ID:188668
 
Ok, so noone reads too much and goes "What?", this topic is mostly just me blowing off steam and trying to find understanding in a situation that lacks understanding. Keeping in mind of course that a lot of this rant may seem like I'm being a hypocrite (depending on if your opinion on me is that I lack maturity as you've seen me, or in my writing in this rant). I am simply asking that you keep an open mind. Also, some people may know why I'm writing this, or what caused me to write it (as it's obviously no puzzle when you finish reading the rant).

Anyway, done with my unstructured introduction, onto the rant.

BYOND has many people, of many interests and opinions. However, can people be heartless? Sure. Can people be apathetic? Sure. Apathy and heartlessness could go hand in hand sometimes. When someone feels apathetic to the interests of a group, or to one person. I'm sure we've all seen many examples at many times. But the thing is, how hard can apathy and heartlessness as a team go unseen? Pretty long, as I have discovered. As much as we all would like to think we never did, we have all been apathetic and heartless through ignorance before. But what causes the ignorance? Apathy and heartlessness, ironically enough. Something has to spark the cycle though, correct? We can all produce theories and assumptions on this, as many of us have one of the many correct answers in mind no doubt.

Lets use one example as a spark. Peer pressure. We have all heard how this could be bad and good, with the doing drugs and smoking, all of it affecting today's youth because of peer pressure. But some places have a much easier surrounding to be affected by peer pressure. Not many would suspect the Internet though. Partially because many people act differently on the Internet by nature, or try to. So, people gain different judgement, and opinions. Which means a different group of people is hung out with. But this does not mean that those people are bad. It just means you may not think they're very worth hanging around with if you knew them in real life, or vise versa. So your judgement can change entirely from your real life choices, even under real life peer pressure. This could hit home with how some people judge others, or what they do.

This is of course, assuming that the person you're talking to is still as human as you, and that the way that they DO act, is the way you should judge them by. Simply because that is your only interpretation of who they are. As many people judge on what they think, and who they are, many others judge on actions. Is judging on actions rather then personality correct? It's simply a matter of opinion.

I have seen eight cases over the past couple months however (getting to where this rant starts talking about actual BYOND events). People that like how I acted on the Internet by personality, ones that liked my actions, and people that hated both. I've also seen four groups that judged me based on how I acted in real life (on BYOND, as I tried to act as much like myself as possible at the time of the test), just the same as the people who hated me, or liked me. Using incognito keys along with this one of course. I have seen mostly that groups judge based on how others think first. For example; Bob hates Moe. Jim is friends with Bob. Jim meets Moe. Bob tells Jim that Moe is {Insert strong and influential insult of ignorance towards Moe here}. This meets right back to the first paragraph, does it not? Now Jim also hates Moe, and thus, is a victim of apathetic heartlessness, because of his ignorance of the ability to judge Moe himself.

As little as we would all like to admit it...this happens on BYOND all the time. Not necessarily in that form...but if someone hates you, then your friends may hate that someone out of ignorance.

However...this is not the case all the time. Many people have a mind of their own beyond the sort of things that this is an example of. Those people have a little gift called individualism. As I've finally got down to "a" point (among others I probably plowed through earlier in this rank), BYOND does have many people, who are slaves to others' opinions, and less who are not. Only today do I have enough info to prove this statistically.

Hope you enjoyed this rant as much as I did having to cut it short (lucky you) due to getting a headache. Looking forward to some "opinions" on this, if any.
Humm, I read it through twice, just so I knew what you meant. I personally don't agree, but then again I am probably in a different 'group' in BYONDers (I don't see you in Chatters often..) and I know that a lot of them will stand up against someone for their own opinion. I suppose what you have to take into perspective is that most gamers are young people who are still being influenced in their opinions greatly by their peers. This is what causes the dependancies on others opinions, in my opinion. :D
Anyway, its something to ponder over.
In response to Maz (#1)
Just for the record, I planned on stating a point/view that was by FAR not this one...but I sorta flowed into it, but I agree with my own wording.
I don't mean to sound apathetic and heartless, but it sounds like you really need to grow up and get a thicker skin. Life sucks, people are mean, yadda yadda yadda--this ain't really news here. You rant about people who are "slaves to other people's opinions", but the only slave of this sort I see in this rant is you--quit obsessing about what other people think about you. Not only will this allow you to enjoy life more thoroughly, but merely breaking yourself of this mode of thinking may actually go quite a bit farther towards improving others' image of you than any amount of worrying about that image ever will.
In response to Leftley (#3)
when do you ever stop growing up btw?

This isn't a rant; it's more of a pseudophilosophical trip to the backyard. No offense meant, but it comes off as so much meaningless twaddle. Semantically much of what you said doesn't even make sense, including your use of the word "rant". Case in point:

BYOND has many people, of many interests and opinions. However, can people be heartless? Sure. Can people be apathetic? Sure. Apathy and heartlessness could go hand in hand sometimes.

Not exactly a place where "however" fits well. And apathy is by definition heartless; I think the real word you were looking for in place of heartless was "cruel".

When someone feels apathetic to the interests of a group, or to one person.

Was there supposed to be more to that?

As much as we all would like to think we never did, we have all been apathetic and heartless through ignorance before.

Ingorance was kinda pulled out of a hat there. Or perhaps out of the political correctness pocket guide, which dictates that evil doesn't exist and therefore ignorance is the cause of all bad things.

