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Comment by eropple | Hacker News Reader

Shitlords don't just "meme". They radicalize themselves and others. I had a friend ask to crash on my couch during GamerGate because a guy on 4chan took a picture of himself with a knife in front of her apartment building and it's the people who aren't shitlords who are the problem here? What's your proposed "immune system" response to that, exactly? Or to an Elliot Rodgers, he who was cheered on by exactly this crowd?

"These people are attempting to incubate a culture where you might get swatted for being vocally not a straight white man, but it is we who are too sensitive." Nah. The problem isn't the people who have the misfortune of being downrange of scumbags, and never is.

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That esclated quickly. I think your extreme examples are not really the norm, nor an accurate representation in general. This just makes the radicalization worse.

this whole thread has nothing to do with real world threats of physical violence. online trolling is different than your extreme example.

If 10 people on the internet tell you they want to kill you, how do you tell if 1 of them is serious and is actually going to show up physically?

The answer is that you can't, and there isn't a firm line where all trolling is on one side and harassing/violent behaviour is something different.

Many of us can heuristically decide that trollish behaviour aimed at us won't extend to our person/home/workplace, and doesn't need to be taken seriously. That doesn't mean it's a rule for everyone or an excuse for that behaviour.

>>>If 10 people on the internet tell you they want to kill you, how do you tell if 1 of them is serious and is actually going to show up physically?

All the more reason for everyone to concealed carry. If not a firearm, at least something like a karambit.

Yeah, no, that excuse stopped working around six years ago. “Online trolling” is now part and parcel of political action and can be separated only through naïveté or disingenuity and no, there is no third option. The shitlord who chased my friend from her home was cheered on by that faceless mob of “online trolls” and encouraged other people to do likewise and worse. Similarly, Elliot Rodgers and the like got their book from “online trolls” who happened to also be virulent misogynists who were ecstatic that somebody took what they advocated and put it into action.

What you call “extreme” is the reality for people less privileged than you being subject to these fucks’ weird jollies. What’s your just-ignore-it stuff going to do for them?

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