Friday, August 15, 2014

Grow up, you babies

When I came home crying to my mommy because somebody at school called me "grahamcracker", my mother told me to just say "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me". This frustrated me as a kid, because I wanted my mommy to make it stop, but of course, it's good advice. It was the only good advice back then, and it's the only solution now to stop Internet trolls.

In its quest to ban free speech, this NYTimes article can't even get the definition of the word "troll" right. Here's the correct definition:
"somebody who tries to provoke an emotional reaction"
The way to stop trolls is to grow up and stop giving them that emotional reaction. That's going to be difficult, because we have a nation of whiners and babies who don't want to grow up, who instead want the nanny-state to stop mean people from saying mean things. This leads to a police-state, where the powerful exploit anti-trolling laws to crack down on free-speech.

That NYTimes article claims that trolling leads to incivility. The opposite is true. Incivility doesn't come from me calling you a jerk. Instead, incivility comes from your inability to ignore it. It's your emotional response that is the problem, and your desire to sic the police-state on me to make me stop.

Let's work together and make our society more civil, and get people to stop responding to trolls. Let's tell the whining babies to grow the fuck up, and just repeat "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".

3 comments:

DarkIye said...

"incivility comes from your inability to ignore it"? What's the solution, then? Never respond to any objection to what you're doing? Won't that blind you to legitimate objections?

Khürt Williams said...

I agree. Passing laws to get people to stop trolling is basically legislating that being be nice to each other. I think that's pure bull shit. If I want to call you an asshole I should have that right. The recipient can choose not to react. But legislating that I can't call you an asshole removes my CHOICE of speech.

@darklye, the proper question to ask is "why did the other person have an emotional reaction?" What deep seated fear are they hiding that only comes out when they hear certain words? Go see a shrink.

Numberwhun said...

There is a saying here on the internet... "Don't Feed The Trolls!". This is something to live by to make you happier in your online experience, especially if you are getting offended by other peoples comments.

I have been a part of sites where there is a plethora of elitist attitudes with very little concessions for those who are not as knowledgable. This unfortunately led to many getting in virtual arguments about attitudes and eventually someone gets banned by an elitist, over-zealous admin.

So, don't feed the trolls. Just let it go in one ear and out the other and you'll be much happier.