As it turns out, the majority of folks are just people trying to get by, and if you’re nice enough to them, they’ll be nice enough to you.
The problem with most terminally online people is that their social lives ended when they left school, which is when the population of arseholes is at its highest. Everybody is trying to impress everybody else, even at the cost of others.
But a lot of those same people tend to chill off as they mature into adults and become less self-centred. There are still absolutely arsehole adults, but nowhere near as many as the terminally online expect there to be.
Punishment probably isn’t the best way to improve things. Even under your view of things, it should be clear that punishment does more to make the punisher feel good than actually solve problems.
I sympathize with your pain but also holy fuck I hope you never get your way. I’ve seen what happens when people who think like you get power, they’re brutally abusive.
Believe it or not, most people will stop doing things if they are convinced that it isn’t in their self interest. The idea that trauma is effective at getting people to stop doing something is neither accurate or acceptable. Trauma could easily make some people lash out and cause even more damage. If there’s something we shouldn’t tolerate, it’s people who want to inflict unnecessary and unproductive harm on other people. It probably didn’t make you less of a threat.
You need help, and not just therapy. You would benefit from real life friends and positive interactions with people who treat you as an equal. Residential treatment might be a good idea if you haven’t done it before. Treatment will only work if you work with it. It’s assistance, not having the problem solved for you. You need to do some of the lifting.
You have my attention. A charged response like that deserves a moment of consideration at the Very least.
What experience or experiences brought you to this opinion?
i speak having come from a broken home, destroyed by alcohol. unwanted by my mother and never set eyes on my dad, abused physically and emotionally by said mother as she took her failures out on me…what i mean by that, is…I’ve been in the dark places and I still frequent dark thoughts. i was robbed of justice in a world that owes me nothing…I’ve felt my share of rage and misplaced entitlement. So when i ask you, what’s up? please do not think i am being dismissive nor combative. i genuinely would like to hear about ‘it’
What do you count as terminally online? I don’t differenciate between online and offline friends and spend lots of times talking or chatting to people online (as I spend time doing stuff with people irl). But I wouldn’t say that my or this social life is bad.
I would classify “terminally online” as almost exclusively interacting with people online with little to no IRL at all. A bit part of that would also be that the people you interact with are people you’ve never seen.
I’ll also add another major sign is if you don’t know their irl names. I have close friends who I met over the pandemic who live far away, but we knew each other by name and hear each other’s voices. That’s a big thing. Your Twitter/tumblr mutuals or people you regularly interact with on Reddit/Lemmy are people that terminally online people will think of as friends rather than “no we’ve never met irl but we play d&d together or have a book club over discord”.
The other big thing is whether or not you go to irl events. Just literally being somewhere that’s neither home nor work/school helps so much.
no we’ve never met irl but we play d&d together or have a book club over discord
To be fair, DnD is one of those things I would never ever even consider playing over discord unless I considered you a very good friend, and even then it’s begrudgingly. Discord dnd sucks balls.
Being honest doesn’t mean telegraphing every impulse to the surface and acting on it. A toddler does that and it’s considered bratty, a behavior to be corrected.
Being IRL means having immediate feedback on our actions. No extended diatribes using cut outs of their speech. No linking to articles to convince a person. It becomes a test of the social abilities of each individual and how well they can listen and speak. It flexes different skills than reading and writing.
Try to buy from a salesman in person vs online to see the difference. IRL is vastly different from online. IRL also has the added effect of “fuck around, find out” with no down time. If you say something distasteful then you learn about it before you’re done talking by the expressions and reactions of those around you. Acting like you have been is a quick ticket to lonersville, which is probably why you’re so angry at the idea that IRL is different from online. Get out and talk to strangers. See how they react to your need to interrupt, dissect, and “win” when they werent arguing. People want to share information, not stand atop some invisible social pyramid.
I’d call people that who lost contact with reality. So if something you believe could be immediately proven wrong by just stepping outside for a while, you are terminally online.
For example the 4chan theory of: “80 % of women date only 20 % of ultra chad men”. There are people who actually believe this.
Dating apps were mainstream long before 4chan existed, although not as dominant. The idea that all of the women go for the top tier of men gained prominence with an analysis posted on the old OKCupid of their user behavior, and the particular 80/20 split was just pulled out of somewhere, likely borrowed from the Pareto Principle. In any case, 4chan may have pathologized it, but certainly did not originate the notion.
My definition is more or less the same as the one @ParsnipWitch offered…
The terminally online are thise who have little to no contact with reality. They are the shut-ins and the NEETs of this world. Those that would fully believe in conspiracies about life which could be disproven simply by interacting with others IRL.
What does that look like to you? People are talking to you right now. I know that no one has said “you are a person” but what specifically do you want?
Unless you were literally raised by wolves this is some self aggrandizing incel bullshit.
Coming up with an theory of the world that confirms that you are right and everyone else is terrible is lazy. I don’t think you’ve ever actually cared about anyone but yourself.
Do you mean murder literally? Like you think if anyone saw you they would literally stab you with any sharp object near by? Or are you taking about a social pressure and systematic oppression that wears you down slowly over time?
Furthermore, people compulsively fight and kill anyone who isn’t exactly like them
Citation needed. How is there any diversity at all in the world? Not everyone is exactly the same.
The only people who don’t think any person is representative of the whole of humanity are white supremacists.
A sample size of one or a few is never totally representative of billions. Do you think everyone in the world is exactly like Greta Thunberg? People have a huge variety of values and personalities, you can’t boil everyone down to a charcuterie of the particular people you grew up with.
