The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #73412   Message #1273398
Posted By: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
16-Sep-04 - 04:16 PM
Thread Name: Shunning: a Cure for Trolls
Subject: RE: Shunning: a Cure for Trolls
Look, people, this is NOT a folk club or a bar or your house or a restaurant. It's the internet. People are not here physically, got it? It's virtual reality. If you're in a place where people are there physically, then of course the management can eject them if they ain't wearin' a shirt, or they're swearin' at other people or whatever...

Physical life is more structured, and something has gotta be done there, because it's not so easy to get away from someone when they are physically in your face.

They ain't physically in your face here. They are a bunch of words on a screen, and you can ignore those words with no consequence to you whatsoever. If you can't handle that then what can you handle?

If someone sticks a roscoe in my face in physical life...I'm concerned. If he says something hostile to me on the Net, I ain't. It's that simple. He ain't in the same room with me and he can't do diddly. The more hostile he gets toward me, the more I laugh inside. I'm thinkin', "Why does he care this much about me? Somebody he's never met? I didn't know I was this important. Maybe I should be flattered that this bozo cares so much."