Shitposting aside: there is a valid point on there. Because we can’t see our opposites in any discussion on the internet, we cannot take clues into account we otherwise might have. This leads to far-reaching misinterpretations. Imagine someone with a very weird and overly simplistic political stance they defend with tooth and nail. Now imagine that person to be some activist with a cap with political slogans on it. Okay, and now imagine the person to be not that, but a 15-year-old who just started to grasp the world around them but thinks they have it all figured out (puberty doing puberty things). Your reaction to either of them would be VASTLY different, wouldn’t it.
Imagine how many stupid internet fights would never have happened if it was known that one of the participants is a literal child that can’t have a clue what they are talking about yet.
Yet, not knowing that we’ve been arguing with a child for the last hour and a half, we will leave the discussion with the impression that there are grown up people out there thinking childish bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, there are those people, but they are not as frequent as one might guess from the internet.
Shitposting aside: there is a valid point on there. Because we can’t see our opposites in any discussion on the internet, we cannot take clues into account we otherwise might have. This leads to far-reaching misinterpretations. Imagine someone with a very weird and overly simplistic political stance they defend with tooth and nail. Now imagine that person to be some activist with a cap with political slogans on it. Okay, and now imagine the person to be not that, but a 15-year-old who just started to grasp the world around them but thinks they have it all figured out (puberty doing puberty things). Your reaction to either of them would be VASTLY different, wouldn’t it. Imagine how many stupid internet fights would never have happened if it was known that one of the participants is a literal child that can’t have a clue what they are talking about yet.
Yet, not knowing that we’ve been arguing with a child for the last hour and a half, we will leave the discussion with the impression that there are grown up people out there thinking childish bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, there are those people, but they are not as frequent as one might guess from the internet.
I love that perspective, so true. It even goes the other way, YOU could be a literal child posting such a thought-provoking comment, we’ll never know.