You’re taking about all of humanity, not just people who have committed genocide. Not everyone on earth has committed genocide.
My sample size is in the thousands - more than that if you include everyone who has participated in a genocide. Even more if you include every bigot.
Are you only including bad people in your sample? Obviously that would end up skewing the sample towards people being bad. Have you heard of the term representative sample in statistics? That’s how I’m using it.
The problem - confirmed by my therapists - is that there were exactly zero samples of anyone contrasting.
I’m sorry you haven’t met any non terrible people. I’ve met plenty. I hope you can meet some more people to change that.
You’re talking at me, lying to me and trying to dictate reality to me.
Let’s say someone actually wanted to help you. Let’s say they truly believed that going outside and interacting with people in person would do you good. How should such a person express their feelings and try to help while acknowledging you, respecting your humanity, and treating you as of equal value as a human?
Happiness is not the goal - it’s the failure state. Happiness means I’ve become an abusive monster, like you.
That’s a wild take man. Like what are you talking about? Can you tell me exactly what I’ve done to be an “abusive monster”? Could you elaborate on how happiness is only the result of being abusive?
I’m going to disagree with you. I have found it takes less to make me happy as I get older. Moreover, my happiest moments are those where others are happy. I take no pleasure in harming others and I don’t believe that’s a unique perspective.
I think your coping mechanisms have made your life more difficult.
Sorry, bud - kind people don’t say that. Yes, I’ve been walked all over by assholes, and I’ve been taken advantage of more times than I can count. I’ve been bullied and abused because of my body, and I’ve been made to feel like I don’t deserve to share the same planet with some people, but I’ve also met some amazing people who accept me and love me.
The whole point of being kind is to be vulnerable, and to help people earnestly and without judgement. Why would I give a shit that some asshole got a leg up because of my effort, or felt bigger by making me feel smaller? If I help 100 jerks and one good person, at the end of the day, I helped a good person, and that makes my whole day, regardless of anything else. That’s how you find the good people in the world, and build your social circle with people who care for you.
Clearly you’ve given up hope, and need to reject the idea of other people people being happy, and surrounded by love in order to not feel like you made a mistake in doing so. Nobody’s trying to kill me, nor are they trying to kill you - people are pretty good at that, as you pointed out; when they actually want to, they don’t try to, they just do. I’ve gotten death threats before, and lo and behold they were just threats. Had anyone gotten a gun and actually came after me with it, I’d be dead. You would be too, if they were serious about their supposed effort to kill you.
I’m in a loving marriage, with friends and what’s left of my family after I cut out the bad parts. They all support me and want me to be happy. We hang out and help one another, and it’s been years since I even met someone who I remember treating me poorly, because once you have that support network you don’t even care about those kinds of people. You end up just seeing them for what they are instead - just normal people who never learned to interact with others; pity them. You’ve still got a good chance to find your friend group. Don’t throw that chance away by just assuming such lives don’t exist - they absolutely do.
Alright, you’ve got people trying to kill you that’s terrible. You’ve definitely got it worse than I ever did, and you’re justified in thinking everyone’s out to get you. So start fresh. My mom never tried to kill me, but she did try to forcibly denounce my citizenship so I’d be utterly reliant upon her, so I moved across the country and lived for a few years in a closet of a bedroom owned by some lady I found on craigslist.
It sucked, and I had pretty much no money, but in about 2 years I managed to get back on my feet. I was even able to move back to my hometown, since I didn’t want to let my mom force me to live away from where I wanted to be. I made a new social group, and let some people from the previous group back in once I assessed whether they had my best interests in mind. I’m not saying starting fresh would be easy - it’s certainly the hardest thing I’ve ever done - but it sounds like you’ve got people actively hunting you down, so if they’re as incompetent at murder as you say they are, they should have an even harder time killing you with a thousand miles between you.
I’m not telling you about my life to brag - I’m actively encouraging you to find those same joys yourself. That’s what it looks like when someone encourages you - they tell you about how good your life can be if you regain hope.
You is batshit crazy. I don’t want to dominate you but I definitely pity you. I wish I could travel back in time and just set up traps to trip and pants everyone who was ever unkind to you. I can’t do that though, but I hope you get it all figured out one day.
You need to allow positive influences into your life. Hell, some decent negative influences might serve you better than the version of reality you’ve made for yourself here.
And if everyone is so evil and hellbent on dominating you, why do feel the need to interact with them on social media? It’s like you can’t commit to the isolation, which is a good thing because maybe at some point something positive will come your way.
I don’t know man. I’m not dealing with the madness that you are so I know there’s probably nothing I can say to help you.
I hope you can manage to help yourself some day though. Your abusers poisoned your brain, and then you’ve continued to apply that poison up to the place you’re in now.
Sorry, bud. I’ve told you all I can. At this point, your life is in your hands. Not the hands of those who want to hurt you, not the hands of those who want to help you, but can’t because of your rejection of the world. Just yours. I hope you make the right choice in the end. You deserve to be loved - and you will be, if you let it in. Please at least remember that much.
Like… call the police idfk. This violence and abuse is foreign to me, its not most people’s experiences and you’re in a deeply dangerous situation. You get away from those people, and actually the majority of people are great.
I dont have a social circle, I talk to random people online when I feel like I wanna be social. I was just at the hardware store, looking like queer me, and the cashier was clearly a strong middle-aged white guy. He might politically want me dead. But he was nice enough. I didnt get the fear response activation vibe that he could murder me or wanted to. My name is Franzia, and it is a female name, I’m not a guy.
