I feel pretty confused about the degree to which this is just a necessary part of having conversations on the internet, or to what degree this is a predictable way people make mistakes.
My intuition is that if our in-person conversations left a trail of searchable documentation similar to our internet comments, it would be at least similarly unflattering, even for very mild-mannered people.
(Unlike real life it’s more available to conscious choice to be mild-mannered all the time, if you set your offense-vs-say-something threshhold in a sufficiently mild-mannered direction. I doubt one can be sufficiently influential as a personality though without setting that threshold more aggressively, however. I haven’t gotten in a stupid fight on the internet in a long time (that I can recall; my memory may flatter me) but when I posted more, boy howdy did I.)
My intuition is that if our in-person conversations left a trail of searchable documentation similar to our internet comments, it would be at least similarly unflattering, even for very mild-mannered people.
(Unlike real life it’s more available to conscious choice to be mild-mannered all the time, if you set your offense-vs-say-something threshhold in a sufficiently mild-mannered direction. I doubt one can be sufficiently influential as a personality though without setting that threshold more aggressively, however. I haven’t gotten in a stupid fight on the internet in a long time (that I can recall; my memory may flatter me) but when I posted more, boy howdy did I.)