Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Humans are inherently sociopathic, meaning they measure the alternatives and choose to act based on a rational decision-making process, but often what can be done and what should be done cross over the lines of courtesy & trust, the oil that lets society function. In a person-to-person contact, social pressures act to damper sociopathic excesses, but the Internet is free of such restrictions, and Social Media has enabled and exacerbated sociopathological behaviors because it lacks negative feedback: Instagram, for example, provides a positive feedback loop for narcissism & self-absorption. Trolls are sadists, and the people that allow themselves to be trolled are masochists. Facebook is filled with textbook examples of Borderline personalities, and Fake News makes it difficult to tell paranoia from fact.

Sociopathic feelings & motivations, which would normally be suppressed in a civil society, are instead exaggerated in Social Media, especially when the Clicks that result are worth something to the person doing the instigating; provocateurs literally make their living by preying on the weaknesses of people. It's relatively easy to radicalize anyone if they are ensconced in a bubble where everyone else thinks the same thing. Our society that champions liberty & Free Speech is especially vulnerable to sociopaths. We don't penalize people for how they made their money, and we don't legally require them to have a value system that doesn't impinge on the Rights of others. In fact, to do anything to them is to betray all we say we believe in. The only solutions are to inure online courtesy in the young, and make it easy to ignore the worst of us.