Saturday, February 15, 2014

Internet Trolls, "Dark Tetrad"

Abstract to a just published psychology paper on internet troll personalities:
In two online studies (total N = 1215), respondents completed personality inventories and a survey of their Internet commenting styles. Overall, strong positive associations emerged among online commenting frequency, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity, pointing to a common construct underlying the measures. Both studies revealed similar patterns of relations between trolling and the Dark Tetrad of personality: trolling correlated positively with sadism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, using both enjoyment ratings and identity scores. Of all personality measures, sadism showed the most robust associations with trolling and, importantly, the relationship was specific to trolling behavior. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism. Thus cyber-trolling appears to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism.
Here's a popular press description

A few comments. We should be careful. I mean something like this confirms what most of us suspect about our rightwing ghouls (including the parliamentary trolls in the Harper gov't) and shows us the best thing to do is not engage. There's really no rational argument to make against psychotic sadist.

Second, this isn't confined to lunatics on right. I dare say there's a few so-called progressives who might fit some of these descriptions, particularly those who abuse discourses that foreground individual identity or identities to the point where they dehumanising and humiliate others.

The lesson? Obviously, do not feed the trolls.

4 comments:

gingersnap said...

I don't know what i would be called. I usually tell the conbot trolls that, I know they are trolls. Straighten them out on their stupidity. I then tell them they are on my ignore. And, that is exactly what I stick to.

What does anger me is? Some comment boards do not permit links. However, I say? Want some links? I have many. Then they cut and run.

the Keystone Garter said...

Shameful behaviour on the part of some.
I'm working on a WMD/tyranny sensor network. It will have the effect of monitoring or outlawing a great deal of bio/chemical industry products as well as expert system AI hardware. For example, you can monitor who makes controlled pore glass and follow the glass as glass requires an oven to make.
1) You can assign new medical equipment standards so CPR equipment might be plugged in like a cable TV subscription.
2) You can upgrade existing equipment to said standards.
3) Look for new unauthorized equipment.
4) Ensure the sensors themselves aren't used as bioweapon control electronics.
5) Ensure aren't used as AI expert system applications.
6) Ensure sensors aren't used to augment the militarily defeat of "responsible" armies and police.
7) Sensolrs shouldn't be used to deny WMD/tyranny network deployment...
This all ignores measuring responsible gvmt. I don't know if existing semiconductor manufacturing could make Terminator AI under a Manhattan circumstance, say if hostile aliens were coming for us.

the Keystone Garter said...

...alot of the problem can be addressed by knowing what hardware + communications to subsidize, and what not to, as well as just how much patter nrecognition software to subsidize.
Tempest permit electronics eavesdropping, so computers could be mandated to include such noisy visual hardware. Optimcal computers might not be a good thing if they are harder to intercept.
Quantum computer might be good a they could be outlawed for civilians, but they might be too expensive if you need diamonds, which is also an issue with the very best sensors.
Pattern recognition software is a great tool to screen out and find WMD implements, until it becomes powerful enough to be a WMD.

The reason you can't use your real name is employers are biased. This is a valid reason to rasise corporate taxes as we have the best public wrokforce on Earth, yet probably the most corrupt provide sector workforce.
Sweden is now a superior role model to Canada because of their atheism. Our religious right is a tyranny threat as they would use such sensors to first arrest those practising the Paul Martin age of consent, followed by enforcing the flawed morals of the Bible. There are fields of knowledge it is important to have if you don't want to be a dumb leader with mid 21st century technologies at your disposal, and it is more likely those with a Ph.D will have them than those who go to make a quick buck in the un carbon-taxed petro sector. Every argument against aggresively addressing AGW is an argument to be an irrational tyrant in the future.

the Keystone Garter said...

...figured it out: the efficacy of a nation, and thus its future resiliance from tyranny/originating-WMDs, is correlated with how efficient its private sector behaves. Banks and petro aren't the best sectors to bring about wise gvmt.
In the USA, their manufacturing conglomerates are okay. 3M is a little too pro-globalization. When Russia tried market forces the companies ripped off Russia worse than did their Soviet gvmt cronies. Their MD Complex is weak. Skunkwork's 1st boss warned about building aircraft they don't understand. The F-117A proponent, their second boss, believed military procurement is about an open-ended arms race to human extinction. So now the USA wasted $2T on a fighter jet that isn't even needed. The...Suriname era jets more than suffice as they can afford to be used and lost. If a WMD sensor finds something or is hacked, one strategy to take a closer look is to have an F-111 swoop in for a closer look and a launch an air-bursting rocket filled with those spider-sensors from Minority Report.