are simply a lot of people whose otherwise civil behavior is driven less by their fundamental decentness than it is by a wish to avoid social punishment. (Or, more charitably, that the civilizing process takes longer for some than for others, and that anonymity allows them to express their immaturity without immediate retribution.)
It occurs to me that in addition to technology having given us a thousand ways to be exposed in ways great and small to human pettiness, vindictiveness, and just plain nastiness, it’s also given us an unprecedented way to see how the people we DO know behave when given the opportunity to truly interact with no risk of social retribution whatsoever. And how they then choose to conduct themselves.
Should I ever change my mind and reproduce- or should my brother happen to produce an heir- rather than telling him or her to get the hell out away from anyone who abuses the waitress, I’ll probably tell them that nothing good ever comes of associating with trolls, loot ninjas, or sockpuppets.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
My (certainly ex- by now) sweety has had some experience with the /b/tards while picketing against the $cientologists in the Atlanta area. I think those guys describe themselves as “chaotic-neutral”, or something. As an attempted Christian, I think I’d rather do better than that, mebbe actually try to do positive good.
November 19th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Yet more evidence in favour of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. (I couldn’t in good conscience not post that link.)
One problem with internet-induced anonymity is that it can obscure mitigating circumstances. For example, lately I’ve been gaming (tabletop) with a disruptive self-absorbed loot-ninja extraordinaire. The fact that he behaves like a twelve-year-old is mitigated by the fact that he is, in fact, twelve years old. Rather than yell at him every time he cuts me off in the middle of my turn to gibber about “Aragon”, I’m much better off being a little bit more patient.
Hmm.
I’m gonna read through SmartDogs’ archive before our next session. “Nothing in life is free” could work wonders on this guy.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
I tend to agree that a good indicator of someones ethics and character can be seen by how they interact with service personnel and others they might see as ” below ” them .
As far as you deciding to have children , if you should I honestly cannot think of two people who would be better parents than you and Stingray . No one who saw you interact with KB could ever doubt your ability as a loving parent .
November 19th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Don’t hesitate with the cluebat, blunt.
Gaming is probably the only real socialization this kid will get with his intellectual peers.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Aeons before the arrival of the intarw3bz, at the advent of call waiting and caller i.d., I anticipated the forward march of technology would yield yet more ways for rudeness and passive-agressiveness to work its turd-in-the-punchbowl magic.
Party poopers.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I knew the waiter/waitress paragraph was coming when I read the first sentence; because it’s so true.
I could say my momma raised me right but more credit belongs to dad. He let me know, in no uncertain terms, what the wages of rudeness were.
Although I can muster up a good troll smackdown when the situation requires, the few times I’ve tried to be rude on the innertubes, I’m made of fail. I just can’t do it.
The thought of personally insulting someone I do not know (especially, coming into “their” house to do it) just kicks my dad-o-meter to eleventy.
November 19th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I dunno Bluntie, if he’s that bad, I might use a shock collar on him.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:02 am
FarmDad, that’s the problem with bright people. They overanalyze the situation, realise they’d never figure out how to deal with kids, and conclude that they’d make terrible parents.
Speaking strictly for myself, of course
LabRat, I met my gal on IRC. Best thing ever happened to me. You can learn a lot about people, online, if you pick up the out-of-band clues.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:56 am
We love each other more now than we did 13 years ago when we ‘met’ on a chat room.
Two months of phone calls, coupla flights, some vacation time at her/my house and we have found it.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Also don’t forget about what a person says about others when they aren’t there. Very enlightening.
Knew once a woman, a co-worker, who was as friendly and helpful as you’d want while with others. But, when it was just the two of us, she’d bad mouth everyone and wouldn’t cooperate or help others with anything.
She was gone in the first layoff although she had more seniority that almost everyone else. She couldn’t hide what she truly was.
There are many lessons in life that can be learned just by observing others.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:24 am
My husband and I were discussing something similar a few weeks ago. He’s very game mechanics oriented, while I’m more social in a game and see the mechanics as a tool to effectively progress, not the point of the game. So what I told him was, “When we have kids, you can teach them HOW to gank n00bs. But we’re also going to teach them why you don’t actually do it.”
November 20th, 2009 at 11:37 am
My ex-wife could produce a very noticeable cringe from table-mates with her expositions to wait staff. Toward the last years of that relationship it became more frequent and vitriolic, to the point where not only were we not invited along, I didn’t like going anywhere in public with her.
It’s a mystery to me how she keeps a job in high-level technical support and instruction, although that’s largely a presumption as I haven’t had any interaction with her in over 14 years.
Regards,
Rabbit.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Excellent point about the technology, and the anonymity. However, you can never really be anonymous in this day and age, because it is raltively easy to find out who you really are and where you are…
And how you treat others WILL come back and bite you in the butt if you’re not careful…
Seen it happen and laughed my ass off!
November 20th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Long time ago, I tried for net-anonymity (since given up as a hopeless task). Even back then, I realized that no matter how many personas I might develop over the years, I only had one reputation — and that the person I looked at in the mirror every morning was the one responsible for it.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Pax: ironically that’s why I use this handle for this site, which I don’t actually like that much. I’d built up a reputation commenting on other blogs over a few blogs using it, and even if I used my real name, it would actually mean less reputation-wise if I did.
November 20th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Or night elf druids that hang around just outside of Dalaran, waiting for members of the opposite faction to leave on their flight mounts so they can typhoon them out of the air…><
November 20th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Old Anglo-Saxon proverb: A man does as he is when he can do what he wants.
November 25th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
keep an eye on how anyone I dated behaved toward waiters and waitresses in restaurants, as well as any other service personnel,
I believe by this point in time, the cad population has absorbed this lesson and evolved appropriately, knowing that when they are on a date, they have to grit their teeth and be nice to the staff.
the next step, then, is to observe how they deal with strangers on the street - especially the homeless!