I've been doing some thinking about various forms of idiocy (e.g. racism, sexism, conspiracy theories, and radical political leanings (right AND left) that tend to turn everything into Us and Them), and wondering why, in a time where information is so readily available, so many misguided individuals insist on hanging onto ignorance.

There have always been unpleasant people around. Anywhere you go, there's always "that guy" (or gal), who is obnoxious, disagreeable, hostile, or otherwise socially "broken" or crazy in some way. Note that I'm not using the word "crazy" here to denote any specific mental illness (or, necessarily, any diagnosable degree of mental illness at all). I'm using the word "crazy" in the casual sense which simply means that this person believes things that the majority of other people think are very obviously wrong and "how the hell could you think that?!"

In any case, that person typically learns that they must either change those aspects of themselves that turn other people off, or they must restrain them, mask them, or otherwise hide them. If they don't, they will have no friends.

Well...maybe not NO friends, but only a few who share the same brokenness, either in details or in spirit. In other words, if you're an asshole, then you tend to tolerate others' assholery, either out of feelings of kinship, and/or from the realization that you can't afford to be too damn picky about your friends.

Either way, you and your buds are a small, isolated group and it's relatively easy for others to just avoid you when you start spouting off (and see you for what you are...broken and wrong).

But then the Internet came along. You can easily and fearlessly say whatever you want on the Internet. There certainly aren't any immediate consequences, and often there are no consequences at all. Read through any comment thread at the bottom of any major news story or article, and you'll quickly notice that unpleasant and/or crazy people come out of the woodwork.

Anyone who spends any significant amount of time on the Internet learns never to read anonymous comment threads of any length, because you'll inevitably read something mentally scarring and wish you'd never ventured down the rabbit hole.

The Internet is, in some ways, a very new twist on being subjected to others' unpleasantness. That being said, up until a few years ago, this didn't shake things up very much. Jerks spent a lot of energy being jerks, but things were still pretty much okay; you could easily avoid the spew by just avoiding jerky places on the Internet. Then things started to get weird...

Over the past decade or so, people have started to put more energy into harnessing the innate social potential of the Internet. There are now huge numbers of networking sites and forums and various means of easy interaction with thousands or even millions of people. These tools never existed before in the history of the human race. As social gathering becomes more and more specialized, and as awareness and use of Google and other search tools gains momentum, it's now very easy to connect with other people who believe...well...just about anything you can imagine.

Were you the one guy in your small town who believed that aliens regularly visit this planet, and that the government is hiding the evidence? Well, now you don't have to wonder if you're imagining things, or give up that belief, or worry about keeping it to yourself so people won't back away or point and laugh! Now you can instantly connect with hundreds of other crazy people who have thought about this a lot more than you have, and they will provide a ton of positive reinforcement for your belief in aliens and government conspiracies and a whole slew of other things at the same time! Look, they have pictures and graphs! It's PROOF! You're right!

And it's not just aliens. How about 9/11? That was a set-up you know--all smoke and mirrors. Hundreds (thousands?) of people will tell you so. Vaccines--you realize they're killing children with those things, right? Scientists who say otherwise are ignorant, or liars and part of the plot. Gays and lesbians? They're godless and should be put to death. Women's rights? Any men's rights activist will tell you that it's a calculated plot to keep those poor men down. (It all started with women's demands for silly things like the right to own property and vote, and look where we are now.) And don't even get me started on all of those various types of brown people who are making out like bandits and keeping all the upstanding white people from their rightful due. Oh, and Obama--how can you not see that he's obviously an alien. Or a Muslim. Perhaps even an alien-Muslim. You never know...

It was sort of painful to write that paragraph, but the point is this: Pretty much any horrible/stupid/messed-up thing that anyone can weave from stands of the finest bullshit already has it's own crazy echo chamber firmly established on the Internet. These places are quickly accessible to everyone who ever thought a crazy thought in their lives, and being a part of the group allows them to easily confirmation-bias their way past any and all doubt and rationality. Specialized social filters allow people to easily find and interact ONLY with people who already agree with them, and ignore anyone who doesn't. It's a organized social construct that focuses and concentrates the crazy. Facebook has just made the problem worse, and is a place where some crazy people only share the same half-dozen awful crazy ideas back and forth with other crazy people. They aren't forced to hear the dissenting opinions that they'd hear in daily life, since they can easily shape Facebook to give them only the comfortable feedback they want.

The result is that unpleasant people can now easily organize into large groups via the Internet, which gives their unpleasant views an unfortunate appearance of legitimacy through sheer numbers.

Do I have a solution? Nope. I'm just pointing out the issue, in the hope that greater awareness will allow others to do a few things:

1) Point out when someone is being cruel or dismissive of others.

Sometimes they don't intend to be cruel, and it may help. Often it won't, but at least you said something.

2) Point out when someone is ignoring facts, and learn to check facts yourself before passing others' ignorance along.

Wikipedia does NOT have the same legitimacy as an established scientific journal...but it's usually a halfway decent place to start. Snopes is a great site to double-check much of the idiocy that gets passed around the Internet over and over again. Please use it.

3) Realize that hatred usually arises from fear and pain.

It's difficult, but try to be sympathetic to those who are spreading abuse. That doesn't mean that you should agree with or support them; it only means that you should try to not respond with hatred or abuse yourself, and fan the flames. Even the worst of them aren't inhuman monsters, just broken human beings.

4) Don't react only to negativity. Recognize the positive!

When someone is kind, let them know. Point out when someone is supportive and trying to do the right thing, and encourage and help them! Do things yourself to support others. It doesn't matter what. Give blood. Volunteer time in a shelter. Help an old person across the street. Contribute to charities. Recognize when you've acted like a jerk, and apologize (and try really, really hard to not do it again, you jerk). Big things or little things--they all work to counterbalance organized ugliness.

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On a much less important note, I've reworked the Media section of the site and added multiple pages to the larger catagories of images and gifs, making them much easier to navigate. There's also a bunch of new content (images, gifs, text, etc) to entertain you all.

Oh, and Cats now have their own dedicated image section, and aren't lumped in with all the other Critters. You're welcome, cat people.

Finally, you'll see a new Portal 2 map on the list of Creations. It's called Cruel and Unusual, and the name does not lie. I suggest liberal use of Quicksave/Quickload (F6 and F7, by default).