Bad Seeds

A couple of days ago, i was discussing with a dear friend, the increasing doses of negativity that seems to be spreading into any sort of manifestation of the people's thoughts, whether its a social network, a message board or even a bar discussion. Before i go on, let me stress one more time how i refuse to consider "internet" as anything radically different from face to face human interactions. All it has, is the lack of a social filter, to some extent. What you hear from people on the web is the same stuff you'd hear in a pub after a few beers. The "Anonimty" idea is silly, since most places for discussion today are formed by people that sort of know each other and would probably interact in the exact same way if they met and did not have the average need for politeness and restraint that makes us different from animals.

Now to the main point.

Let's take as a subject of analysis, today's announcement of the death of Steve Jobs.

Since i learned about it this morning, ive witnessed reactions that cover the whole spectrum: people who acknowledged the news for what it is, the death of a man that was controversial but extremely influential towards the modern age and died of a horrifying disease, people who reacted with over the top grief or some sort of plastic eulogy that they give even to people they really never heard of (but thats a quirk too), the humourous people, who have an addiction towards desperately trying to get attention with mediocre jokes, on everything, and, the worst of the bunch, the negative haters.

The last in the list are discomforting, and yet the purest expression of how i consider human nature.

Move your attention away from the Jobs example. Recently, the italian government is trying its best to put in action a law that is openly and without a doubt a tool to allow absolute censorship and the possiblity for political parties to freely censor any sort of information that could damage them, whether its true or not. Now i aint usually in favour of political causes or ideology but i can see how that is OBJECTIVELY a dangerous law, that would also fit in the extremely oppressive climate of the country.

Still ive witnessed a high number of comments that just spreaded spite and negativity about it, sentences that call for dictatorship, violence and hatred. No matter how bad and morally wrong a piece of ideology or news is, people will be for it and up the negativity a notch.

The death of someone that a majority loved, will be for a large number, a great occasion to hurt others. People will be spiteful, not out of a different opinion (although they will hide behind the ever-so-misused ide of "freedom of speech" and "telling it like it is"), but just because the most instinctive trait of human beings is being negative ans spiteful.

People are scum, and they will hate. Always. There will be a few ones that, for a coincidence of stars, will be positive and loving, that will be actually pleasant to talk to and open to ideas and tolerance. But the majortiy will be hateful and angry. Where animals have teeth and claws, humans have hate. Passions, religion, politics, all the evolution of the brain and the structures we built will be used by a lot as a tool to hate and a way to attack and not to unite.

And on a basic level, most of those people deserve to be killed or hurt. But since we live in a society with laws where everyone uses lawyers as a substitute for dignity, we must be indifferent. Stop listening and ignore. Be passionate but also feel superior. Its a given right of the few good ones.