Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Ivan Shitskin
Nov 29, 2002

It does seem sometimes that without heavy moderation, most internet comment sections regress to ignorance, bigotry and racism as a default state. It's like I'm looking at the default state of humanity before some authority intervenes and orders people to behave otherwise.

The only reason Something Awful is a left wing echo chamber instead of right wing is because of lots of heavy-handed moderation, and outright bans for racist comments. A glance at the Leper's Colony for a single day reveals enormous numbers of probations and bans. Even in GBS they'll ban people for outright racism.

One reason for this may be because the majority of humanity simply lacks a decent education, yet now has easy access to the internet. Most people don't read books now. Attention spans are at an all-time low. Few people go to college, and few of those who do actually graduate. The high school drop-out rate in the US, for example, is quite high. The more educated someone is, the more respect and understanding they tend to have of other cultures, and the less likely they are to waste a lot of time pointlessly arguing with idiots on the internet.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

  • Locked thread