Recent Issues

[National]

I was listening to a Freakanomics podcast the other day and it was talking about online attacks and online trolls and the problems that exist with them. I found the transcript and have posted the relevant information below. With the recent issues about particular forum members it is quite relevant. I found Steve Levitt's description of the problem applied to both sides in the issue. While one side doesn't use ad hominem attacks, it does often resort to rude, dismissive language that clearly shows a disdain and condescension for those with diverging opinions/experiences. The other side then quickly loses the high ground because often times they attack the poster directly.

Particularly, I thought Levitt offered a good explanation for why people get so upset. In short, it is really hard to counter misinformation. Levitt's final line in this excerpt highlights why people get so riled up about it: "And we don’t have a good online way of saying whether things are true or not. And that’s where I think the cost is."

When individuals insist on posting what most members of the community consider to be untrue/rude/dismissive it has a cost to the community. The usual response is that people should be smart enough to determine what is true and what is false, but the act of having to filter through it all is time consuming and costly in many ways. In this specific situation it seems to be complicated by the fact that at times the same people post helpful, truthful, detailed responses.

I don't think there is an easy solution...

From the episode: "Who Runs the Internet"
"LEVITT: Well, I think that’s hard, because number one I think people feel a lot of pain from those kind of online rants. So you’re implicitly saying that the punch in the face is far worse than the online rant, but it’s not completely clear to me that that’s actually true, that the amount of pain…I mean…because one of the things about the online rant is that they live forever, right? So that someone can say something hurtful and it can stick around and haunt you on and on and on. The other things is one of the reasons that people don’t do so much of this sort of ranting and fighting in public is that it’s really socially not accepted very much. And I think there’s a reason it’s not socially accepted because it’s not very costly for the ranter, but potentially very, very costly for the person who gets ranted against. You know, it just reminds me, I don’t know why, of when SuperFreakonomics came out and we have the stuff on climate change, and the online rants against us were untrue, they were absurd, they were ad hominem. It was just a bad, ugly situation where a group of people who were very emotional about what we were saying, working essentially in unison to try to discredit us, and we really didn’t have a good vehicle for fighting back. But what I remember so vividly is I remember, I think it was in Washington D.C., where we were giving a talk, and a heckler got up and began ranting in exactly the same way that the online rants were going against us, and the people in the audience just told him to sit down. And what was so weird was that he sat down. And that he was so bullied, and so easily cowed by a few people saying don’t do that. So he got to say a little bit of his peace and we got to respond to it. But somehow it seemed to be much more productive than if he had just ranted and ranted and ranted and hadn’t let us talk at all, which is really what I think you get online. So I don’t know. I’m not really that much in favor of giving…I mean, sure people can rant, it’s such a hard job for other people to sort out what’s true and what’s false, that rants that can’t be verified for truth, I think are terrible. And we don’t have a good online way of saying whether things are true or not. And that’s where I think the cost is.

[PsyGuy]

The error in your ana1ysis is that where climate change has a strong basis of research and data to support to some degree conclusion that a claim has data driven support, the discussions and topics on this forum lack that quality. This isnt some debate or townhouse meeting of a political candidate and what they did or did not say where there is a record to be reviewed and a conclusion on the validity of a statement or quote. The issues of this forum are largely accepted and acknowledged to be opinions, perceptions and experiences, they are subjective, and not subject to hypothesis testing that can be accepted or rejected based on empirical methodology or application or logic. They are not determinations of truth but differences in opinion, experience, and position, as such neither of them is wrong.

"Rude and Dismissive" is your perception. "Disdain and Condescension" are characterizations based on your opinion. No one can make you feel/think anyway without your permission, and no one but you is responsible for your feelings and actions but you. This isnt Nursery/Pre-K, we have the cognitive and affective ability to regulate our emotions. If you feel youve been treated rudely, dismissively, disdainfully, or been condescended to then take responsibility for how you are choosing to feel and YOUR interpretation and perceptions.

[whynot]

@National - excellent, thoughtful post.