Insecure Wednesday: Why Can't Civilization Be Civilized?

 I think I've mentioned before that at this point I try to avoid flame wars.  I try to stay away from accounts on Facebook and such that will spur flame wars.  But sometimes I walk into one anyway.

Like when some article from IGN showed up on my Facebook wall declaring Andor the "show of the year" and I said basically an abbreviated version of what I did in my Stuff I Watched entry, which is that I thought it was like Better Call Saul:  a prequel stuffed with a lot of stuff I didn't care about.  The gist being I'm saying I didn't like a television show.  Not that I don't like the people who made it or the people who watched it.  I just didn't like the show.

So naturally what I get back are a lot of personal attacks saying I don't have a long attention span or I'm immature or I'm not as "developed" as they are.  I asked one person why they instantly had to go to a personal attack and eventually just got a mewling, "I didn't attack you personally."  Uh, yeah you did.  And that was your first reaction to me saying I didn't like a television show.  A.  TV.  SHOW.  

A. FICTIONAL.  TV.  SHOW.  

And one I presume you didn't work on and thus have no personal stake in.  So why do you come right out of the gate attacking ME?  Not what I said about the fictional TV show, but about me, personally?  Why is the nuclear scorched Earth policy your first response?

I get this a little more with politics or religion or something real(ish) like that.  I mean, these are issues that actually affect real people.  Andor is a fucking TV show about a galaxy far, far away.  It's not real life!  

Maybe to some extent I was trolling by saying I didn't like it, but A) I just always assume no one cares what I think (see this blog) and B) I really would like to understand why other people like this.  It's like The Last Jedi of Star Wars TV Shows, only I'll admit the plot wasn't nearly as contrived as that movie.  The point being, what I'd really like is a discussion of the show.  Not of ME.  I don't need analyzing by people who've never met me or read a single thing I've posted except for this one comment.  I'd like you to actually give your opinion of the show and defend it somewhat logically.

That's civilized discussion.  Instead, it seems "social" media is usually anything but.  And really it's so pointless.  I say I don't like a TV show and you scream, "you're stupid!" or immature or whatever, it doesn't accomplish anything.  You don't "win" by calling me names and it also doesn't really contribute any knowledge to why this is such a great show because you're not attacking my point; you're just attacking ME.  Maybe that works in politics, but it doesn't work in situations like that.

And, really, such low-IQ responses kind of make me think I'm right.  I mean if the show appeals to dim people like that, how good can it really be?  I'd blame Trump and all that, but this long predates him.  This has been going on pretty much since the beginning of the Internet because it's just a carryover to real life.

(There were a couple of amusing responses of people trying to be clever.  One was trying this bastardized version of a Morgan Freeman quote and told me to "lace up my mug."  WTF?  Who laces up a mug?  When challenged, he just whined that it was slang.  Where do they use that slang?  Citation needed!  I think that was a clumsy way of saying STFU; you know, mug as in face and lace it up would mean to close it up.  But it's not really something in common usage.  At least not in my area.  Someone else said I was "wearing my bad opinion on my shirt."  What shirt?  I don't even have a picture of myself on Facebook.  Where do people come up with these things?  You see what I'm dealing with here?)

A few weeks later there was some Atlantic article on my wall that was about the downside of competence, which is that people get pissed that they get more work because they're competent while dumb people get less work.  I offhand commented that this is why communism never works.  And almost instantly get two dudes saying, "[Aaaaactually] this was about capitalism."  I gave them both the same reply that "Aaaaactually it's true for any system because greed and selfishness are human nature."  

One of them was smart enough to quit then but another just had to keep it going.  "Why are you going after communism on an article about capitalism?"  Um, I'm not "going after" anything.  Just making a comment.  I tried to explain what I meant more in depth about how no pure Marxist system will ever work until we change our attitudes like what the article was talking about.  A system where everyone gets the same regardless of what they contribute will never work as long as people get mad and whiny and jealous because they think they're entitled to more than someone else.  And the dude again whines that I'm "going after" communism and what I said "wasn't a revelation."  As if Internet comments have to be revelations now.  [eye roll] That was just him being a whiny, sullen bitch because he swooped in to correct me (which wasn't a "revelation" since someone else did the exact same thing) and got his ass handed back to him.  I told him I was just stating a belief and he didn't like it, he could get lost.  So he did. 