No one owes you a social circle, so no one can deny it to you. Social connections are forged, not given. How can people you’ve never met lie about you? They can’t, by definition. There is absolutely no possibility that you’ve met every person even within your community, much less the world, in order to be able to make that assertion. It sounds like, you’re abusive, and blame it on your prior trauma, and when people don’t accept being abused by you, you claim that they’re liars or narcissists. Nearly everyone has had trauma in their life, many people have had trauma worse than can be imagined without experiencing it, and yet, they don’t become violently angry anti-social assholes.
Your response to trauma is a choice, and you have made a choice that prevents ever healing and creates further trauma.
It sounds like, you’re abusive, and blame it on your prior trauma, and when people don’t accept being abused by you, you claim that they’re liars or narcissists.
I’ve had a friend like that. It was hard cutting her off, but in the end our whole social circle agreed that was the right thing to do after enduring so much of her abuse over the years. She was crazy manipulative and always the victim, just like this dude.
There is no such thing as “earning” a social connection. You don’t deserve them, you cannot earn them or buy them or trade them. Again, you forge them. They are a product of mutual vulnerability and compatibility.
I made my friends from those who others rejected, and it made all of us stronger for it. I specifically seek out those in need and offer myself to them, and those who do not fit in other social circles. None of my friends are like me, we are all very different, with very different lifestyles and goals, and we do not even agree on basic things, yet because we have forged bonds together, no amount of difference can break us apart.
You assert many intentions to me, which is your right, however, it’s no surprise why you lack bonds when you treat people such and view the world through a warped, transactional point of view. There’s no brownie points in the real world, behaving like a human does not entitle you to friends. It is the bare minimum standard of mutual humanity. You must go farther than that.
Why do you assume the entire world is telling lies about you? Why do you care what other people say about you? Where are you that you genuinely think most people want to murder and dominate you, and what attempts have you made to relocate to somewhere more amenable to you? Do you find beauty in nature? Do you frequently engage with nature? How many social media accounts do you have? When was the last time you went to a social event by yourself where you know absolutely no one? How much time per day do you spend on self improvement, be it mental or physical? What are your goals for the immediate future? And further out?
its coming from being treated unjustly my entire life
That’s not something in your control. What is in your control is whether you add to it, including by spreading bad vibes by being chronically miserable. Don’t be a slave to your past.
They think failure to be cruel to me proves that they are “weak” and unworthy of life.
If everyone, ever, looks like a narcissist to you then one of two things are true: a) You’re one yourself and are literally begging for that behaviour to be kept in check, or, b) you’re jaded beyond measure. Is there not a single person that doesn’t give you the creeps? You included, btw.
Is English not your first language? Because that’s not written correctly. The first clause does not relate to the second.
It isn’t, but yes it is written correctly. But the Epictetus translation I paraphrased it from is better, I agree:
As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world.
What the fuck is this bullshit? And what makes you think you don’t deserve the punishment?
You don’t deserve the reaction you’re trying to coax out of me. You’re trying to elicit it so that you can be reinforced in your beliefs, so that you can continue to say “see, it’s true, everybody hates me, everyone is an enemy”. But no amount of flailing will make me hate you. Best I can do is tickle you into submission, sorry.
And, yes, my intent here is to dominate and my methods are manipulative. What’s the motive, though?
You do not know anyone’s nature but your own. You cannot assume anyone’s behavior except your own. By definition, you are entirely wrong, because your entire conception is based upon assumptions about people you’ve never met and likely never will. You are definitively the narcissist in this thread, making everything about you. You need to pull the tapeworm out of your ass.
No, I’m not. I’m trying to teach you about your own nature, so you can correct it.
I know my nature thank you very much. And what do you mean with “correction”? Do you want me to be an asshole? You also don’t need to worry about me: I’m peaceful, not harmless. In fact, you can’t really be peaceful if you’re harmless, in that we agree I think.
The same motive all narcissists have - you’re trying to “prove” your “better” than I am to hide from your own insecurity. You’re trying to hide some secret shame from others - and you’re willing do anything, including kill, to do so.
That’s not a narcissistic motive. Narcissists feel shame when they, inadvertently, do something nice same as others feel shame when they inadvertently hurt. Their moral instincts are flipped and their function in society is to keep the rest on our toes. They’re the empty space directly around the mark so the mark is easier to see. Their purpose in life is to be a warning example. In that way they serve good.
Playing over fears is a thing every human is prone to, no matter the neurological makeup. It’s either a function of pride, to which the antidote is humility, or urgency/stress, to which the antidote is taking your time, avoiding snap judgements… or it’s foolhardiness. Courage, OTOH, is not playing over but actually overcoming fear, usually out of wisdom, the queen of the virtues, able to bring opposing instincts into mutually agreeable concord. That’s adaptation without the “mal-” in front.
And I don’t care about whatever shame the assholes put into you. Keep it to yourself, you deserve kindness regardless. The question is whether you’re willing to look beyond it and become receptive to kindness, or whether you carry it around as a shield because giving it up would invoke the ire of people you are, as I gather, no longer under the direct thumb of.
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I think you need to talk to someone and try and gain a new perspective. People aren’t inherently mean, and generally aren’t thinking about much other than themselves. People do “chill” as they get older and realize a lot of things really don’t matter in the long run.
Go find a team sport or a hobby with other like-minded people and focus on building a community of friendship and support. Your life is too short to not spend it being happy.
I will not believe anything else - especially if a lying human being sells it.
The way that everyone else seems to be getting along normally in their lives, maybe even having fun reading through this thread, while you’re getting angry and “shouting” reminded me of a line from The Count of Monte Cristo, where the count is trying to persuade a similarly unhappy person of the existence of a god.
