Anonymity often brings out the worst in some people.
In the middle of that mud we can also find honest feedback, often unfiltered and not-sugar coated.
IRL people are often too overly concerned about too many things that don't matter.
Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
181–190 of 264 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#182The internet in a channel into peoples' unconsciousness. That's why they talk this way.
Like talking to somebody who's talking in sleep.
Reading/browsing is a kind of trance.
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#183The simple answer: online lacks all the visual and aural feedback mechanisms that are automatic in face-to-face interaction. That radically changes how people act. All the social norms that have 100,000 years of biological and sociological development that are kept in-check by visual feedback from others around us are taken away online. This also applies to things like sales - face-to-face direct sales is far more ef…
face-to-face for most things but not all. I'm routinely on the phone with project presentations that involved multi-million dollar licensing agreements and then another 2 or 3x that for an implementation team. Not once have I ever done one in real life. Ironically, in a past life I did go onsite to pitch a project in front of a board. It was for a grand total of about $75k.
One thing that I have to admit, and this is a bit weird, but on deals that big by the time "orals" or the main presentation happens the decision is 90% already made in favor of one of the bidders. That kind of back room selling/negotiation i'm not a part of and may very well be face to face all the time.
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
>dissuaded by the emotional and nonsensical conversations he was getting into here If they were conversations, then he must have been contributing to the emotion and nonsense, otherwise he could have just ignored it. I don't know who your engineer is, but in some professional forums, I have seen prima donnas leave in a huff because they just couldn't stand to be challenged and couldn't refrain from going off-topic by…
> If they were conversations, then he must have been contributing to the emotion and nonsense, otherwise he could have just ignored it. This is the precisely the kind of crap I'm talking about that brings HN down, where commenters just assert facts with no information whatsoever.
The only fact asserted here is that conversation involves more than one party.
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The main reason is that almost all content online comes from people who are mentally ill. I wasn’t brave enough to say this, but since you have, I want to agree. Gaming, Discord, forums, etc - filled to the brink with mentally ill individuals.
what "mentally ill" means in this context? like literally?
Suffering a distortion of perspective. From focus, trauma, drugs, obsession...
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also the fact that when you're online there's a zero risk of being punched in the face when you say something the other person is likely to find unpleasant.
It's dehumanization. We use that word in a bad way most of the time but in the case of online discussions, it's quite normal. Like I know that you're a real person and you know that I am a real person; however, when were talking online that fact can get ignored by our brains. It goes from "I'm talking to a person" to "I'm responding to brabel". In a physical conversation it's impossible to achieve the same level of "…
Also in real conversation it's unlikely that one just adds a quick comment and leaves.
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#187The main reason is that almost all content online comes from people who are mentally ill. Commenting or creating anything online is really weird. Normal people don't do this, so you're interacting with a very different group of people on your computer than in real life. > people in real life seem so much more complacent and uncritical compared to people online This is just to avoid conflict. I'm sure they feel the sa…
We have a word for people who live life read-only, consuming their surroundings - NPCs. Not sure who's really mentally ill in this situation.
To paraphrase the climax of the movie War Games, "In some games, an NPC is the only winning character".
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#188HN is only a positive place if you agree (and see things the same way as) the current tide of active users. The good thing about HN is that they usually come and go. IMO, seeking "harmony" sounds like a logical reaction to the toxic political activism we've experienced across the spectrum in the past decade. I find myself doing this too; why would I want to expend the emotional labor to convince people of things that…
Be a good person, support the current thing.
Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#189Uncritical of what? I avoid talking about religion and politics with everyone (family, co-workers, acquaintance) for obvious reasons. Ignoring those hot button issues, I still need to be careful not to be critical of people. - At work I've had a co-worker nearly get fired for telling another she "doesn't know what she's talking about". He got "written up" but ended up finding a better job a short time later. - At wor…
— Some family members get super offended if you make any kind of suggestion on how they can fix a given problem. Some members of the species aren’t really looking for a fix when they are complaining about something but just need to vent. Life is much simpler if you simply nod and say “oh, that’s horrible”.
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Re: Ask HN: Why are people in real life so different?
#190It's impossible to convince most people of even the most obvious truths. The wisest path is to fake agreement, keep your thoughts for yourself and move away ASAP. Online it seems you can get away with more honest talk without consequences. Or at least it used to. Now it's getting more like offline.
For some, agreement is submission and defeat, which cannot be tolerated. So word games happen.
Word games are a big thing here, in the land of words, disconnected from reality. We can argue literally anything. Black is white, up is down, desirable is undesirable, disease is health.
Thus we get a lot of bullshit.
Science is one great shovel for clearing that away.