Why are trolls online so mean?

[magnetaress]

Like a truly good person can be anonymous and have zero threat of punishment and they'll still do the good thing. That's the basic minimum standard we collectively need to hold.

[unsunghero]

Originally Posted by Sadre Spinegnawer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But I would go one step further and say, the nature of the activity itself likely creates transient psychotic events in otherwise normal people.

Temporary psychotic episodes that can be quite severe due to the trio of bad factors (anonymity, disinhibition, dissociation) at play, can get pretty intense in the internets era. And at scale!

Wellllll, "disassociation" probably has a different meaning in a clinical setting. This is different than roleplaying a character in a video game, or even pretending to be that character in real life because you find it fun or comforting

ACTUAL disassociation is extremely rare. Despite kids wanting to be trendy by faking mental illness like multiple personality disorder on Tik Tok, it is rare IRL to the point of some psychiatrists basically claiming D.I.D doesn't even exist. The only time you see it is as some type of trauma response from a severely traumatized individual. We're talking a kid who was molested or abused severely for a large portion of their childhood kind of trauma. There's been extremely rare case studies of those people "disassociating" to a different personality as a defense mechanism of their brain. This is somewhat similar to a soldier with PTSD disassociating to being back in the war, which once again, from working with tons of veterans, is extremely rare to the point of ALMOST never actually occurring anywhere. Although I did read a true life crime case of a vet with PTSD who apparently disassociated that he was back in a warzone and killed his neighbors randomly

This is also different than "when I get really angry or have another powerful negative emotion I just black out". That's not true disassociation in the clinical sense. That just means that the frontal lobe of the brain which is doing the reasoning isn't as active in that moment. But this is different than actual diassociation


And could a video game cause a psychotic break? No. Once again it's extremely rare to have a sudden psychotic break past the age of onset of a psychotic disorder (for women its around 18-20ish, for men it's around 22-24ish). The only reason to have a psychotic break past that point is almost always going to be due to a chemical influence, like taking a strong psychoactive drug. Playing a video game just can't fuck with brain chemicals to make someone psychotic. The worst that playing a video game can do is cause addiction, which would result in psychological withdrawal symptoms such as depression, irritability, insomnia, etc. But not psychosis

[unsunghero]

^
To give an idea of why a person who is psychotic would not make an effective troll is one time we had a client who was frequently using meth and often psychotic believe that a normal typical iphone message (I forget what the message was, he was messing around in the settings) was an indication that his iphone had been hacked by the hologram of his ex-gf who was working with the mafia. He continued to screw around in more phone settings, causing more system prompts and messages to come up, which his paranoid brain continued to believe as more indications that his all-powerful hologram ex-gf was controlling his phone by using some sort of secret technology that the "mafia" has

We had a different guy who was manic with psychosis who saw some option to "hide my email" (or something like that, I forget the exact option) on his phone and believed without a shadow of a doubt, that this was some secret app his wife had put on the phone to have affairs with other men. He then began to accuse his wife of infidelity to the point where she feared for her own safety. When he finally got some sleep (he was going on about a week no sleep) and his brain chemicals returned more to their normal state, he became an entirely different person. He was sheepish, embarrassed, and saying "man, obviously it's just a phone setting. I just don't know how to use an iphone. I can't believe I went nuts like that"

There's been tons of other cases of psychotic people's paranoid brains believing that literally any type of message on a computer, which could be a normal routine message, could be an email, could be anything, is some deeper "hack" or "signal". Part of psychosis is "pattern forming" which is the brain forming patterns that don't really exist. The movie A Beautiful Mind illustrated this idea well

This is why I say most likely a psychotic person is going to believe their computer has been hacked by the some all-powerful entity, or is secretly recording them, controlling their thoughts, all sorts of shit. Then they'll take it apart, or start fucking with the settings and soon their computer won't work

They won't likely be able to sit and continue to post on a message board for months or years at a time while actively psychotic. It could happen, but it's not likely

[magnetaress]

Still dancing around the morality of online trolling I see...

If you accept Jesus as your lord and salvation then you will have much less desire to troll ppl online if none at a if you are able to be true in your faith.

[unsunghero]

Originally Posted by magnetaress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Still dancing around the morality of online trolling I see...

If you accept Jesus as your lord and salvation then you will have much less desire to troll ppl online if none at a if you are able to be true in your faith.

I don’t want to seem too nit-picky, but just trying to show how a psychotic person probably would be able to handle trolling

I guess an easy to follow example would be: everyone has seen a homeless person actively hallucinating yelling at people who aren’t there. If you put that person in front of a computer and said you would give them $1000 if they would troll people on a message board or video game they still wouldn’t be able to handle it. Most likely that computer would get broken in some way

“Psychopath” (that you’ve used) is probably a better descriptor for a troll than “psychotic”

But again, not trying to nit pick

[magnetaress]

Yes I agree someone disconnected from reality isn't even going to be a good online troll.

When I talk about psychopathy it's in the general sense of a lack of empathy for others. Plenty of grounded and rational people fit that definition.


I'm not talking about people having a "psychotic episode" or completely detached from reality.


The truth is 99% of people lack the proper levels of empathy to be good people. Even if they hide it well in person it surely shows when they are no longer in fear or anxiety about being mistreated because they are essentially assholes who worship Satan and materialism.

[magnetaress]

I don't know. To me it's just insane not to try and have empathy for others. Even if you have to "use force" or "stop them" it can still be done with empathy.

So I see trolling as a form of insanity that Satan has afflicted the people of the world with and I honestly see little hope for them.

So no I don't think trolling should be written off as just normal or sane behavior...like because ppl feel safe an anonymous that is just a surface level delusion. Again Satan here.

[magnetaress]

Or one of his minions. Like either way.


So what I was communicating was:


Online trolls are satanic engaging in Satan worshipping and egotistical masturbation.

Very few will likely ever be saved and you can't really help a Satan worshipping person (basically everyone these days) who doesn't want help and can't force them to be good. So treat Online trolls like normal ppl irl and ignore the fuck out of them as much as possible or have a gentle laugh as they ignore any wisdom imparted and continue to engage in their deeply delusional behavior.

[unsunghero]

Originally Posted by magnetaress [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes I agree someone disconnected from reality isn't even going to be a good online troll.

When I talk about psychopathy it's in the general sense of a lack of empathy for others. Plenty of grounded and rational people fit that definition.


I'm not talking about people having a "psychotic episode" or completely detached from reality.


The truth is 99% of people lack the proper levels of empathy to be good people. Even if they hide it well in person it surely shows when they are no longer in fear or anxiety about being mistreated because they are essentially assholes who worship Satan and materialism.

Ya it’s about a lack of empathy for sure

[unsunghero]

This is a side-gripe but I have assisted in mental health trainings for police officers multiple times now because it’s more chill and relaxed than my usual work, and I still obv am getting paid for it. This is by giving recommendations, work anecdotes and doing role plays, which I play a mentally ill suspect and they practice conversing with and de-escalating me. And of course I’m instructed to not make it easy for them

And one of the scenarios that the organizers always picks for a role play is a veteran who is disassociating to being back in a war zone. Any other mental health disorder I’ve seen many times. Psychosis is hard to convincingly “fake”, but what I do is just mimic as best I can what I’ve seen clients do and say and how they act, and usually get praise for realism. But I can’t mimic a disassociating veteran because in 16 years I’ve never seen it once

But I do what I’m told and still try [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]