Apathy and cruelty have many causes, but apathy the most of all. Heck, there's just too much to care about already.

But what causes the ignorance? Apathy and heartlessness, ironically enough.

Ignorance isn't something one acquires, that gets aggravated. It isn't an effect with a cause, as you say. It's something everybody has from the outset, and the default condition of all people. The word means lack of knowledge. This is what I'm on about when I say you're not using semantics correctly.

Something has to spark the cycle though, correct? We can all produce theories and assumptions on this, as many of us have one of the many correct answers in mind no doubt.

I'll take common-knowledge dictionary definitions for $100, Alex.

I have seen eight cases over the past couple months however (getting to where this rant starts talking about actual BYOND events).

Still not ranting, but at least now you're sort of across the canyon yelling over to Rantburg that you might possibly want to work up to a complaint.

People that like how I acted on the Internet by personality, ones that liked my actions, and people that hated both.

What about those people? Again you have a sentence with no predicate. (Okay, okay, I know this sounds like I'm just nitpicking your grammar. But seriously, these sentence fragments scattered about aren't making a lot of sense. Most don't even tie together well.)

I've also seen four groups that judged me based on how I acted in real life (on BYOND, as I tried to act as much like myself as possible at the time of the test), just the same as the people who hated me, or liked me. Using incognito keys along with this one of course. I have seen mostly that groups judge based on how others think first. For example; Bob hates Moe. Jim is friends with Bob. Jim meets Moe. Bob tells Jim that Moe is {Insert strong and influential insult of ignorance towards Moe here}. This meets right back to the first paragraph, does it not?

Indeed it does not! Unless we are to assume that "ignorance" is supposed to mean something completely different, the first paragraph remains nonsensical and this one just as much. Bob's comment isn't based on ignorance, but on his experience with Moe. Oh, he might not have a good reason for hating Moe, and that experience may be limited, but his hatred is based on something.

So far it looks as if "dislike" is the best candidate for what you're actually trying to say when you misuse the word "ignorance".

Now Jim also hates Moe, and thus, is a victim of apathetic heartlessness, because of his ignorance of the ability to judge Moe himself.

I'm not sure if you noticed this while writing it out, but you're using the same three words over and over again--none of them correctly. Apathy, heartlessness, ignorance. So far the one you're closest on is "apathy", except that apathy and hate are mutually exclusive concepts. If either Bob or Jim hate moe, they can't simultaneously not care one way or the other about him, which is what apathy means. Look up the etymology; it means "no feeling".

As little as we would all like to admit it...this happens on BYOND all the time. Not necessarily in that form...but if someone hates you, then your friends may hate that someone out of ignorance.

Nope, they'd hate them because they heard you hated them. That's not ignorance, although it's not a good reason. That's just plain groupthink. Cliquishness, if you prefer.

However...this is not the case all the time. Many people have a mind of their own beyond the sort of things that this is an example of. Those people have a little gift called individualism. As I've finally got down to "a" point (among others I probably plowed through earlier in this rank), BYOND does have many people, who are slaves to others' opinions, and less who are not. Only today do I have enough info to prove this statistically.

No, you can describe it anecdotally. Anecdotes do not statistics make, even if you have a specific number of anecdotes. And your approach toward experimenting is flawed because the observations are not only just yours, but they're based on interactions with you--albeit with some other keys. Your personality remains a constant, and can only be masked so much, which introduces a strong bias.

Statistics is a hard science based on analysis of measurable data. Gauging to what degree anyone is slaved to anyone else's opinion is subjective, and therefore not subject to scientific inquiry from one person's perspective. To study how people act in groups, you'd basically need a well-crafted survey asking a broad range of questions (on which BYOND groups or individuals might disagree), a large number of responses from all over the community, and some sort of cluster analysis on the data. I think if this was done scientifically like that, there would be some clustering but the degree of uniformity among the answers would be less than you expect. (I also think overall variance would tend to differ by cluster.)

There's one psychological test, whose name I can't remember, that can tend to diagnose certain broad problems because its answers are empirically derived. That is, they created a large test with lots of disparate questions, gave different known groups the test, and compared results to find patterns. After that, the test could match up patterns to groups fairly well. A decent BYOND statistical clustering experiment would probably look like that.

But anyway, that wasn't at all a rant. To rant you really have to rail on a particular subject, even if you do wander a bit. It takes vehemence to rant properly, and a good solid gripe. This was more of a strolling speculation. Trust me on this; I know from rants.

Lummox JR
In response to Lummox JR (#5)
some day I hope I'm as well educated as you lummox... but I hope I keep my looks too! Am I asking for too much?! :) lol
In response to Lummox JR (#5)
Do you suppose he really doesn't know what ignorance and apathy are, or is it just that he doesn't care?
In response to Hedgemistress (#7)
Hedgemistress wrote:
Do you suppose he really doesn't know what ignorance and apathy are, or is it just that he doesn't care?

That definitely goes in my quotes. Unless, of course, you don't want me to quote it. =)
In response to Jon Snow (#4)
I would say around 50, then you start growing down.
In response to Spuzzum (#8)
Don't know, I really have no strong feelings one way or the other.
BYOND Forums should come with a disclaimer informing people that no one ever has anything positive to say in responce to posts like this.