/~rowan/rants

A mainstay on Internet forums, bulletin boards, blog comments and basically every other 'turn based' chatting system, are the people who think everyone else is stupid. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, we find that most of these self-proclaimed intelligentsia of the 'net are actually pretty un-intelligent when it comes to assessing other people.

When they can't figure out why someone has said something, they assume for some reason that this means that the person is a Grade A moron. Whereas in reality there could be a number of other causes - perhaps the other person was drunk, or angry, or being sarcastic? Or, perhaps you misread their post? Moron.

So basically, these people who assume everyone else is stupid, are just making an ass out of themselves (and me?).

To me this sort of reasoning is pretty similar to the Fundamental Attribution Error. Hooray for introductory psychology.

Labels: lol internets