The Feminine Shroom

There is an intelligence deficit in CN, but sadly people can't do 100 IQ points for $3 million

I always say a definition found in a dictionary isn't the end of an argument, its the start of one.

Regarding the "essays", it seems the blogs have led to an explosion of them. Granted, it's probably just the nature of blogging, but it seems whereas a select few would post walls of text analyzing larger phenomena in the CN world (and be called full of !@#$ for it), now everybody and their mother has some essay or analysis piece to share with us. On the other hand, with the blogs placed in a fairly out of the way place on the forums (the top right being somewhere my attention usually isn't at), at least the frequency with which I see them now directly correlates to the frequency I get masochistic urges

Anyway, people on the internet are stupid as a collective generally I find, and really all that can be done is to laugh at the idiots and try not to be one of them (which I might want to look into putting more effort into).

I try not to be to "essay'ie"

To be honest, I would simply describe the phenomena which you've singled out here as pack mentality. In sociology, a lot of thought and theory is dedicated to how we group together. Although we're given concrete groupings such as alliance identity, there are many underlying social themes we can see in the actions of forum members. For example, if enough people are acting in a way that is inherently stupid (but looks to be the dominant behavior), then it is many times more likely that a person new to the environment will act accordingly. In fact, social pressures such as this are so strong that people who have been conditioned to the contrary, actually end up acting completely unlike their character.

It would seem to me that the people who know what's happening in CN are the people who don't spew their opinion out as much. To do so would compromise their advantage of surprise, and more importantly leave them open to trolling. I believe you represent a different kind of poster in that you have the capacity to post intelligently, diffuse trolls, and still carry a strong message that doesn't encourage others to post idiotically.

This was a good read. I look forward to your next one,

snoman

Very true!