Why is Global Chat so toxic? Psychology question.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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What's more reasonable, global chat being filled with edgy teens and awkwardly social people or racists?

It's just a simple occam's razor excercise.

Also comparing global chat with a physical market place is stupid, since it clearly isn't.
Context maters and a gaming chat already provides the context.(certain personallity types being abundant in certain settings)

I keep my dislike for racism for actual cases of racial hatred, not some first world problem where people online are baiting people with edgy comments to draw attention.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

What's more reasonable, global chat being filled with edgy teens and awkwardly social people or racists?

You know those aren't exclusive categories, right? Racism isn't some kind of bizarre, rare thing. It's utterly banal. It's everywhere.

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Boem wrote:

Also comparing global chat with a physical market place is stupid, since it clearly isn't.

Yes, if analogies are drawn between a thing, and another thing that the first thing isn't, that's stupid. Clearly they should only be drawn between the first thing, and itself.

Are you for real?

The only point of "comparison" was that they were examples of public spaces. If you want to substitute a different example in your head, feel free, but it doesn't change the point.

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Boem wrote:

I keep my dislike for racism for actual cases of racial hatred, not some first world problem where people online are baiting people with edgy comments to draw attention.

This is a videogame forum, the whole place is 'first world problems'.

And racism is not just "racial hatred". So much racism is more like racial disregard, or racial apathy, or racial looking the other way.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

And racism is not just "racial hatred". So much racism is more like racial disregard, or racial apathy, or racial looking the other way.

No it's not, it is exactly that, racial hatred.

I don't utilize the post modernists their racism definition because it makes everything racist and devalue's the concept for everybody.

Im a classical liberal so i don't even care if people say racist stuff as long as they don't infringe on the law by acting upon it.
I think it's stupid and ignorant and i will point that out, but everybody is free to do as they please as long as they don't infringe on the law.

I fully support shaming racist behavior in public spaces and making it culturally not acceptable, but i don't need law enforcement when a law isn't being broken.

As for your analogy, a game chat has no social agreed upon contract.(there is an enforced contract by GGG, but thats not the same)
Society in general does have one and game environment are the places where those contracts break down or allow adjustments.

A simple example is not physically beating somebody and entering a box-ring to do so. The social contract is broken, but it is agreed upon by the party's because they enter a special environment to do so.

Games are similar because people role-play and behave wildly different inside games or in spheres where identity is protected and hidden.

You not accepting that doesn't do anything to reality as obvious by places like global chat.

It's a gaming culture with its own rules and peculiaritie's which has given the world things like meme's and a bunch of new words to indicate specific social patterns like "cringe" etc.

"racial looking the other way" wtf is that dumb stuf even. Seriously talk about being "race minded" having to view everything true a race lens.
Ill be on the side that simply looks at people and doesn't care about somebody's color thank you very much.

inb4 ignoring other people their race and simply seeing them like fellow people is racism.

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

And racism is not just "racial hatred". So much racism is more like racial disregard, or racial apathy, or racial looking the other way.

No it's not, it is exactly that, racial hatred.

I don't utilize the post modernists their racism definition because it makes everything racist and devalue's the concept for everybody.

No, not everything is racist. Just the racism. Which is a good thing to remove.

I get it, I mean it’s a bit like bringing a blacklight to your hotel room - sometimes just not seeing problems in too much detail is easier. But as you say, you not accepting that racism is commonplace doesn’t change reality.

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Boem wrote:

I fully support shaming racist behavior in public spaces and making it culturally not acceptable, but i don't need law enforcement when a law isn't being broken.

Nobody is calling for law enforcement, are they? Making racism culturally unacceptable through social consequences is indeed the point here.

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Boem wrote:

As for your analogy, a game chat has no social agreed upon contract.(there is an enforced contract by GGG, but thats not the same)
Society in general does have one and game environment are the places where those contracts break down or allow adjustments.

We are not outside society. The people in global chat are real people, it’s real communication. There is no reason why it’s suddenly okay to be a prick.

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Boem wrote:

Games are similar because people role-play and behave wildly different inside games or in spheres where identity is protected and hidden.

They clearly do behave differently, yes. And they remain responsible for that behaviour.

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Boem wrote:

It's a gaming culture with its own rules

That was quick, a minute ago there were not even any social standards, now we have rules! It’s almost like this is all just knee-jerk defensiveness at the idea of being asked to exhibit basic respect in public social situations.

I was pointing to the difference between community accepted rules and rules enforced by GGG, if you hadn't noticed it, there is a difference.

No kneejerk reaction, just observation.

As for the "we are not outside of society", we very much are thats why gaming is sometimes referred to as "escapism".
People enjoy games because common society rules don't apply.

For example the guy with the bigger muscle mass doesn't get to bully around the nerd because he has a biological advantage that he can impose.
People very much enjoy social games because normal rules of interaction don't apply.

In this environment the nerd can be as much the bully as the jocky and in reverse they can both behave like saints.
The fact we don't know who exactly the other person is because their identity is hidden is all part of what makes social gaming interesting.

Are they responsible for their behavior, sure they are, but will they be punished to the same extend as behaving like a racist in public would incur penalty, no they won't.

These environments allow people to seek out extremes on both ends of the spectrum, joining them without keeping that in mind to me only seems like a problem for the people without the correct expectations.

As for the whole "you just don't see it argument", its a common fallacy so it doesn't interest me much. Circular reasoning is discarded exactly because it is circular reasoning.

Peace,

-Boem-

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Boem wrote:

Please take your dumb post-modernism to somebody that actually cares.