A few days later some pizza place in Troy had an ad on my Facebook wall and someone commented that they were using halal pepperoni but pork sausage, which would be hypocritical since Muslims aren't supposed to eat pigs.  And I commented, how do you know it's pork?  Maybe it's beef.  I mean other pizza places the beef pieces and pork pieces look pretty similar.  

So of course this dude just instantly goes off.  "Because I'm not a schmuck!  And beef doesn't have caraway seeds goofball."  (I don't know how he could see caraway seeds in that picture, but I guess his eyes were better.)  So I ask why he has to instantly be so rude to someone he doesn't know and get another irrational answer.  "You're questioning my expertise!"  Um...how would I know you have expertise on pizza toppings?  I don't know you.  Then I got another irrational response, so at that point I just blocked him.

Anyway, what I got thinking is too often on the Internet people act like rowdy football fans.  Both kinds of football really.  They see you're not wearing their colors, so they immediately shout at you and throw beer at you and then maybe take a swing at you.  It's pretty ridiculous that this often seems to be our default setting online.  We really need to dial it back from football hooligan to golf or tennis fan, just standing or sitting quietly and occasionally applauding softly.

Last June I wrote about something I saw on Twitter where a guy saw a woman wearing a Fangoria T-shirt and started mansplaining horror to her.  It turned out she actually worked for the magazine.  And what I was thinking was how this jerk deprived himself of an opportunity to have a real discussion, a real connection with another human being, because mansplaining was his default setting when seeing a woman in a horror magazine T-shirt.

In the same way, when our default setting is rowdy football hooligan, we can't have any real discussions or connections.  Some would sneer, "You can't have real connections online anyway!"  That is partially true but mostly I think people just use that as an excuse to justify being assholes.  "None of this is real so I can do whatever I want!"  But until AI takes over everything and you have chatbots insulting AI-created content, it is still people behind the posts.  When we start right off with personal attacks, it denies us the opportunity to have any real interaction.  It's just, "You're immature!"  "No I'm not!"  "Yes you are!"  "Nuh-uh!"  "Uh-huh!" like a playground.  It gets tiresome after 25 years and really you wish there was something more to it.

But real life isn't always much better.  Just once it'd be nice if I could go to or from work without some asshole being an asshole on the road.  One night I was going home on I-96 in the right lane and this car whizzes past me and veers inches in front of me...to then cut across the shoulder and off at an exit.  So was this lizard-brained idiot so intent on getting ahead of me that he almost missed his exit?  Or was it just so he'd feel he "won?"  I had never seen the car before, so if there was a competition, it was completely one-sided.

Or like a few days after Christmas I'm on Grand River after leaving work and this ass in a Camaro passes me in the center turn lane!  And then roars away...for all of a quarter-mile before he has to stop at the light where people are waiting.  Could we possibly learn from that?  Nah, as soon as he can, he roars up to another stoplight. [eye roll]

And every single time I go out there are people like that.  Just the other day I turn left out of my apartment complex and almost instantly some jerk from the trailer park next door almost smashes into me trying to turn left.  At first I thought maybe the idiot was just going to get in the merge lane, but then they kept going, to the point I had to to drive on the shoulder to escape.  You'd think by the time they got to the merge lane they'd see the car directly in their path or hear my horn warning them off, but nah.  Just try to keep right on coming.  It is a trailer park, so pretty high probability they were drunk and/or high even at eight in the morning.

I've lost track of how many times I've been sitting in my car in a parking lot to write and some jerk comes within an inch or two of scraping my car because they have to save a second or two by streaking across a parking lot in irregular lines.  Or there will be tons of space to park and someone has to park right next to me and just about scratch my paint or play some loud music or whatever.

People are so rude and dumb and impatient--like the one who destroyed my 2010 Focus because he couldn't wait a couple of minutes for the turn light to be green.  And afterwards never talked to me or barely even looked at me but did make sure to get his precious golf clubs out of his crossover. [eye roll]

Sometimes that rude, dumb, impatient idiot is me.  When you're on the other side, though, sometimes it gets to be annoying.  And dangerous.

In the end, though, why can't people just calm the fuck down and be civilized?  Why do some people have to make everything into some stupid competition?  I don't know.  I'm just asking the questions!  Serenity Now!