‘No,’ said Caderousse. ‘No, I do not repent. There is no God, there is no Providence. There is only chance.’
‘There is both Providence and God,’ said Monte Cristo. ‘The proof is that you are lying there, desperate, denying God, and I am standing before you, rich, happy, healthy and safe, clasping my hands before the God in whom you try not to believe and in whom, even so, you do believe in the depths of your heart.’
Which is not to say that it’s a good argument; it’s actually pretty bad.
“Look at how fortunate I am to believe in my thing, and how unfortunate you are to believe in yours” when their beliefs are totally incidental.
But rereading it made me think about how little it matters about whose perspective is “correct” about something like that. To put it simply, there are plenty of “good people” in the world and there’s also plenty of “bad people”. Whether or not you choose to see good or bad is (in large part) up to you. Neither way is “right” or “wrong”.
I think you would be happier if you tried to look for good instead of bad, but as you’ve stated, that’s not a goal of yours. I don’t think that you really have any more “moral integrity” than the other side though. While I’m not asking you to abandon your point of view, I think you should realize that there is a reason why your viewpoint is not very popular; it seems that you’ve had negative experiences that have caused you to become cynical about human nature but here’s a rough analysis of the numbers: the fact that most people are not that cynical is evidence that most people don’t have it that bad. People aren’t wrong to believe in good human nature when that’s what their experiences reflect. They’re coming to conclusions in the same way you are, just the other way around.
If your experiences have been so negative, that’s an alright thing to base your views on. But I hope that you find more positive experiences in the future that might change your mind. You probably won’t find it on Lemmy.
I sincerely wish I understood how someone can get to your point. I wish I could see this as some elaborate troll, but I can’t help but see this as something so much darker. I won’t recommend anything to you, as it’s pretty clear any effort to help is seen as an insult, at best. Just know that there are genuinely people who see reactions like this and wish they could help.
What a fucking pant load. You’re so full of shit, it stinks
Bullshit. The majority of people want to dominate everyone not in their immediate social circle. Go look up social dominance theory - it will tell you everything you need to know about how people really behave.
I’m basing this on my life’s experience, and of those around me. That might not match your’s but what I say is true to me.
I’m not going to say you’re wrong. As long as inequalities exist between people, there will always be in-groups and out-groups of people. Humanity is tribal, and likely always will be.
But most people don’t spend their waking moments trying to enforce these tribalisms. Arseholes definitely do, but that’s not the majority of people.
And what magical fucking force forces people to “chill”?
Biology.
The human brain doesn’t come pre-built. There are many parts that develop at different rates, with the pre-cortex (the “rational” part of your brain) still developing even into your mid-20s.
During your adolescence this process is nowhere near complete, thus adolescents are generally severely lacking in the long-term judgement and planning department. They are more likely to be impulsive, to jump on the bandwagon of peer pressure without thinking through the consequences.
As they get older, most people become generally better at thinking things through. Less likely to act on impulse, and more likely to listen to others. They learn about viewpoints way outside their own and start to become less self-absorbed. At least that’s my experience of growing around my peers.
…
They don’t. Because that magic doesn’t fucking exist. Only the trauma of punishment makes people stop abusing others. Without the threat of permanent injury on themselves, people will always try to permanently injure others as a means to dominate and control - at least for the sake of their social groups. That desperate need to dominate and control is what makes them human.
You are spreading self-aggrandizing lies; spreading an infection that will only cause more people to get more “uppity” and beat more innocent people to death. Stop lying about people and apologizing for their bloodlust. People are murderers, hunters for the only “game” still left - forcibly isolated human beings.
I wasted my entire life being kind to people, only to mock me for being so stupid, so gullible enough to fall for the con that they would be nice back. They beat me like they were mining for ore, driving blow after blow into my skull until it was permanently disfigured, and then they broke every bone in my limbs until they didn’t work anymore.
Don’t give me this horseshit about how people “chill out” - I did not get almost murdered over fifteen years by people who would simply magically stop being murderous because some timer ran out. No, those motherfuckers murdered as if it was a fucking religious mandate and they are the same type of assholes who tried to take over the U.S. on January 6th.
No one is ever going to acknowledge my humanity, no matter how kind I am, or what I do. I will always be seen as a “less than” because the ENTIRE human race are malignant narcissists - and there is an entire organization of psychologists and sociologists who reject the pro-human narrative and know exactly how evil people really are. Quit apologizing for rapists and murderers.
Jesus christ you went off the deep end quick, I am not responding to all of that…
I don’t know what kind of life you’ve experienced, but you’ve got some deep-seated traumas up in that head of yours that you need to figure out.
Not only that, but you’ve seemingly driven yourself into an almost schizophrenic delusion that everybody is after you, looking for a chance to tear you down in whatever way they can. That’s just not the case.
If your tendency is to explode on anyone who disagrees about your worldview, to compare them to murderers, then I’m afraid you might just be the problem in your lack of a social life - I’ll leave you with this:
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole” - Raylan Givens, Justified
you’ve seemingly driven yourself into an almost schizophrenic delusion that everybody is after you
It’s not almost, they sound exactly like my old classmate who unfortunately did spiral down the path of paranoid schizophrenia. Nobody here is going to change their mind, despite your best intentions. Even professionals don’t have much better luck.
