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I don’t know that this describes Hlynka. But neuroticism is a hell of a drug. I work to keep myself under control, but there’s definitely an undercurrent of subconscious screaming and threat detection that can get activated by online forums.
When young lefties talk about hate speech being violence and trying to purge the commons of hated speakers, I get it. I don’t like it, I don’t agree with it, I think it’s wrong, but I understand on a deep level the underlying psychological impulses that motivate it.
I think following that logic makes the problem worse, and forms a catastrophization cycle that reinforces and strengthens their distress. But I can totally see how “these terrible ideas cause me so much pain, we need to get rid of them” is a train of thought people go through.
And there is pain. I know, when I see ideas that particularly get my gourd, ideas that threaten, if taken seriously, to damage values I hold dear — I know those things can easily make me freak out, become despondent, vindictive, to lash out like a cornered tiger.
This isn’t something I can easily describe to someone not familiar with serious anxiety, not because it’s some secret knowledge or something I’m “special” for feeling, but just because the feelings are so profoundly out of place that I think many people would find it shocking anyone could react in such a way.
I think this describes some of the “I can’t help but post on this forum I hate” phenomenon. People love hate-reading and hate-posting. It’s not helpful, it’s not healthy, but it is gut-level rewarding because of the great salience of threatening ideas.
But encountering a threat, however overblown, makes anyone want to eliminate it. And thus we get censorship, and long screeds whose text rhymes with “fuck you.”
The difference between me and the cancellers, I guess, is I know my emotional response to these things isn’t helpful, and it isn’t anybody else’s problem. It’s mine. And it’s my responsibility to deal with it, and to respond to the world in an intelligent manner. To be slow to speak and quick to listen.
I know I’m an unusual case. Sometimes I like to talk like I’m typical of the zoomers because of my experience of mental illness. But if I’m truthful, I’m not. My neuroticism is way higher than the average even for my generation.
I also… and this contradicts everything I’m saying here, but I don’t think of my struggles as an identity. But I talk to some people who seem like they view themselves as a Certified Generalized Anxiety Disorder Experiencer (TM) and not a person who struggles with anxiety. I’m not a person-first language advocate (I think language games are silly) but I do think there’s a mindset difference there.
I do think we’re doing things that lower the sanity waterline, lowering all boats. And social media is ground zero of this as far as I’m concerned. I’m not sure that exposure to random strangers’ ideas is actually helpful for people who struggle with calibrating their threat detector. I also believe that facing difficult situations is the only good way to calibrate. I just think there’s a balance to be struck between engaging in things that are scary but useful and being a masochist who tries to argue with people you believe deeply in your heart are wrong, and evil.
All I’m saying is, maybe Hlynka was higher in neuroticism than he let on. At the very least, some fraction of “involuntary” posters is explained by what I described.
If we’re talking about the neurotic ones, often not very well.
I have two highly neurotic family members. One is very well adapted to society, and one isn't. The one who isn't very well adapted to society would probably love to post here, but then I'd have to ban them, because they'd probably be like hlynka but far less well spoken. The well adapted one would probably take one look and nope out.
Perhaps we are sometimes selecting for the neurotics who like the elevated threat level. The same kind of people who like roller coasters.
I still don't feel my sympathy increasing for those who severely lack the self control. I still think this forum is pretty low on the level of things that could trigger threat levels. Its purely text, which is far less stimulating than video and images. You have to have a long attention span to even pick up on some of the threats. You can find more blatant threats with even the most milquetoast set of social media friends. Every news station is trying to one up the threat level to get eyeballs. And daily life in any metropolitan area is plenty threatening enough.
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