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[ChairmanPoo]

I don't put stock in the analogy.  I think technology solves more problems than it causes.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, the closest I'd say to the original statement that was true would be "as anonymity increases, morals decline", and then of course you get into the whole philosophical discussion on if your "true" morals are the ones you do when everyone can see you or the ones you do when no-one can.

[ChairmanPoo]

...Lets not forget that there was bullying before the internet. Cyberbullying is just a new shape for an old problem.

[Solifuge]

Everyone who is anonymous online doesn't cyberbully. Everyone with a knife doesn't use it to stab or mug people. The invention of tools and the new capabilities they bring don't make morality disappear; individual choices that set one's own needs above the needs of another, with whatever justification they provide themselves, is what generally leads to that... and that's on an individual basis.

So no, I don't really agree that moral decay is a matter of technology or anonymity. I'd argue that this kind of "moral decay" doesn't exist at all. It's likely a product of how our psychology reacts to change and the unfamiliar, as well as how our brains minimize or completely forget hundreds of good experiences with others, but one bad experience or situation can stick with us forever or completely overwhelm our worldview.

That aside, I assume most people just parrot the whole "the world is going to shit" argument once they hear it, without thinking about it too hard. It's a kind of relief; if there's some inevitable law of reality making society or the planet worse every day, you don't have to try to change it. You're absolved of responsibility. Of course, there's also the whole Feel Good element of proclaiming your own moral superiority, or the stress relief that comes from complaining about things or other people (like I'm getting from proclaiming my moral superiority over/complaining about people who do the above stuff >_o).

Spoiler: RE: the illusion of moral decay (click to show/hide)

When each new generation comes of age, loud members of the old one argue that they're letting their morals slip. Old businesses and institutions argue that new technology will ruin society as we know it. Yet somehow, society has kept going despite the internet making everyone rely on wikis and google for information instead of memorization, the creation of rock and roll music making teens uppity and rambunctious, tractors and combine harvesters letting a few farmers replace hundreds, the invention of standardized parts and factories stealing jobs from skilled crafts and trades, the printing press ruining the sanctity of books and the prestige of the educated, the invention of agriculture and settlements ruining the independence of hunter gatherer bands, and so on. I bet there were some short-sighted paleolithic hunters, whose job security depended on the need for constant fresh game, who argued that cooking fires and preserving food in jars would bring about the end of civilization.

[i2amroy]

I'll go a bit more into my point since it seems to have been a bit misconstrued here. I'm not claiming that "oh the people of the future are worse then the past, moral decay, blah-blah". What I'm saying is that one specific feature, anonymity, leads to a greater willingness to do bad things. This is because one of the pressures that leads people to fit to what society defines as "good morals" is the risk of punishment, something that is decreased if a person is anonymous. There are a number of studies showing a nontrivial increase in peoples willingness to do things like steal or cheat if they are sure that nobody will know about it. (Interestingly enough it was often the case that religious people tended to suffer less of an increase, often because of their view that God was always watching them).

Sure not everyone that uses the internet to do things anonymously is going to cyberbully, but there are a number of people who wouldn't bully people face-to-face, but will cyberbully simply because of the easy access to being anonymous and therefore belief that they are exempt from any retaliation. You would see exactly the same effect if you compared the rates of people willing to bully in person against the number of people willing to bully through normal paper mail.

It's not a decrease in good morals "because technology got better" or "because kids of today are letting morals slip", it's an psychologically provable increase in the willingness of people to do things that society considers "bad" if they believe themselves to be exempt from retribution, which can be easily obtained in the current world by being "anonymous" over modern technology (as compared to the last big anonymous technology of paper mail, current technology allows for the ability to deliver much more content in the same time-scale, even if the rates are the same). And yes, it's not anywhere close to being a general, widespread effect, but it is a study-proven thing separate from the widespread (and wrong) belief in "moral decay".

[Solifuge]

Ah, didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Just very tired of pessimism being used as an excuse for apathy, so I ranted.