I might be late to the discussion, but it seems that your life has been hard and full of abuse. A lot of people here answered your comments with compassion, but your replies were almost always aggressive. It’s ok to feel hatred towards your abusers, but the fact that you seem to immediately hate people that try to peacefully communicate with you is, objectively, very wrong. Even if all the abusers in the world died tomorrow, would you be happy?
I don’t necessarily agree with your aggressive tone but I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying, this from someone who was treated like complete shit as a young adult, shit enough to leave me with trauma and a really bad fear of people.
I’ve seen what the worst side of people while being a soft kind and caring person. Anyone who believes what the other person said is pretty naive.
As it turns out, the majority of folks are just people trying to get by, and if you’re nice enough to them, they’ll be nice enough to you.
The problem with most terminally online people is that their social lives ended when they left school, which is when the population of arseholes is at its highest. Everybody is trying to impress everybody else, even at the cost of others.
But a lot of those same people tend to chill off as they mature into adults and become less self-centred. There are still absolutely arsehole adults, but nowhere near as many as the terminally online expect there to be.
I’ve observed this after I got into a college!
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Dude, see a therapist or something man.
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I spy with my little eye: A common denominator! You!
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Bro really took a comment by a guy named Willy Wanker 69, who’s trying to make a joke, seriously
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Punishment probably isn’t the best way to improve things. Even under your view of things, it should be clear that punishment does more to make the punisher feel good than actually solve problems.
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Sounds awfully fascist
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I don’t know you, why should I care enough about you to have “fascistic behaviour” towards you?
“You get what you fucking deserve!”
I sympathize with your pain but also holy fuck I hope you never get your way. I’ve seen what happens when people who think like you get power, they’re brutally abusive.
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Believe it or not, most people will stop doing things if they are convinced that it isn’t in their self interest. The idea that trauma is effective at getting people to stop doing something is neither accurate or acceptable. Trauma could easily make some people lash out and cause even more damage. If there’s something we shouldn’t tolerate, it’s people who want to inflict unnecessary and unproductive harm on other people. It probably didn’t make you less of a threat.
You need help, and not just therapy. You would benefit from real life friends and positive interactions with people who treat you as an equal. Residential treatment might be a good idea if you haven’t done it before. Treatment will only work if you work with it. It’s assistance, not having the problem solved for you. You need to do some of the lifting.
You have my attention. A charged response like that deserves a moment of consideration at the Very least.
What experience or experiences brought you to this opinion?
i speak having come from a broken home, destroyed by alcohol. unwanted by my mother and never set eyes on my dad, abused physically and emotionally by said mother as she took her failures out on me…what i mean by that, is…I’ve been in the dark places and I still frequent dark thoughts. i was robbed of justice in a world that owes me nothing…I’ve felt my share of rage and misplaced entitlement. So when i ask you, what’s up? please do not think i am being dismissive nor combative. i genuinely would like to hear about ‘it’
What about people who use browsers instead of terminals?
Well fuck, you got me there… In one sentence you’ve just given everyone on 4Chan the ability to touch grass.
What do you count as terminally online? I don’t differenciate between online and offline friends and spend lots of times talking or chatting to people online (as I spend time doing stuff with people irl). But I wouldn’t say that my or this social life is bad.
I would classify “terminally online” as almost exclusively interacting with people online with little to no IRL at all. A bit part of that would also be that the people you interact with are people you’ve never seen.
I’ll also add another major sign is if you don’t know their irl names. I have close friends who I met over the pandemic who live far away, but we knew each other by name and hear each other’s voices. That’s a big thing. Your Twitter/tumblr mutuals or people you regularly interact with on Reddit/Lemmy are people that terminally online people will think of as friends rather than “no we’ve never met irl but we play d&d together or have a book club over discord”.
The other big thing is whether or not you go to irl events. Just literally being somewhere that’s neither home nor work/school helps so much.
To be fair, DnD is one of those things I would never ever even consider playing over discord unless I considered you a very good friend, and even then it’s begrudgingly. Discord dnd sucks balls.
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Being honest doesn’t mean telegraphing every impulse to the surface and acting on it. A toddler does that and it’s considered bratty, a behavior to be corrected.
Being IRL means having immediate feedback on our actions. No extended diatribes using cut outs of their speech. No linking to articles to convince a person. It becomes a test of the social abilities of each individual and how well they can listen and speak. It flexes different skills than reading and writing.
Try to buy from a salesman in person vs online to see the difference. IRL is vastly different from online. IRL also has the added effect of “fuck around, find out” with no down time. If you say something distasteful then you learn about it before you’re done talking by the expressions and reactions of those around you. Acting like you have been is a quick ticket to lonersville, which is probably why you’re so angry at the idea that IRL is different from online. Get out and talk to strangers. See how they react to your need to interrupt, dissect, and “win” when they werent arguing. People want to share information, not stand atop some invisible social pyramid.
I’d call people that who lost contact with reality. So if something you believe could be immediately proven wrong by just stepping outside for a while, you are terminally online.
For example the 4chan theory of: “80 % of women date only 20 % of ultra chad men”. There are people who actually believe this.
That theory is used for dating apps, not for dating in general
Nah, unless Match.com was popular with 4chan chuds, that theory was overwhelmingly popular on 4chan way, WAY before dating apps were mainstream.
Dating apps were mainstream long before 4chan existed, although not as dominant. The idea that all of the women go for the top tier of men gained prominence with an analysis posted on the old OKCupid of their user behavior, and the particular 80/20 split was just pulled out of somewhere, likely borrowed from the Pareto Principle. In any case, 4chan may have pathologized it, but certainly did not originate the notion.
