I think everything else said in the post proves they are sociopaths. They don't seem to place value in "peons", "lulz lizards", or really any kind of human beings.
It's always been posited that, at some point, the Internet would create a generation of pseudo-sociopaths who are so disconnected from fellow human beings, they lack empathy, much the same as someone with the clinical diagnosis.
Just like with violent video games, the internet doesn't make people feel disconnected, or turn them into sociopaths.
It enables people who would rather be disconnected to disconnect themselves, and gives sociopaths the ability to do far more.
The internet doesn't create people without empathy, it reveals that deep down, a lot of humanity didn't have it to begin with. The way society is starting to structure itself, though, lets that shine through more clearly.
>The internet doesn't create people without empathy, it reveals that deep down, a lot of humanity didn't have it to begin with. The way society is starting to structure itself, though, lets that shine through more clearly.
A lot? I doubt LulzSec is more than five people. For every pathological script-kiddie there are ten Free Software hackers. The Internet has revealed new ways for people to be destructive, but it has also revealed more ways that they can be constructive.
Excellent post scythe, I fully agree with you. The comparison of numbers between gthub and 4chan is a nice indicator that there are more than these sociopaths, When you have lulzsec waving their arms in front of the internet it's sometimes easy to forget they're are millions of great people producing software, for others, for the betterment of humanity.
Of course not, just like not every project on github is open source. It just seemed like a nice glance at the ways people choose to spend time online.
I doubt society was ever much more virtuous than it is today, but we do hear about the problems more. There is the orthogonal and much more serious issue that many more people today feel unfulfilled in their lives than they did before, but I can't even begin to address that -- read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace if that interests or concerns you.