Still, anonymity has a lot of effects on interaction beyond just making some people more likely to be asshats. I'd argue that the "effects" on behavior aren't really effects, and are behaviors and impulses already present in a person; anonymity isn't the fuel. Trolling and bullying, for example, happen most often prior to people developing a sense of empathy/concern for other people, and are usually fueled by their own bad experiences and hardships... anonymity is a tool to use, but not the incentive itself.

Also remember that anonymity makes people more likely to speak honest opinions, makes people bolder in saying or doing many things, enables altruistic behavior that makes us feel good, and more besides. It's a catalyst to overcome many kinds of fear, not all of which are fear of being held responsible.

[Bauglir]

You lot wouldn't know nearly as much about me if there weren't a degree of anonymity here.

[Itnetlolor]

You lot wouldn't know nearly as much about me if there weren't a degree of anonymity here.

I agree. For experience reference, I made for an excellent target of undeserved mockery since elementary school. At least I matured enough to retort on how childish someone is acting if they're making fun of my voice or something. Mainly along the lines of "We're how old now?". Though, with the density of online attacks, relative to in-person (generally speaking), I'll give credit to my past attackers for being direct.

Overall, I'm a really private person, and prefer to be known "in doses". Plus, IRL, I'm not a fan of eye contact either; people tend to take offense to my eye-aversive method of communicating. Why must eye contact be mandatory?

[Descan]

You lot wouldn't know nearly as much about me if there weren't a degree of anonymity here.

I'm just gonna translate this a little bit, to show how it looked like to me on first read.

"You lot wouldn't know nearly as much about me if you knew anything about me."

[Frumple]

Why must eye contact be mandatory?

It's not. Eye contact frequency is a strongly cultural thing, at least past the fairly early stages of development.

[hops]

The Chinese actually find eye contact to be rude, so a traditional chinese person talking to a westerner would theoretically be a liiiiittle awkward.

Also PTW

[Levi]

The Chinese actually find eye contact to be rude, so a traditional chinese person talking to a westerner would theoretically be a liiiiittle awkward.

I dunno, maybe its a regional thing.  Most of the chinese people I know make eye-contact just fine.  Or maybe they just adapt fast when they come over here?



Poop Transplant causes woman to become obese? 

Its only a single example so take with a massive tablespoon of scepticism, but I think it would be funny if it turned out most obesity wasn't genetic but just a result of gut-bacteria. 

[MonkeyHead]

The Chinese actually find eye contact to be rude, so a traditional chinese person talking to a westerner would theoretically be a liiiiittle awkward.

I dunno, maybe its a regional thing.  Most of the chinese people I know make eye-contact just fine.  Or maybe they just adapt fast when they come over here?



Poop Transplant causes woman to become obese? 

Its only a single example so take with a massive tablespoon of scepticism, but I think it would be funny if it turned out most obesity wasn't genetic but just a result of gut-bacteria.

I suspect that is full of shit.

*sees himself out*

[Solifuge]

Poop Transplant causes woman to become obese? 

Its only a single example so take with a massive tablespoon of scepticism, but I think it would be funny if it turned out most obesity wasn't genetic but just a result of gut-bacteria.

Pretty fascinating, though it makes a lot of sense. As for sample size, there's the cited study of gut flora transplahts having the same effect on mice. That said, I don't think it explains all obesity; diet, exercise, climate, metabolic rate, and digestive efficiency (microbiome included?) all work together to determine whether or not you end each day with excess unspent food calories for your body to store as fat.

[ChairmanPoo]

The Chinese actually find eye contact to be rude, so a traditional chinese person talking to a westerner would theoretically be a liiiiittle awkward.

I dunno, maybe its a regional thing.  Most of the chinese people I know make eye-contact just fine.  Or maybe they just adapt fast when they come over here?



Poop Transplant causes woman to become obese? 

Its only a single example so take with a massive tablespoon of scepticism, but I think it would be funny if it turned out most obesity wasn't genetic but just a result of gut-bacteria. 

I believe that a link between gut flora and obesity has been proposed in the past..