My definition is more or less the same as the one @ParsnipWitch offered…
The terminally online are thise who have little to no contact with reality. They are the shut-ins and the NEETs of this world. Those that would fully believe in conspiracies about life which could be disproven simply by interacting with others IRL.
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If this is how you act around other people … I don’t think the problem is other people.
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Why are you acting like these people here replying are your direct abusers? We don’t even know you and you are accusing us of trying to murder you.
Do you not see how insane these words you are saying are?
I’m sorry your life has been hard and seemingly full of abuse, but we are not those abusers.
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I’m just going to block you. That way we can both live in peace. Have a nice life
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Nobody here abused you and yet you still went on a 4-5 paragraph rant about how shitty they are. You’re the problem.
What does that look like to you? People are talking to you right now. I know that no one has said “you are a person” but what specifically do you want?
Unless you were literally raised by wolves this is some self aggrandizing incel bullshit.
Coming up with an theory of the world that confirms that you are right and everyone else is terrible is lazy. I don’t think you’ve ever actually cared about anyone but yourself.
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I’m sorry. Have you considered that they are perhaps not representative of the whole of humanity?
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This person did NOT go outside today
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Do you mean murder literally? Like you think if anyone saw you they would literally stab you with any sharp object near by? Or are you taking about a social pressure and systematic oppression that wears you down slowly over time?
No wonder, if you act the same in real life like you do in this comment section.
Citation needed. How is there any diversity at all in the world? Not everyone is exactly the same.
A sample size of one or a few is never totally representative of billions. Do you think everyone in the world is exactly like Greta Thunberg? People have a huge variety of values and personalities, you can’t boil everyone down to a charcuterie of the particular people you grew up with.
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You’re taking about all of humanity, not just people who have committed genocide. Not everyone on earth has committed genocide.
Are you only including bad people in your sample? Obviously that would end up skewing the sample towards people being bad. Have you heard of the term representative sample in statistics? That’s how I’m using it.
I’m sorry you haven’t met any non terrible people. I’ve met plenty. I hope you can meet some more people to change that.
Let’s say someone actually wanted to help you. Let’s say they truly believed that going outside and interacting with people in person would do you good. How should such a person express their feelings and try to help while acknowledging you, respecting your humanity, and treating you as of equal value as a human?
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I would like to act like such a person. How would I do that? (I do want to help you, but I don’t think you would believe me)
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Thank you. But I don’t feel the urge to commit suicide. I don’t think the hypothetical person would either.
How would you like me to talk to you?
Are you happy?
It seems like you are lashing out randomly and have a world view that everything is orchestrated to harm you.
You believe that people have killed themselves to make your life worse? I don’t want to sound mean, but you aren’t the only person.
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That’s a wild take man. Like what are you talking about? Can you tell me exactly what I’ve done to be an “abusive monster”? Could you elaborate on how happiness is only the result of being abusive?
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I’m going to disagree with you. I have found it takes less to make me happy as I get older. Moreover, my happiest moments are those where others are happy. I take no pleasure in harming others and I don’t believe that’s a unique perspective.
I think your coping mechanisms have made your life more difficult.
Sorry, bud - kind people don’t say that. Yes, I’ve been walked all over by assholes, and I’ve been taken advantage of more times than I can count. I’ve been bullied and abused because of my body, and I’ve been made to feel like I don’t deserve to share the same planet with some people, but I’ve also met some amazing people who accept me and love me.
The whole point of being kind is to be vulnerable, and to help people earnestly and without judgement. Why would I give a shit that some asshole got a leg up because of my effort, or felt bigger by making me feel smaller? If I help 100 jerks and one good person, at the end of the day, I helped a good person, and that makes my whole day, regardless of anything else. That’s how you find the good people in the world, and build your social circle with people who care for you.
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Clearly you’ve given up hope, and need to reject the idea of other people people being happy, and surrounded by love in order to not feel like you made a mistake in doing so. Nobody’s trying to kill me, nor are they trying to kill you - people are pretty good at that, as you pointed out; when they actually want to, they don’t try to, they just do. I’ve gotten death threats before, and lo and behold they were just threats. Had anyone gotten a gun and actually came after me with it, I’d be dead. You would be too, if they were serious about their supposed effort to kill you.
I’m in a loving marriage, with friends and what’s left of my family after I cut out the bad parts. They all support me and want me to be happy. We hang out and help one another, and it’s been years since I even met someone who I remember treating me poorly, because once you have that support network you don’t even care about those kinds of people. You end up just seeing them for what they are instead - just normal people who never learned to interact with others; pity them. You’ve still got a good chance to find your friend group. Don’t throw that chance away by just assuming such lives don’t exist - they absolutely do.
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Alright, you’ve got people trying to kill you that’s terrible. You’ve definitely got it worse than I ever did, and you’re justified in thinking everyone’s out to get you. So start fresh. My mom never tried to kill me, but she did try to forcibly denounce my citizenship so I’d be utterly reliant upon her, so I moved across the country and lived for a few years in a closet of a bedroom owned by some lady I found on craigslist.
It sucked, and I had pretty much no money, but in about 2 years I managed to get back on my feet. I was even able to move back to my hometown, since I didn’t want to let my mom force me to live away from where I wanted to be. I made a new social group, and let some people from the previous group back in once I assessed whether they had my best interests in mind. I’m not saying starting fresh would be easy - it’s certainly the hardest thing I’ve ever done - but it sounds like you’ve got people actively hunting you down, so if they’re as incompetent at murder as you say they are, they should have an even harder time killing you with a thousand miles between you.
