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Troll


ErlyRisa

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Define Troll.

 

It was once fine for forums too share and disseminate info, or too just have "open chats".

The days of the forum though are now number, and with it went anonymity.

Facebook highlighted how quickly people are ready too jump into full public prostitution of themselves with a complete disregard for accounting for what the future holds...all in the hope too find their long lost acquaintances., which now Fbook slowly got reworked into what seems to be your very own personal comic book strip (Weather or not anyone cares about your personal Comic book strip, it has now become a matter of your so called friend's opinionated tastes, for what classes a "good aquiantance" , or for that matter a person with "good tastes")

 

Trolling as I remember the definition was about "internet junkies" just wasting their time at another "kiosk-ed location" ,incessantly : ACCORDING TOO the opinion of the "established" members of said web frontage.

 

Thanks to facebook: there is no point in "Trolling" people you know, and its impossible too converse with strangers.

 

Does Facebook CURE internet addiction then? - for those stuck in wheel chairs just have-ing discussions with complete strangers in their native tongue, on what were forums with people on them; are now internet deserts (Everyones switched too Facebook - even the humble business card style website has succumbed too Facebook)

 

...and in the future, as we all transition our lives over too facebook, slowly removing all need to create or work (I envisage Facebook doing everything for us, from our taxes too organising the Headstone for your funeral - which of course by then we won't actually need taxes because there won't be an economy too tax and the unlucky few that still haven't taken the red pill and are now dead won't actually have funerals because you will be too enamored by your holosuite too leave it, and the only funeral you care about will be your own.)

 

Too add: Is a Tourist also a Troll?

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Hello ErlyRisa.

 

On the other science forums that I frequent, (I do not do Facebook or other purely 'social sites')the term 'Troll' is used to describe a person who disrupts a scientific thread by posting subjective material or who engages in provoking other posters while contributing nothing of substance. Usually a moderator will intervene and established members will also attempt to educate a new poster who just may not understand that science sites operate differently than social sites. We do have a section where members can discuss topics other than science and where unsupported opinions may be proclaimed.

 

On the science threads, however, the scientific method prevails and those who do not respect the rules are first educated, then warned and if they are persistent in their folly, they will be suspended for a time or banned permanently.

 

As for the rest of the conjectures in your opening post, I will leave some material for others to address. I work graveyard shift and it is time to catch a nap before work. I will look in on the morrow to see if the conversation has progressed. :)

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Define Troll.

 

I like Under the Rose’s definition which is specific to science forums. :thumbs_up

 

A precise definition of “internet troll” is difficult, perhaps impossible, as trolls are people, and many of them willfully defy any definition published. I think it fall under the “I know it when I see it” category of observables made famous in 1964 by SCOTUS justice Potter Stewart, though a troll is often even more difficult to recognize than obscenity in published material, as trolls can be very crafty in hiding their true nature.

 

Part of the problem with precisely defining “internet troll” is that the term is applied to many very different kinds of people. Borrowing from biological taxonomy, I think “troll” is more a family, or maybe even a class, than a specific species.

 

For me, a key and common defining characteristic of a troll is that they derive perverse pleasure from defiant, oppositional behavior, people’s reaction to it, and a sense of being in the right, but misunderstood and persecuted, much the way children at various stages of development are gratified by defiant, oppositional behavior. Psychologically, I think trolls are often child-like – often, trolls actually are chidren.

 

Trolling as I remember the definition was about "internet junkies"...

As with any psychological syndrome involving gratification, some degree of junkie-like – that is, addictive/compulsive – behavior is characteristic of the internet troll condition.

 

The converse – that trollishness is characteristic of all or most internet junkies – isn’t true: many internet forum users who exhibit addictive/compulsive use (sometimes severe, ie: hikikomori “shut-ins” who are unable to find of keep employment because they are unable to find time aside from internet use) are pleasant and non-confrontational, or even excessively approval-seeking, almost the opposite of a troll’s persecution-seeking motivation.

 

Thanks to facebook: there is no point in "Trolling" people you know, and its impossible too converse with strangers.

 

Does Facebook CURE internet addiction then?

IMHO, no.

 

Facebook and other social media forum systems, dating back more than 20 years, have features designed to thwart trolling, the most obvious being various ignore/block/unfriend/shun features. Because trolls seek disapproval, the stronger the better, ignoring them can be an effective way to get them to leave a forum.

 

As I stressed above, internet addict is not synonymous with internet troll, so forum anti-troll features don’t as effectively help internet addicts. To the best of my knowledge, the best internet forums can do to help internet addicts is to help them recognize the downsides of destructively addictive behavior, and host support groups of similarly troubled people.

