[dirk digler]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

It's the internet. Easy to be aggressive when you can hide behind a handle and there's no accountability of any kind for what you're saying. It's different in the real world when you're looking into a real person's eyes. I don't mean that in a "you're a pussy, you wouldn't say that to my face" sense, though, I mean that in the sense that it's easier to dismiss people out of hand when you can't see them or be seen yourself. There's a dynamic, a level of instinctive respect that's lost when everybody is anonymous and can do or say pretty much anything they want.

I know that my own behavior changed when I started to think about the people on the other side of the screen as living, breathing (often mouth-breathing, cough) human beings, and I began trying to treat them the way I wanted to be treated.

It's still hard, sometimes.

It would have been easier just to call them pussies.