I’m not telling you about my life to brag - I’m actively encouraging you to find those same joys yourself. That’s what it looks like when someone encourages you - they tell you about how good your life can be if you regain hope.
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You is batshit crazy. I don’t want to dominate you but I definitely pity you. I wish I could travel back in time and just set up traps to trip and pants everyone who was ever unkind to you. I can’t do that though, but I hope you get it all figured out one day.
You need to allow positive influences into your life. Hell, some decent negative influences might serve you better than the version of reality you’ve made for yourself here.
And if everyone is so evil and hellbent on dominating you, why do feel the need to interact with them on social media? It’s like you can’t commit to the isolation, which is a good thing because maybe at some point something positive will come your way.
I don’t know man. I’m not dealing with the madness that you are so I know there’s probably nothing I can say to help you.
I hope you can manage to help yourself some day though. Your abusers poisoned your brain, and then you’ve continued to apply that poison up to the place you’re in now.
I hope you get better. I really do.
Take care fellow human.
Sorry, bud. I’ve told you all I can. At this point, your life is in your hands. Not the hands of those who want to hurt you, not the hands of those who want to help you, but can’t because of your rejection of the world. Just yours. I hope you make the right choice in the end. You deserve to be loved - and you will be, if you let it in. Please at least remember that much.
Like… call the police idfk. This violence and abuse is foreign to me, its not most people’s experiences and you’re in a deeply dangerous situation. You get away from those people, and actually the majority of people are great.
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I don’t believe you.
I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. This is… not a shared experience.
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I dont have a social circle, I talk to random people online when I feel like I wanna be social. I was just at the hardware store, looking like queer me, and the cashier was clearly a strong middle-aged white guy. He might politically want me dead. But he was nice enough. I didnt get the fear response activation vibe that he could murder me or wanted to. My name is Franzia, and it is a female name, I’m not a guy.
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You mean like the majority of people?
Not having someone you can rely on is the exception, not the rule.
It is a great tool to perpetuate healthy human offspring.
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No one owes you a social circle, so no one can deny it to you. Social connections are forged, not given. How can people you’ve never met lie about you? They can’t, by definition. There is absolutely no possibility that you’ve met every person even within your community, much less the world, in order to be able to make that assertion. It sounds like, you’re abusive, and blame it on your prior trauma, and when people don’t accept being abused by you, you claim that they’re liars or narcissists. Nearly everyone has had trauma in their life, many people have had trauma worse than can be imagined without experiencing it, and yet, they don’t become violently angry anti-social assholes.
Your response to trauma is a choice, and you have made a choice that prevents ever healing and creates further trauma.
I’ve had a friend like that. It was hard cutting her off, but in the end our whole social circle agreed that was the right thing to do after enduring so much of her abuse over the years. She was crazy manipulative and always the victim, just like this dude.
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There is no such thing as “earning” a social connection. You don’t deserve them, you cannot earn them or buy them or trade them. Again, you forge them. They are a product of mutual vulnerability and compatibility.
I made my friends from those who others rejected, and it made all of us stronger for it. I specifically seek out those in need and offer myself to them, and those who do not fit in other social circles. None of my friends are like me, we are all very different, with very different lifestyles and goals, and we do not even agree on basic things, yet because we have forged bonds together, no amount of difference can break us apart.
You assert many intentions to me, which is your right, however, it’s no surprise why you lack bonds when you treat people such and view the world through a warped, transactional point of view. There’s no brownie points in the real world, behaving like a human does not entitle you to friends. It is the bare minimum standard of mutual humanity. You must go farther than that.
Why do you assume the entire world is telling lies about you? Why do you care what other people say about you? Where are you that you genuinely think most people want to murder and dominate you, and what attempts have you made to relocate to somewhere more amenable to you? Do you find beauty in nature? Do you frequently engage with nature? How many social media accounts do you have? When was the last time you went to a social event by yourself where you know absolutely no one? How much time per day do you spend on self improvement, be it mental or physical? What are your goals for the immediate future? And further out?
Cheers, my angry friend.
I don’t say this often, but visit a Buddhist monastery.
…and figure out where all that anger is coming from.
As a target is not set up to miss it so the nature of evil does not exist in the world.
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That’s not something in your control. What is in your control is whether you add to it, including by spreading bad vibes by being chronically miserable. Don’t be a slave to your past.
If everyone, ever, looks like a narcissist to you then one of two things are true: a) You’re one yourself and are literally begging for that behaviour to be kept in check, or, b) you’re jaded beyond measure. Is there not a single person that doesn’t give you the creeps? You included, btw.
It isn’t, but yes it is written correctly. But the Epictetus translation I paraphrased it from is better, I agree:
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You don’t deserve the reaction you’re trying to coax out of me. You’re trying to elicit it so that you can be reinforced in your beliefs, so that you can continue to say “see, it’s true, everybody hates me, everyone is an enemy”. But no amount of flailing will make me hate you. Best I can do is tickle you into submission, sorry.
And, yes, my intent here is to dominate and my methods are manipulative. What’s the motive, though?
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You do not know anyone’s nature but your own. You cannot assume anyone’s behavior except your own. By definition, you are entirely wrong, because your entire conception is based upon assumptions about people you’ve never met and likely never will. You are definitively the narcissist in this thread, making everything about you. You need to pull the tapeworm out of your ass.
I know my nature thank you very much. And what do you mean with “correction”? Do you want me to be an asshole? You also don’t need to worry about me: I’m peaceful, not harmless. In fact, you can’t really be peaceful if you’re harmless, in that we agree I think.
