Seems like no matter where you go, now what you're doing, there are always going to be people lurking in the bushes, waiting for the opportunity to tell other people they are "idiots."
Back when I was at University, we simply called them "noitalls" as we were living in that particular part of the stone age that predated the Internet.
These days, we — as often as not — call them "trolls."
Earlier today, I was reading through some posts on my local Nextdoor App and it wasn't look before I encountered someone who just had to call another poster "stupid" for having a particular concern.
Not long after, I encountered a completely different discussion — concerning a dangerous intersection where cars quite frequently collide — in which someone (who lived nowhere NEAR that intersection) was calling the original poster "stupid" for thinking the intersection was dangerous.
Now, I have no "investment" in either discussion, but it did make me pause and wonder why people seem to find it necessary to "label" those with a different opinion, rather than simply say "that's not how I see it."
"Yeah, but they are WRONG!"
But are they really?
Or are they just "wrong," for YOU but not wrong in an absolute sense?
A friend of mine — who happens to be a psychologist and psychotherapist — says it's usually something she sees in highly intelligent people who are nonetheless "intellectually insecure" and thus feel a pervasive need to establish their superior brainpower at even the slightest hint of something they hold to be true being challenged.
Personally? I don't know. It remains one of the somewhat mysterious aspects of this human experience!
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Sequence: 065 — Timestamp: 2022.08.01 - 18:45 PDT
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mmm... not sure either - maybe she sees too many "intelligent people" as few average people can afford a shrink - unless being committed! lol
I even asked my kid that this might be an interesting avenue for her - "remote communications psychology". I suspect too many psychologists map the online behaviour onto real-life - just as most economists don't understand cryptonomics as their only example is material economic theory.
Those online trolls would quickly end up in a fight in real life. Try trolling someone in a pub! My kid tells me that, yeah, youngsters are also hideously abusive online - and this from a culture that allegedly values "good manners", especially to one's elders. Shows to me how disconnected behaviour truly is from inner thoughts.
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