Oh, I don't post for your benefit. It is indeed abundantly clear that you don't care.

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Boem wrote:

Btw, if you wanna go down the post-modernist anti-racism route

TIL 'post-modern' is Boem-slang for 'things I don't quite understand but they seem ultra-PC and PC is so modern and what's more modern than modern oh yeah post-modern so I'll just call it that'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

Knock yerself out. Using Wikipedia cleverly is like having a university degree, except you don't have to pay for it (or study, or sit exams, or even turn up) and you can just skim it, maybe copy-paste some choice bits, and sound real smart. Basically you're letting others do the hard work for you. They do all the intellectual stuff, and you don't have to because dude, intellectuals, so dumb, amirite? Now that's SMART.

Good talk. I'm outs. Bestaluck with the horizon-expanding. ^_^

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Good talk. I'm outs. Bestaluck with the horizon-expanding. ^_^

Structural racism is a post modernist outgrow of the white privilege paper by peggy mcintosh.

No clue why you would need wikipedia for that or assume i haven't read it and discarded it as bunk psuedo science after doing so on obvious grounds that the paper conflates "in-group preference" with "racism" fundamentally.(easily verifiable by anybody interested in the subject)

then again i have no clue if Gus has actually read any of the fundamental texts about the kind of thinking he is advocating.

It never ceases to amaze me how a theory that originated to deconstruct grand naratives evolved into a theory proclaiming institutional wide racism that can't be located anywhere in the observable data.

The original paper about intersectionality was actually interesting and solid. To bad pseudo-science people got a hold of it to run amock with the theory though.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : guess i hit a soft spot with that post since you requested its removal.

Ironically doing exactly what i described in the post i am responding to now.

But yeah let's pretend i get my stuff from wikipedia to soothen your mind. Such rigid counter-arguments. also post-modernist anti racism =/= post modernist, the former is an outgrow of the later that resulted in things like "white study" currently thought in schools.

Ironically doing the opposite of the post modernist main goal.

*sigh* Looks like it didn't stop after all. I kinda wonder if either of you two is even a person of color yourself. Ah well.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Good talk. I'm outs. Bestaluck with the horizon-expanding. ^_^

The real irony here is that you in particular didn't even have a bone to pick here to begin with, since by your own admission you don't play this game anymore and hence you're never exposed to whatever toxicity global chat is purported to have. Fortunately Wolcen is effectively single-player, so you can feel enormously proud of the wonderful alternate community you're part of yet, curiously, seem to not spend as much time with.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Boem wrote:

Please take your dumb post-modernism to somebody that actually cares.

Oh, I don't post for your benefit. It is indeed abundantly clear that you don't care.

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Boem wrote:

People make racist jokes all the time without actually being "racist"

Literally every time you make a racist joke, you are being racist. That's why it's called a racist joke.

Perhaps you mean that they don't actually believe the attitudes expressed in the joke. And yes, that does happen. But as you say, the context matters. People are often 'playfully' rude in various ways around friends. In a group you know, you can manage expectations, and have a good understanding of how the things you say will be received.

But global chat is not a private party with friends, it's a public space. You're among strangers, and that means the social expectations are different. When you're in public, whether it's going to the shops, attending an evening class, or yes, playing a game with people you don't know, it's normal to adjust your behaviour to account for the fact that it needs to be acceptable to those outside your friend group. Insisting that you for some reason don't need to do that, that you can say whatever shitty things you like and take no responsibility, is not reasonable, it's antisocial. (And if the shitty behaviour is racist behaviour, then this insistence is thus also racist)

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Boem wrote:

And tell me what internalised racism is and how it has been scientifically proven, because as far as i know its a debunked paper that got dug up and now see's the light of day by some defunct wannabee's that can't prove their theory's.
Like much of the post-modern rhetoric.

Does this act - pretending you're so serious about facts that you issue bizarre challenges to "scientifically prove" anything anyone says, like a very normal person - usually work for you? I ask because saying things like "anybody with half a brain knows that a racist in global chat is in fact not racist" makes it entirely clear up front that you don't actually believe that's important.

have you been on the internet long ? any time there is a public space with sparse to no moderation, a lot of trolls appear who will say whatever just to trigger others and appear edgy.
like literally, youll be showered with '<x> did nothing wrong', earth is flat, conspiracy theories, 'kill all <y>', etc

the idea that all of those trolls actually believe what they write to incite angry responses, is rather unsound.

no doubt, there are definitely actual racists in there. but I'd say most trolls aren't of particular viewpoint. they just want to raise the most topics that will elicit most angry responses. so its usually politics/religion/race/sex-related. ie, the most inflammatory topics. it's easy and fast.

as opposed to debating game mechanics, which no matter how hard most trolls will try, only will work on the most dedicated gamers.

@ exile, It doesn't mater.

The theory is entirely cynical and self-sustaining. There is plenty of evidence that racism has gone down dramatically even studies questioning the black population in america how they feel about it that prove the contrary of the whole "institutional racism" narrative.

It's an anti-science movement so they don't care about fact based evidence, they talk about things like "the lived experience" and "the subconcious".

I mean the originating paper literally calls it "unpacking the invisible knapsack".

So its already assumed it cannot be quantified or scientifically tested.

It's bassicaly a pile-on of flawed assumptions mixed in with bunk terminology.

The racism is everywhere bro, don't you know? Hidden in plain sight you just have to look for it, because thats how you reduce racism. By making people more aware about race differences and having them focus on the differences rather then the things we hold in common.

[Disclaimer : all of this was provided to you by rigorous wikipedia study!]

Peace,

-Boem-