That’s not a narcissistic motive. Narcissists feel shame when they, inadvertently, do something nice same as others feel shame when they inadvertently hurt. Their moral instincts are flipped and their function in society is to keep the rest on our toes. They’re the empty space directly around the mark so the mark is easier to see. Their purpose in life is to be a warning example. In that way they serve good.
Playing over fears is a thing every human is prone to, no matter the neurological makeup. It’s either a function of pride, to which the antidote is humility, or urgency/stress, to which the antidote is taking your time, avoiding snap judgements… or it’s foolhardiness. Courage, OTOH, is not playing over but actually overcoming fear, usually out of wisdom, the queen of the virtues, able to bring opposing instincts into mutually agreeable concord. That’s adaptation without the “mal-” in front.
And I don’t care about whatever shame the assholes put into you. Keep it to yourself, you deserve kindness regardless. The question is whether you’re willing to look beyond it and become receptive to kindness, or whether you carry it around as a shield because giving it up would invoke the ire of people you are, as I gather, no longer under the direct thumb of.
Dude (or dudette, or whatever),
You seriously have issues, really
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I think you need to talk to someone and try and gain a new perspective. People aren’t inherently mean, and generally aren’t thinking about much other than themselves. People do “chill” as they get older and realize a lot of things really don’t matter in the long run.
Go find a team sport or a hobby with other like-minded people and focus on building a community of friendship and support. Your life is too short to not spend it being happy.
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The way that everyone else seems to be getting along normally in their lives, maybe even having fun reading through this thread, while you’re getting angry and “shouting” reminded me of a line from The Count of Monte Cristo, where the count is trying to persuade a similarly unhappy person of the existence of a god.
Which is not to say that it’s a good argument; it’s actually pretty bad.
“Look at how fortunate I am to believe in my thing, and how unfortunate you are to believe in yours” when their beliefs are totally incidental.
But rereading it made me think about how little it matters about whose perspective is “correct” about something like that. To put it simply, there are plenty of “good people” in the world and there’s also plenty of “bad people”. Whether or not you choose to see good or bad is (in large part) up to you. Neither way is “right” or “wrong”.
I think you would be happier if you tried to look for good instead of bad, but as you’ve stated, that’s not a goal of yours. I don’t think that you really have any more “moral integrity” than the other side though. While I’m not asking you to abandon your point of view, I think you should realize that there is a reason why your viewpoint is not very popular; it seems that you’ve had negative experiences that have caused you to become cynical about human nature but here’s a rough analysis of the numbers: the fact that most people are not that cynical is evidence that most people don’t have it that bad. People aren’t wrong to believe in good human nature when that’s what their experiences reflect. They’re coming to conclusions in the same way you are, just the other way around.
If your experiences have been so negative, that’s an alright thing to base your views on. But I hope that you find more positive experiences in the future that might change your mind. You probably won’t find it on Lemmy.
I sincerely wish I understood how someone can get to your point. I wish I could see this as some elaborate troll, but I can’t help but see this as something so much darker. I won’t recommend anything to you, as it’s pretty clear any effort to help is seen as an insult, at best. Just know that there are genuinely people who see reactions like this and wish they could help.
Just, sincerely, best of luck to you.
I’m basing this on my life’s experience, and of those around me. That might not match your’s but what I say is true to me.
I’m not going to say you’re wrong. As long as inequalities exist between people, there will always be in-groups and out-groups of people. Humanity is tribal, and likely always will be.
But most people don’t spend their waking moments trying to enforce these tribalisms. Arseholes definitely do, but that’s not the majority of people.
Biology.
The human brain doesn’t come pre-built. There are many parts that develop at different rates, with the pre-cortex (the “rational” part of your brain) still developing even into your mid-20s.
During your adolescence this process is nowhere near complete, thus adolescents are generally severely lacking in the long-term judgement and planning department. They are more likely to be impulsive, to jump on the bandwagon of peer pressure without thinking through the consequences.
As they get older, most people become generally better at thinking things through. Less likely to act on impulse, and more likely to listen to others. They learn about viewpoints way outside their own and start to become less self-absorbed. At least that’s my experience of growing around my peers.
…
Jesus christ you went off the deep end quick, I am not responding to all of that…
I don’t know what kind of life you’ve experienced, but you’ve got some deep-seated traumas up in that head of yours that you need to figure out.
Not only that, but you’ve seemingly driven yourself into an almost schizophrenic delusion that everybody is after you, looking for a chance to tear you down in whatever way they can. That’s just not the case.
If your tendency is to explode on anyone who disagrees about your worldview, to compare them to murderers, then I’m afraid you might just be the problem in your lack of a social life - I’ll leave you with this:
It’s not almost, they sound exactly like my old classmate who unfortunately did spiral down the path of paranoid schizophrenia. Nobody here is going to change their mind, despite your best intentions. Even professionals don’t have much better luck.
you’re probably right, which is really fucking sad
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I might be late to the discussion, but it seems that your life has been hard and full of abuse. A lot of people here answered your comments with compassion, but your replies were almost always aggressive. It’s ok to feel hatred towards your abusers, but the fact that you seem to immediately hate people that try to peacefully communicate with you is, objectively, very wrong. Even if all the abusers in the world died tomorrow, would you be happy?
I don’t necessarily agree with your aggressive tone but I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying, this from someone who was treated like complete shit as a young adult, shit enough to leave me with trauma and a really bad fear of people.
I’ve seen what the worst side of people while being a soft kind and caring person. Anyone who believes what the other person said is pretty naive.
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You will die alone
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Nuh uh there’s a reason why social anxiety was, is, and will continue to be a problem for many people