Paul GrahamVerified account

People who have never had power and have only been subject to it have a caricature of how power works, and a vendetta against those who had power over them. They don’t understand the nuances of power as a tool. They think abuse of power is the utility. So they abuse it.

it seems likely the person is the dominant factor, otherwise we'd see a more even distribution and frequency of people deploying this technique. instead, the worst offenders do this continually, and a small subset of users overall ever do it.

Power corrupts. Stanford prison experiment shows being in the uniform of a prison guard overrides the character of an otherwise psychologically healthy student. Character is overrated. See fundamental attribution error https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error …

I read a very interesting research about this topic that linked the behaviours on platforms like Twitter to the platform itself. The fact that there are no social connections in place seems to create a sort of anonymity that allows the true character of people to come out.

Culture plays a huge role when it’s political. Purity tests on all sides.

Unconsciousness. Lack of being present and in control. So this reactive nature pops out.

Nah, twitter’s structuring of conversation also plays a big role. There is no such thing as the right for a reply or an obligation to get it to everyone who got the initial tweet/thread. Nor is it possible to go in depth or nuance in 260 characters.

When some characters take the power of voice they can demonstrate worst - than their normal life - behavior. Twitter gives people voice and reach. IMHO it’s a combination Anonymity helps too (policies & enforcement need improvement)

I think it's much more fundamental. Humans were never meant to talk to large numbers of strangers simultaneously. Twitter, Facebook, etc. enable this unnatural behavior and most don't know how to behave.