 

...and in the future, as we all transition our lives over too facebook, slowly removing all need to create or work (I envisage Facebook doing everything for us, from our taxes too organising the Headstone for your funeral - which of course by then we won't actually need taxes because there won't be an economy too tax and the unlucky few that still haven't taken the red pill and are now dead won't actually have funerals because you will be too enamored by your holosuite too leave it, and the only funeral you care about will be your own.)

 

Historically, almost every new kind of media has evoked “end of civilization” worries like you express here, ErlyRisa.

 

I’m optimistic that humankind is robust and adaptable enough that social internet forums and much more like Facebook won’t destroy us or our economies, any more than thousands of years of living in habitats full of delightfully addictive plants has. As with drug addition, some part of the population will succumb to the internet’s addictive downside, some very badly, but as a whole, I think we humans will do fine.

 

This is not to say that a single entity like Facebook or something like it might not “take over the world”, assuming rolls formerly held by renters, employers, and government. One of my favorite speculative fiction novels, Ernest Cline’s 2011 Ready Player One describes such a scenario involving the fictional MMORPG and much more “OASIS”.

 

The world described in Ready Player One is more a utopia than a dystopia. The main reason why parallels a reasons many people attribute to Facebook and Google’s success: OASIS is, at heart, and in its underlying, controlling business structure, good, and this goodness is centralized in a single, “benevolent dictator for life”.

 

The main problem with benevolent dictatorships is, or course, succession – how to assure that the person who replaces the benevolent dictator when they die is as benevolent. In Ready Player One, this is assured by an elaborate, game-based “egg hunt” contest designed by the deceased BDFL to assure that its winner has “the right stuff”, the assumption being that any gamer good enough to will the hunt will also be good in the way needed to rule OASIS and the world.

 

Whether this fictional idea can work in reality is IMHO a difficult, deep, and profound question. History suggest it can’t, but the computer-based tools such as real ones resembling those that protect the integrity of the egg hunt in RPO are historically new, so perhaps it can, and will.

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For me, a key and common defining characteristic of a troll is that they derive perverse pleasure from defiant, oppositional behavior, people’s reaction to it, and a sense of being in the right, but misunderstood and persecuted, much the way children at various stages of development are gratified by defiant, oppositional behavior. Psychologically, I think trolls are often child-like – often, trolls actually are chidren.

 

Facebook and other social media forum systems, dating back more than 20 years, have features designed to thwart trolling, the most obvious being various ignore/block/unfriend/shun features. Because trolls seek disapproval, the stronger the better, ignoring them can be an effective way to get them to leave a forum.

 

 

You finished off with talk of Utopia/dystopia : yeah one mans utopia is anothers hell (eg. Being stuck in a perpetual Wizard of Oz movie is probably Utopia only the first time around) [/br]

 

"children" - or just plainly : people that have not been introduced into a social circumstance. Is this not why the "socialista crowd" are by defualt whiping out an entire generation simply by ommiting them from society? -Ther is correlation between the rise of technology and decling age for suicide victims. Suicide is not being performed by people that traditionally "loose jobs/relationships/seeking attention etc" Now its distain. People in the west are being born into the world that hate it here.

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ErlyRisa, on 18 Jul 2014 - 12:45 PM, said:

Ther is correlation between the rise of technology and decling age for suicide victims. Suicide is not being performed by people that traditionally "loose jobs/relationships/seeking attention etc" Now its distain.

Do you have a source for this claim, EarlyRisa :QuestionM I don’t think it’s true.

 

According to the “suicide rates by age” section of this AFSP page, which claims to summarize CDC data, the US suicide rate for people 15 to 25 years old is fairly unchanging from 2000-2011, and (at 11.0/100000/year) substantially below that of all older people. The highest rate (18.6) is for 45 to 65 year olds. This group has also increased the most from 2000 to 2011 (from 13.5).

 

Working-age people – those that “traditionally lose jobs, relationships, etc” have the highest suicide rate, and the highest increase in rate.

 

The entire US population suicide rate decreased from 1986 (13) to 2000 (10.4), then began increasing (to 12.3 in 2011). 2012 and later CDC suicide data aren’t available yet.

 

Data on reason for suicide isn’t collected by the CDC or other organizations with which I’m familiar. Gathering such data would be problematical, because you can’t psychologically test suicides. The general consensus among clinicians and advocates I’ve read and spoken with is that most (some say 90%+) of suicide is due to severe depression. Although many features can be present in a person suffering from severe depression, I don’t think disdain (thinking someone or something is unworthy of one’s attention) is typical.

 

Disdain is more characteristic of people with defiant/oppositional mental disorders, and of people without significant mental illness who truly do find much unworthy of their attention, than of depressed people, so I suspect a reasonable objective measurement of disdain would correlate negatively, not positively, with suicide.

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