It's amazing how many smart people fall into the trap of engaging in online pissing contests.
Don't you know that the wind is in both of your faces?
That feeling on your leg is not victory.
That feeling is pee.
You are peeing on your own leg.
And you are doing so to learn the other fella, who is also peeing on his own leg, a thing or two.
This is the real danger of the internet (and no, I'm not referring to the above behavior itself at the moment) - that it teaches people the lack of value in many of the things they engage in. This type of behavior (peeing on one's own leg as a show of dominance) seems like a social remnant of a pre-internet age.
One has to assume that future generations will evolve away from this behavior, no? Sure certain aspects of the attraction to "dropping the smack down" are rooted in human nature, but that doesn't seem to imply that the current options often chosen to serve that instinctual need are, necessarily, legitimately serving that need. When environments change, certain doomed populations probably "adapt" in some ways that assist in their short-term survival, but which completely fail to address the long-term structural challenges that will ultimately bring about their extinction. Our environment has changed, and we now have options that we, as products of a previous environment lacking in those options, have long longed for. We were unaware of the longer-term lessons that would inevitably be learned. We have discovered fire, and we know it's "good", but that doesn't mean that lighting fires in a complete circle around your camp to keep the bears away is necessarily good. Eventually enough people will burn their own houses down that the social lesson will be learned and the capability (and it's current uses) will come to be viewed in a more "proper" context.
Fire to cook, good.
Fire to surround camp, bad.
Most people have to try certain things to come to accept that "the thing is not for them". Many people have to smoke pot every day to decide they don't want to be someone who smokes pot every day. Others have to drink to the point of "rock bottom" to decide they want a different life. Societies had to suffer under totalitarian authoritarianism to understand why it was a bad idea. Unfortunately, by the time the lesson is learned, much of the damage has already been done (wisdom = regret... if i could make that equals sign a wavy one I would), but populations eventually evolve to "better" ones and I assume the online world will as well.
This brings up a few points regarding the potential path this evolution can take. One of which is the concept of online anonymity. It is true on its face that anonymity provides the opportunity for bad people to do bad things, but it is also true that anonymity allows good people the opportunity to learn from mistakes without necessarily suffering the full impact the lesson would bring in a non-anonymous world. This impact can take a variety of forms from simple embarrassment to legal implications.
If you are anonymous, you needn't necessarily worry about the opinions of others, at least not to any greater degree than you choose. You determine its value. You needn't respond to outrageous statements, to insults, to obscenities, unless you choose to. If you choose not to, in fact, if you choose not even to make yourself aware of them (by not reading responses to your own comments, for example), you have freed yourself to utilize the tool without its potential harm. Is this a dangerous approach? Does it potentially lead to an insulating bubble into which no undesirable "truth" can penetrate? Sure. That is a problem. But this is already the case, and always will be, as we engage in various forms of dissonance, justification, rationalization, etc. on a continuous basis. We're already doing that, to the degree we are capable, and while this additional layer of filtering may make that worse, it also may allow us to absorb that which we view as "legitimate truths" in a safer environment. There is a reason college campuses try to create "safe environments for learning". There is a reason group therapy sessions attempt to create "safe environments" for sharing..... because they are beneficial to the processes involved.
As with any tool, the likelihood of use or abuse depends on the individual. One who values truths, even uncomfortable ones will tend to poke more holes in their bubble, allowing more of the information to flow in. But they are still able to absorb that information in the safety of that bubble, and to respond only when they decide they have something useful to respond with.... if they value such a determination of course. They need not respond in a manner like that which is required in an unsafe gathering in the "real world", which by instinct involves a greater degree of fight or flight response, and by instinct in the others in the gathering, often involves a more aggressive, intimidating, dominating approach by the group.
Anonymity allows for these determinations to be made in a more controlled manner, and just as importantly, it allows them to be made without long-term "real-world" repercussions that may otherwise result.
Anonymity allows for the shedding of one's online skin.
If you post some nonsense under your real name, it can have legitimate negative repercussions for you, potentially for a very long time. You can suffer the most significant repercussions from your mistakes, which can lead to a self-reinforcing downward spiral emotionally or otherwise, without any accompanying benefit.
Of course, if you can control yourself and can put forth an online presence under your real identity that avoids the likely pitfalls, that avoids the pissing contests, that accepts the inevitability and inconsequentiality of slings and arrows, of misrepresentations, of lies and half-truths, of ignorance and hate, then you can stand to reap the benefits of the products you put forth in your own name without suffering the negative side effects of the environment. But most apparently can not. Most truly believe that they can show their superiority by peeing slightly farther, or higher, or more accurately, into the wind, even though they will also end up covering themselves in their own urine. Even if their abilities at urinary discharge are as exceptional as they believe them to be, in the best case they end up winning a battle that no one else will ever really care about... a battle they could simply have walked away from, perhaps with some unresolved anger or annoyance, but with a clean, dry pair of pants, and with their dignity intact.
Which brings us to the danger. If I am right, if the majority of these interactions are as useless as they seem to be, and if generations to come will learn this lesson earlier and earlier, what will that mean for human interaction? We all already see the head-down, earphones on, swiping the phone existence that many people live. What if we become that, and then some? What if that which made us "human" was a never-ceasing belief in the value of interaction, even as it served to crush our spirit as often as it served to uplift us, because we now have the opportunity to exist, and possibly even thrive in the rawest, survivalist sense, without suffering those negative experiences?
What would we become?
What sorts of delusions would we tend to hold and harbor as a result of the insulation we could choose to live under?
What sorts of prejudices and biases could result?
In short, could the evolution of the fully connected world inevitably lead towards a more fully "disconnected" existence at a more granular level than has ever been achieved before?
The rationalist in me says.... well I guess it says both. It says that we will see trends in that direction for all the reasons we currently see. The capabilities are there, and more and more people seem to be building their own intellectual bubbles from which to experience the world. This seems likely to continue, and to increase. As more and more like-minded individuals are able to filter the world through their shared worldview, it seems likely that more and more "intellectually homogenous groups" are likely to develop, with all the inherent dangers of such segmentation.
But the realist in me (is that also rationalist? i think so, right?) also says that society will kind of get by just fine, because it always does, and because interaction is part of being a human. Perhaps those interactions will be fine-tuned, and perhaps they will become more Spock-like as time goes on. Perhaps there will be less childish attempts at harming through insults and at responding to such attacks as if they merit a response. But the need for interaction will never go away. We have it as babies, and as long as we get enough of a positive impression of interaction from the early experiences, we will continue to value them into adulthood, for all the various reasons we currently do (information exchange, moral support, fun, etc.).
It is unlikely that humanity would ever lose the fundamental desire to interconnect. Perhaps that interconnectedness can simply be streamlined and improved, with much of the noise being filtered out, and with anonymity being offered as the useful tool that it is in that process. If so, perhaps a more productive, useful, perhaps even loving interaction can result. If not, well I guess we will be seeing people of all ages continuing to piss on themselves in order to lay the smack down on some "opponent" whose actions have "necessitated" such a response. We are, after all, just human.
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