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Why are we so shitty to each other?

Outside of the internet, I ask this question.

It's bizarre to me how billionaires don't how to else to use their money other than engaging in a space race. It's mind-boggling that people get into relationships only to beat and kill each the person closest to them. It's discombobulating how a society largely directed by the whims of men rejects the anguished, depressed cries of other men before they kill themselves. It's morbidly fascinating that a homeless epidemic is unfolding in developed nation and the response is to...withhold resources from them, destroy what little they have, and essentially do nothing to address their problems.

Why are we so shitty to each other indeed.

I think most people aren't toxic, but the toxic ones always stick out. If you get 20 normal comment replies and one that was rude, you'll probably remember that rude one more.

Same goes for anything that people have strong opinions about online - especially politics. The most extreme, hostile, and bizarre takes get a lot of attention and float to the top, which makes it seem like the majority opinion, when most people aren't like that.

I've been starting to reduce my "internet footprint" especially on large media sites. (twitter, reddit, youtube, etc). I've been deleting a lot of my posts that dont have important info, and reducing my time spent on them. I'm doing it to improve my mental health. hopefully.

I and three others had a pvp Minecraft server and we had to shut it down because people were getting into stupid toxic arguments to the point we had two sides, one wanted the other banned on threat of them leaving because one of their members had an argument several months ago with them and brought it up again. I spent all nighters on the Minecraft server and the owner spent €50 every month. To be treated like this was heartbreaking. So the four of us agreed to shut it down. It hurt and I feel bad and the underlying concept was enjoyable to many people, but we couldn't have it because people were just trying to figure out ways to break it and weren't actually playing the game we tirelessly were maintaining for them. Shutting it down was heartbreaking but I feel so much better for it.

why are we so shitty to each other?

I am honestly pissed off on the fact people can’t give feedback without being pricks or “gamers” just shitting on developers because they are Starfield stans

Painting with such broad strokes about opinions you don’t like and writing them all collectively off as “pricks” and “starfield Stans” is contributing to the current state of discourse that you are lamenting.

IMO, there's a lot of factor playing part in this. (Copying from my fedi personal fedi acc!)

1. A lot of people lack control of the real world situation that happen to them and some are desperate for the feel of being in control enough to harm other people just to feel like 'I'm in control'

2. A lot of people do not have a way to properly deal with their anger and frustration. They only teach to 'hold or suppress it' and there's such also consequence in showing negative emotion IRL, so online is almost having no consequence for it.

3. Online people are separate by screen. People know that there's people behind it, but they don't feel it. In online, we don't get in your face 'feedback' from body language or facial expression from other people. IRL, you mess around and pretty much find out instantly.

4. Social media reward people with engagement and fav/like, which is easy dopamine for people like it's just a tip away from their body. And SOMEHOW I feel like social media normalized people being mean to each other as 'Playful witty funny hahaha' so they get rewarded by that. And yeah these things are addictive, so you can crave more, making you do more 'extreme' thing to get them. And yes you can get addicted to being angry too.

5. And then there is also peer pressure and 'us vs them' mentality that is so strong in social media. I mean yeah, if we look at it, being 'mean' together with your group it's sort of activity that you can bound together and also reward you as well. It just not a good one and come at a cost of another people.

Now add all of them together, you get the platform that reward toxic interaction and also extremely addictive. You get reward from like/fav. You get reward by 'Peer approval' (because today we forbid other people having neutral opinion on a thing, but it could be just my experience.), You get reward by your own brain. Not counting other thing like politic, moral compass, religion because it adds entirely another layer on this.

Why are we so shitty to each other? I’m so tired.

That's our nature. We always have been and always will be. The only difference is that now it's way more convenient.

With that said, I deleted my twitter a year ago. I deleted facebook three months ago, and left reddit for lemmy two months ago. It's actually been really great for my mental health to not know what everyone I know is thinking all of the time, and I still have messenger if they need to to get in touch with me. Do I miss an event here and there? Yes, but it's worth it for the amount of stuff I don't have to see anymore.

I've actually wound back on posts on facebook and specialised sites. In hiking forums on facebook, I literally gave common sense information sometimes (for instance, in one case, someone was asking if water tanks on a route was full, and I explained to never rely on water tanks in the middle of summer for multi-day hikes since rangers don't fill them) and you need permanent water sources. And, I got told I was "mansplaining", and that she was knew what she was doing, from multiple people (not sure why she'd be asking if they were full then, if she didn't plan to rely on them). On another one, someone was literally telling other people that they should carry a knife to protect themself against other people (and were trying to scare women into feeling like they shouldn't be safe when hiking here in Australia).

Even if you're a professional in a specific field, you'll always come across people who tell you you're wrong too, and try to treat you like crap. On Reddit, I got told once I was LARPing about doing hiking and mountaineering, until someone else pointed out my long post history.

On facebook, the whole fake troll accounts thing is the worst too (I literally saw a guy with 3 of the same named account as his friends, and a 4th, which was obviously their real name, as it was similar name).

Its one reason I was happy to donate to Beeshaw. We don't all need to agree, but there needs to be good faith. And it feels like other communities are either just full of angry people, people who are scared of change, or people operating in bad faith.

We don't need to be one of those communities. I myself can be toxic at times, but I agree.. I am trying to be better..

There is hope.

https://theindieweb.com/