Internet Trolls Really Are Horrible People - Narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, & sadistic

moreluck

golden ticket member
You probably see the truer person on message boards than in person. In person people put masks on and don't speak who they actually are, where on the internet, they think they are anonymous and reveal their truer selves.
Mom had me tested !!
 

moreluck

golden ticket member
I am on primarily so I can keep in touch with the kids. My son is very active----641 friends----while my daughter is a sporadic user with "only" 155 friends. David is going to Southeast Asia for 2 weeks in March (school related) and I am looking forward to his updates on fb.
My kids are on friend.B. too.....but I have an e-mail and if they want to send news or a note, it's e-mail or phone.
 

gingerkat

Well-Known Member
sorry RR, I'm ADHD and I hate links. Please give me a summary. You seem to like links, so give me your take…

eta…so I went and checked on the links and you're just adding that snippet for your own personal reasons. It doesn't really apply (IMO) to why Cheryl posted this article. I still go with my WTF.

Come on man, go with the flow, yes? You can't be talking about Easter and suddenly start talking about Day of the Dead. Nobody can follow you… at least leave some clues
 
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roadrunner2012

Four hours in the mod queue for a news link
Troll
sorry RR, I'm ADHD and I hate links. Please give me a summary. You seem to like links, so give me your take…

eta…so I went and checked on the links and you're just adding that snippet for your own personal reasons. It doesn't really apply (IMO) to why Cheryl posted this article. I still go with my WTF.

Come on man, go with the flow, yes? You can't be talking about Easter and suddenly start talking about Day of the Dead. Nobody can follow you… at least leave some clues
I think you are trolling.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
I guess neither one of you bothered to read the linked articles from Cheryl's post. Just in case you can't bother to re-read the original article, this was the first link in it:
http://www.motherjones.com/environm...trolls-comments-make-you-believe-science-less

It may be true some failed to read but let's also keep this in context. The MJ piece starts off out of the box with a qualifier.

"Everybody who's written or blogged about climate change on a prominent website (or, even worse, spoken about it on YouTube) knows the drill."

Going further into the article you linked:

In a recent study, a team of researchers from the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and several other institutions employed a survey of 1,183 Americans to get at the negative consequences of vituperative online comments for the public understanding of science. Participants were asked to read a blog post containing a balanced discussion of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology (which is already all around us and supports a $91 billion US industry). The text of the post was the same for all participants, but the tone of the comments varied. Sometimes, they were "civil"—e.g., no name calling or flaming. But sometimes they were more like this: "If you don’t see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these products, you're an idiot."

Why did they not check sports forums? What about music forums? Racing forums? You think this place is over the top, go to a racing forum as it get's wild. This place is a love fest compared too. I could list a whole host of topic forums and all to one level or another has trolls. Vastly worse than here and no one or nobody polices them either.

The study was looking at only Science based forums and issues and not all general discussion forums on the internet. To take the above piece from MJ which was focused purely on Science based forums and then expand them to other type forums including this one seems a bit disingenuous.
 

roadrunner2012

Four hours in the mod queue for a news link
Troll
wkmac,

Science is reality based, other forums deal (mostly) with opinion.

Furthermore, I didn't link it, it was part of the basis for the original post.
 

tonyexpress

Whac-A-Troll Patrol
Staff member
Once again, reality based, not an ill conceived opinion.

I'll have to disagree with your "Ill conceived opinion" opinion and say it would be a proven fact on this website that you've displayed trolling tendencies.

By the way since this thread title is about internet trolls I don't consider my post off topic..
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
wkmac,

Science is reality based, other forums deal (mostly) with opinion.

Furthermore, I didn't link it, it was part of the basis for the original post.


A couple of take away points from the linked articles:

They're predominantly climate deniers, and they start in immediately arguing over the content and attacking the science—sometimes by slinging insults and even occasional obscenities.

Then in the interest of honesty, your above quote should have gone something like this:

"In the case of scientific topics, They're predominantly climate deniers, and they start in immediately arguing over the content and attacking the science—sometimes by slinging insults and even occasional obscenities."

The way you worded your post, it left your assertion open ended to all topics and forums.
Which I'm unconvinced that wasn't your intent anyway.

If the OP was subjective and that may or may not be true, why jump in front of a moving bus and then look guilty?
 

Catatonic

Nine Lives
Then in the interest of honesty, your above quote should have gone something like this:

"In the case of scientific topics, They're predominantly climate deniers, and they start in immediately arguing over the content and attacking the science—sometimes by slinging insults and even occasional obscenities."

The way you worded your post, it left your assertion open ended to all topics and forums.
Which I'm unconvinced that wasn't your intent anyway.

If the OP was subjective and that may or may not be true, why jump in front of a moving bus and then look guilty?
I think if we look at Cheryl's original post, we can find the answer in characteristic number 1 of Trolls:
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others)
 

roadrunner2012

Four hours in the mod queue for a news link
Troll
Then in the interest of honesty, your above quote should have gone something like this:

"In the case of scientific topics, They're predominantly climate deniers, and they start in immediately arguing over the content and attacking the science—sometimes by slinging insults and even occasional obscenities."

The way you worded your post, it left your assertion open ended to all topics and forums.
Which I'm unconvinced that wasn't your intent anyway.

If the OP was subjective and that may or may not be true, why jump in front of a moving bus and then look guilty?
You are attributing a quote from the linked article to me. If you had read the link, you would have known that.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
You are attributing a quote from the linked article to me. If you had read the link, you would have known that.

I understand you were quoting the article but you were cherrypicking for intended effect. The bold effect was nice. The article didn't use that.

You failed to provide context in that the traits you spoke from the study were only from scientific forums and blogs. Forums like this were not studied at all. Your assertions based on the MJ article do not apply here in the case of general topics. Now if Cheryl's basis of assertion is wrong, then this will make yours equally wrong, or if you are right then Cheryl's original assertion stands.

Pick your poison!

I also suspect Slate had an agenda as well but to their credit it is a bit more nuanced.

There are psychopaths and then there are their enablers.

 

slingblade

Well-Known Member
A couple of take away points from the linked articles:

It is hard to underplay the results: The study found correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What’s more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet.


They're predominantly climate deniers, and they start in immediately arguing over the content and attacking the science—sometimes by slinging insults and even occasional obscenities.

kind of like you do with Moreluck about her use of medicare?
 

twizzle

Member
trolls? you guys play dungeons and dragons too? I'm probably a troll I've displayed every negative quality listed at some time in my life. Sad but true....:)
 

1BROWNWRENCH

Amatuer Malthusian
I understand you were quoting the article but you were cherrypicking for intended effect. The bold effect was nice. The article didn't use that.

You failed to provide context in that the traits you spoke from the study were only from scientific forums and blogs. Forums like this were not studied at all. Your assertions based on the MJ article do not apply here in the case of general topics. Now if Cheryl's basis of assertion is wrong, then this will make yours equally wrong, or if you are right then Cheryl's original assertion stands.

Pick your poison!

I also suspect Slate had an agenda as well but to their credit it is a bit more nuanced.

There are psychopaths and then there are their enablers.

Explains a fair bit in this video.
 
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